"Palooka" (1934) has wonderful actor work by Jimmy Durante, Lupe Velez, and Robert Armstrong
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This movie is an example of extremely good acting worth seeing, but brought down by not-so-good directing, script writing, and dull casting choices (esp. Stuart Erwin, the lead "Joe Palooka" protagonist character).
The movie was made in 1933, though 1934 is given as its release date of record.
Robert Armstrong starred in King Kong (1933), made in 1932, but not released until 1933, possibly not until after the much less famous "Palooka" (1934) movie was made and/or released.
His role as Joe Palooka's father is minor, but very well acted.
For me, the most spectacular part of this movie, and the reason I gave it a highest possible rating, is the unexpected and serious actor work of Jimmy Durante.
In several scenes in this movie, Jimmy Durante breaks character away from his usual and familiar comic exasperated buffoon character, and becomes a serious actor portraying scenes of riveting, serious intensity.
He gets angry and threatens people and isn't nice about it....intends to scare them, and obviously succeeds.
He becomes scary and does a very good job at portraying that.
Jimmy Durante could obviously have been a serious actor in gangster pictures of the Edward G. Robinson type, or unique movies which might have been labeled "the Jimmy Durante type."
Who can say?
I've watched his comic and musical performances my whole life starting in the early 1950's when I was 9 years old and he appeared and starred in TV's "The Colgate Comedy Hour."
I've seen him in MGM musicals co-starring with Frank Sinatra and Esther Williams and others, always as a comic "second banana."
But his performance in "Palooka" (1934) in perhaps 30 seconds total of serious scenes is very new for me, and quite wonderful (I am a retired SAG-AFTRA movie actor....worked 55 years as an actor before retiring, also taught college level movie history for 5 years, and I appreciate excellent actor work, which Durante displayed in "Palooka.")
Lupe Velez is yet another good actor (actress) in this movie.
Her career and life was brief, and she died young (in the 1940's in her 30's).
But she is electric in every movie I've seen her in from "The Gaucho" (1928 MGM - Silent) starring Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. to this movie, and others.
She was an actress with true "star quality," an electric magnetism which seems to "jump off the screen" into the audience and is always sure to delight them.
Few ever had it or have it now, but Lupe Valez, Jimmy Durante, and Robert Armstrong all had it, and are all in this movie.
Any movie buff or scholar who desires to study and experience high quality, charismatic actor work....top of the "food chain" acting.... should see this movie, and be patient with it's flaws and shortcomings.
Acting teachers should use this movie to show acting students what good acting is, and what can and has happened to good actors in otherwise flawed movies.
