maksquibs Review of Under My Skin

Under My Skin (1950)

Hemingway adaptation about an ex-pat jockey and son on the run . . . from themselves.

[6/10 · 6 May 2007]

Though helmer Jean Negulesco was at his best making modestly budgeted work @ Warners in the '40s, he's best remembered for his travel-happy CinemaScope pics @ Fox in the '50s. (They're tremendous fun seen on a 'really big' screen.) But his earlier work for Fox gets lost in the shuffle, including this awkward version of an Ernest Hemingway story made with fellow Warner émigré, writer/producer Casey Robinson. It's an interesting film that doesn't quite work about an expatriate jockey (a haggard looking John Garfield) and his unhappy son who stay barely ahead of the gamblers & 'fixers' on the racing circuit. With neither the kid nor 'la femme' (a Paris café owner with a chip on her shoulder) supplying the expected warmth & interpersonal chemistry, the film can't decide whether it wants to play tough or sentimental, which gives the film a 'sec' quality you hardly expect from a set-up that's not too far from THE CHAMP. As a threatening mob type, Luther Adler steals all his scenes, just as he did three decades on doing similar duty in ABSENCE OF MALICE. And dig those crazy extras in the night club scenes. What's 'Daddy-O' in French?