The Iron Man (1931) User Reviews

At first this one seems really odd...

[AlsExGal · 7/10 · 28 May 2011]

... Todd Browning directing a movie about prize fighting?? But if you give it a closer look it really is Todd Browning's style. After all, Browning usually directed films about familiar human emotions - love, revenge, longing - in an unfamiliar setting whether it was Freaks or the Lon Chaney collaborations. So what is this film's central theme? Oddly enough it really has nothing to do with prize fighting and everything to do with unrequited love.

Lew Ayres is Kid Mason, the Iron Man that actually doesn't look much like a fighter at all. Very much in character is Robert Armstrong as George Regan, Mason's manager. Harlow is just getting started at playing the platinum blonde femme fatale, and she is pretty good here. Finally there is the unfairly forgotten John Miljan, playing the early talkie slimy villain that he did so well.

The basic plot is a familiar one - Kid Mason is all wrapped up in his wife Rose (Harlow) who is only interested in the Kid when he's on top and in the dough. At the beginning of the film she dumps him after he loses a series of fights. With Rose gone the Kid concentrates on his training and pretty soon he's won the championship. Oddly enough - or not - Rose suddenly finds the Kid irresistible again and the poor Kid, whose head more than his muscles seems to be laden with iron, is like a dog on a leash once more.

Now manager Regan has plowed a lot of time, money, and energy into training Mason, and he would have a right to be sore about all of this. However, he really doesn't act like a brother figure, father figure, or even your James Gleason style "why don't you get wise to yourself" wise-cracking kind of manager. Instead of being angry at the Kid's blindness to Rose's intentions, he acts like a man thrown over - drinking heavily after Mason deserts him surrounded by photos of the Kid.

Watch for yourself and see what you think. It's just another example of one of the odd little films that could only have been made in the precode era and probably only at Universal, a studio that would seemingly try anything in the early 30's.

Putting on Ayres

[wes-connors · 6/10 · 13 July 2010]

Lightweight boxer Lew Ayres (as "Kid" Mason) loses an important fight by not pacing himself, which irks childhood friend and manager Robert Armstrong (as George Regan). To make matters worse, the young fighter's sexy show-girl wife Jean Harlow (as Rose) leaves New York for Hollywood. Then, Ayres begins following Mr. Armstrong's directions, and wins the championship title. Unsuccessful at movie stardom, Ms. Harlow returns to enjoy "Iron Man" Ayres' newfound wealth and fame.

But, Harlow has a secret lover, John Miljan (as Paul Lewis) helping her gain control over Ayres' bank account. They plot to get rid of Armstrong, who has a weakness for alcohol to match his fondness for Ayres. Armstrong had Harlow figured as a tramp from the very beginning, but hadn't the heart to tell his young friend. This is telegraphed to you, "radio drama"-style, with Armstrong's line, "It's about time that you knew that she…" Other lines are less obvious.

Director Tod Browning shows little of his flair, but gives old "extra" friend Eddie Dillon (as Jeff) a good amount of screen time.

"Iron Man" is a classic, often re-told, boxing story, with the subtleties of later revisions less buried; for example, the contention that sexual relations drain a boxer's strength. Also interesting is the age difference between Armstrong and his beer-sharing boyhood "pal"; the casting, while perhaps unintentional, suggests the older man had an unrequited love for his handsome young charge. When he says his final, "Put on that robe, you wanna get pneumonia," perhaps Armstrong has won Ayres' love at last.

****** Iron Man (4/30/31) Tod Browning ~ Lew Ayres, Robert Armstrong, Jean Harlow, John Miljan

Jean Before Stardom, Lew Struggling On, Robert All Calm

[theowinthrop · 6/10 · 15 January 2007]

I remember seeing IRON MAN back in the 1960s - it is seldom revived on television these days. It is the typical boxing melodrama, which despite an interesting director (Tod Browning, away from his supernatural or "freaks")was a mediocre account of the rise and rot of a boxing champ.

The champ here is Lew Ayres, who is not a winner at first (and briefly loses his girlfriend Jean Harlow as a result), but who becomes a champ under the steady tutoring of Robert Armstrong. He does achieve the heavyweight championship, but Harlow returns (now with her boyfriend John Miljan) and convinces Ayres to dump Armstrong for Miljan. And the wheel of fortune begins to descend.

This type of plotting is not unusual. I can think of other films where an honest fighter is betrayed by a gold digging girlfriend and his manager (John Garfield in THEY MADE ME A CRIMINAL comes to mind). It is curious to see now not so much for the story (better boxing films have been made since 1931, including one from that year that won an Oscar for best actor - Wallace Beery in THE CHAMP). It's interesting for looking at the three leads, and where they were going.

Jean Harlow had graduated in the last two years from being an extra in Laurel & Hardy (see DOUBLE WHOOPIE) to acting roles. But her screen persona was still in the air - the film before this was THE PUBLIC ENEMY, where she is an upper class type who is "slumming" with criminal Jimmy Cagney (for only a few scenes). That role did not fit her well. This one is hard to take too, and the dialog sinks it. One can imagine Harlow as gold digging, but she deserves better dialog. Look at her final confrontation scene with John Miljan, and you will be hard pressed not to laugh. But she is in the right social class - distinctly working girl (no joke intended).

Lew Ayres had made a big hit in ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT a year before, and deserved more starring parts. But he is hardly the physical type (like Beery or Stallone or De Niro or Jones or even Garfield or Holden or Douglas) to play a convincing boxer. It is a curious to see him playing a boxer - he does give it his all, but one is used to seeing him play professional men (lke Dr. Kildare or the psychiatrist in DARK MIRROR) or semi-wastrel types (like the drunken brother in HOLIDAY). However, his contrition at the conclusion seems real enough.

Robert Armstrong was just finding his place in movies in 1931, as a fast talking type - slightly excitable. His big films (KING KONG, SON OF KONG, MIGHTY JOE YOUNG, G-MEN with Jimmy Cagney) come later. There is more restraint and disappointment here for him due to the nature of the script (and his quiet revenge in training a rival to Ayres), but one misses his Carl Denham showing Kong, "the Eighth Wonder of the World", or trying to help save the gorilla Joe Young. Armstrong needed something unusual to highlight his abilities to generate excitement or summarize tragedy.

As for the fourth lead - John Miljan gave his typical villain - not quite acceptable as Douglas Dumbrille or John Carridine or Lionel Atwill but good enough. Of the four leads his was the best performance.

No Cinderella

[tedg · 20 June 2005]

When you enter into a film, you are accepting a world. You are accepting whatever God and physics and mythology that the filmmaker has created. Within that world, wheels turn and things happen.

All too often we think the movie is about those happenings. We focus on characters and the emotions they convey. But the deeper influence of a film is in how the world works.

Over time, movie watchers develop a sensitivity to this and make choices about which worlds resonate or not.

I have decided to boycott Glazier/Howard films because they are convinced that we like a world where some bad things happen as if they were rainstorms, but the entire cosmos is infused with a happy sweetness.

If you watch film deeply, this can ruin your whole day, with great expenditures of psychic energy in buying back your individuality. So instead of seeing "Cinderella Man" which is in the theaters now, I sought another boxing movie instead.

Sure, we have "Raging Bull" which is an exercise in visualizing a brutal personality. And we have "Rocky" which is sort of cold war ode to nationalism. But I chose this because it is by a director whose world I respect.

Tod Browning's world is a complex one, not catagorizable in terms of a single type of God or fate, depending on how you think. He himself comes from a circus world with some elements of risk, some of heavy fate, and others of practiced comedy tied to honor.

I credit Browning with laying the groundwork that allowed noir to take hold in the 30s, probably the strongest influence in film. So this film is about a contender, several actually. And it IS a contender, but unlike Howard's cardboard guy, this fellow has a wife that destroys the first layer of his world in order to expose and reinforce the larger world.

In the story, that's the world of honor and striving and self assurance. In the world of film, it is the world of self awareness and the link of fate to the game.

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

"It Takes More Than Fists To Be A Fighter"

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 27 October 2011]

After the success of All Quiet On The Western Front Lew Ayres was suddenly quite the hot property for Universal Studios. Following up on that film Ayres was cast in this boxing saga about a fighter, his wife, and his manager. The roles are played by Ayres, Jean Harlow, and Robert Armstrong.

As long as Ayres follows Armstrong's instructions he's a success. And one of those instructions is to get rid of his gold digging wife Harlow. It's not jealousy working here, Armstrong can plainly see the adverse affect Harlow has on Ayres and that he's not got his head in the ring when she's around.

When she's not around Armstrong guides Ayres to the heavyweight championship. But when he does become champ, Harlow comes back to bask in his glory and also to party with Ayres and her new boy friend on the side John Miljan.

Let's just say that Ayres finds out just how badly he needs Armstrong before the film is over.

Iron Man seems to be borrowing quite liberally from the relationship that Jack Dempsey had with his then wife Estelle Taylor and his manager Doc Kearns. Kearns let it be known to all who would hear that Dempsey was a bum without him when they did part. However Armstrong truly is the brains in this duo. I'm surprised that none of the real life trio sued Universal Pictures and Carl Laemmle.

The title was used in another boxing picture that starred Jeff Chandler and Rock Hudson that Universal did 20 years later. But that film has absolutely nothing to do with this picture. Nor of course has it anything to do with the superhero Robert Downey, Jr. brought to the screen in the past few years.

Tod Browning got some really nice performances out of his star trio and the rest of the cast. Iron Man ranks right up there with a lot of other classic films on pugilism.

Harlow is always worth seeing!

[JohnHowardReid · 6/10 · 22 December 2017]

Despite the joint attraction of director Tod Browning and heavy, Jean Harlow, in Iron Man (1931), this is just another of those boxer-loses-but- then-boxer-comes-good fight dramas that Hollywood used to turned out just about every month of every year.

This specimen follows the standard plot almost to the letter. Jean Harlow, of course, is always well worth seeing, while Miljan plays the villain with his usual polish, and even Lew Ayres becomes more creditable as the fighter as the movie progresses. But then he turns boorish!

So by the time we get to the climax, if it were not for Jean Harlow's presence, I would be inclined to write the whole film off as a disappointing small-budget item of little consequence.

The DVD was formerly available on a 9/10 disc from VintageFilmBuff.

Creaky Plot But Worth a Look

[Film-Fan · 3/10 · 1 June 1999]

While its age is showing, "Iron Man" may be worth spending just over a hour of your time mainly because of the participation of 2 major names in film history: Jean Harlow (in a very early role) and Tod Browning (who directed "Dracula"). Just don't expect anything special. View the "Iron Man" as a relic of Hollywood's early years when sound was new and (mercifully) running times were short.

Mother Love

[boblipton · 7/10 · 19 November 2021]

Lew Ayres loses his first professional fight, and wife Jean Harlow walks out on him. Without this distraction, manager Robert Armstrong treats him like a child, and works him up to the championship fight. Whereupon Miss Harlow returns, milks him, installs her lover as Ayres' manager, leaving Armstrong out in the cold.

It's a love story between the two men, with all the world acting as a distraction. Based on a story by W. R. Burnett, it's certainly an unequal love story, more a matter of Armstrong mothering Ayres, but as he loses his fighter, he starts going downhill himself, frustrated at not being able to speak the truth, and hitting the bottle. It's Tod Browning's follow-up to DRACULA, and in some ways can be seen as part of his long-running interest in the way people love. Ayres gives a capable performance, Armstrong is particularly good, and Miss Harlow begins to show she can act.

I'd rather eat my dog's ear wax than watch this again.

[1930s_Time_Machine · 1/10 · 16 November 2023]

I can see what themes they're trying to get across: loyalty, sexual frustration and what truths are actually true but mother of mercy, this is just so boring and poorly made. It's an awful film - a really awful film - a really, really awful film.

Admittedly Tod Browning was a master of silent cinema but by trying to retain his style in talking pictures, the films he made were just slow, stilted and stagnant. That slow geriatric pace almost works with that vampire film but I think the swirly, creepy mood of that is all to do with Karl Freund's cinematography rather than anything Tod Browning did. This is quite a wordy script and Browning's plodding direction results in what seems like hours and hours of silence with actors standing around, staring into space waiting for their colleagues to read their lines. Coupled with there being no musical score, typical for Universal back then, you half expect to see tumble-weeds blowing by.

It's not really about boxing, the actual boxing scenes are shown often as remote and fuzzy signifying their distance from the main story. This picture is about relationships, it's a kind of love triangle between a boxer, his wife and his manager but unfortunately these relationships are excruciatingly dull. There's no action, no tension, no excitement and no entertainment in this.

The blame for making this so dull and poorly acted lies with Tod Browning. Lew Ayres was outstanding in WESTERN FRONT, he was brilliant in DOORWAY TO HELL even though the latter was directed by Archie Mayo, someone not generally seen as an acclaimed filmmaker. In this however he's terrible....he's as bad as the great Edward G Robinson was in OUTSIDE THE LAW.... also directed by Tod Browning!

Jean Harlow was apparently an absolutely lovely young woman but when she started out, she was an utterly dreadful actress. Even in those saucy outfits, she has as much sex appeal as a cheese sandwich and SpongeBob SquarePants would be more credible as a believable person than she is. She doesn't speak her lines, she aggressively spits them out with exactly the same monotone verve whatever she's saying or whoever she's saying it to. That Lew Ayres' character would be so obsessed with her makes no sense. Maybe it's because I'm a massive fan of Alice White who never got the break Harlow did, but I'm constantly bemused as to how, lacking any personality and even less talent than the divine Alice, she became such a huge star and sex symbol.... especially after this!

I hated everything about this extremely dull film. It's poorly acted, unimaginatively directed and is just horrible.

Hollywood Didn't Want Jean - Impossible!!!

[kidboots · 7/10 · 11 October 2010]

Lew Ayres gained lots of publicity for being chosen by Greta Garbo as her young lover in "The Kiss" and the next year he was in the unforgettable "All Quiet on the Western Front", but, unfortunately, Universal was the wrong studio for him (was it the right studio for anyone except Boris Karloff)!!. After a stint at Fox Films, he eventually made his way to MGM around 1938 but I think by then it was too late. He should have gone to MGM the same time as his "Iron Man" co-star, Jean Harlow, although no-one at MGM thought they were getting much of a prize - in fact they didn't think she would rise very high in the Culver City constellation but how wrong they were. In 1931 the only thing that made her stand out was an earthy sex appeal and her platinum hair - definitely not her acting. Andre Sennwald in The New York Times said of Harlow in "Iron Man" "...it is unfortunate that Jean Harlow, whose virtues as an actress are limited to her blonde beauty, has to carry her share of the picture". He also said "but it boasted of two exhilarating performances by Lew Ayres and Robert Armstrong".

Kid Mason (Lew Ayres) loses his opening fight, much to his manager's disgust - his mind isn't on winning, it is on his faithless wife Rose (Jean Harlow). She, in turn, is only interested in money and when she realises he has lost, she leaves him. George Regan (Robert Armstrong) who is his friend as well as manager, feels this is what the Kid needs and with Rose gone, he trains him up to reach the top. Suddenly Rose returns (she had gone to Hollywood but Hollywood didn't want her!!!). She has also been following Kid's career and now he is back on top and in the money, she decides to cash in. He begins to get an inflated sense of his own importance and with Rose feeding his ego, he feels he is bigger than the game. Rose introduces him to the high life - a flash new apartment and even flashier friends, but when George visits them, he sees a few things going on between Rose and Lewis (John Miljan) her secret lover. There is a fight and suddenly Regan is out and Rose has persuaded the Kid to hire Lewis as his new manager but before he relinquises his contract, Regan demands the Kid fights one of his up and coming fighters - "Rattler" O'Keefe (Morrie Cohan). Just before the fight, Mason learns through a letter George has tried to conceal, that Lewis' wife is divorcing him and naming Rose as correspondent. Mason loses the fight but is a wiser person.

Of course the person who holds the movie together is none other than Robert Armstrong, who, like Ned Sparks, (who has a small role as a promoter) lifts up any movie he plays in. Unfortunately, Tod Browning showed none of the directorial flair that he had had with Lon Chaney.

Recommended.

Unfortunately creaky

[gbill-74877 · 5/10 · 23 June 2021]

Lots of talent on this one, but a creaky film, even considering the era. It's not helped by video and audio quality issues (at least in the print I watched), but the real issue is the story-telling from director Tod Browning, which was disappointing. He moves things along too slowly and doesn't take advantage enough of three pretty decent performances and a script that had some nice one-liners. ("You'll get your fur coat, Rose." / "Sure, if I go out and shoot a couple of cats!"). There's not enough crackle or emotional zing in what he shows us, despite the film's themes of standing up for one's principles, losing sight of them with fame, and betrayal from a loved one, which had potential.

Jean Harlow makes the film worth seeing, despite the pretty standard role of a gold-digger. This was right around the time of her rise to fame, and you can see at least a little bit why here. I love how she shoots daggers out of her eyes when her two-timing ways are challenged. Lew Ayres shows the necessary toughness and body of a boxer, even if the footage in the ring seemed mostly canned, and Robert Armstrong has the right presence as his manager. Wondering how this might have gone in a silent film from Browning's past (e.g. One with Lon Chaney), I imagine deeper emotions on close-ups, more pathos, and faster cuts. It's a shame we didn't get that here. If you like Harlow or are a Browning completist, it's worth 73 minutes, otherwise, pass.

Put Your Robe On, You Wanna Get Pneumonia

[jayraskin1 · 8/10 · 1 September 2016]

For a boxing movie, there really isn't a lot of boxing in the movie, perhaps ten minutes total. Apparently the original ran 73 minutes and the version I saw on Youtube ran 68 minutes. I suspect the missing five minutes were boxing scenes.

This may be a blessing as Lew Ayres is certainly too handsome and collegiate looking for a boxer. Without muscles, he certainly does not physically resemble any contemporary boxers.

However, the reason to watch this story is not the boxing, but to watch a strong tale of friendship between a coach and an athlete and the selfish, sinful woman who disrupts it.

The acting is terrific. Robert Armstrong had only been starring in movies since 1928 when this was made in 1931, yet this was his 20th starring role. This was two years before his career making performances in "King Kong," and "Son of Kong," but it is easy to see why he was chosen for the lead in those movies. He gives a rock solid, believable performance here.

Lew Ayres is a bit uneven at the beginning, but eventually grows into the part. He was 23 years old and only in his fifth starring role, with the first being the classic anti-war film "All Quiet on the Western Front." It seems that Ayres was trying to develop a tough guy image after the romantic image he portrayed in that first film. My guess is that it was the studio's decision. It worked with song and dance man James Cagney, but not with Ayres. Still, he's a great actor and is easy to watch throughout.

I was surprised at how well Jean Harlow did. We should remember that she was only 21 and this was only her fourth starring role. She is quite despicable in the movie, but that was her part. She plays it with intensity and believably. I think reviewers here are criticizing her unfairly, because she doesn't show much of her comic or sexy siren side here. However, that is not the role. She is a jaded, mean, despicable woman and she plays it straight.

Again, this is a good dramatic piece and those looking for a sports movie or light comedy (although it does have moments of humor) will be disappointed. Those looking for sharp direction from Tod Browning and wonderful performances from three great actors will enjoy the movie.

Todd Browning doesn't waste his boxing film with, well, boxing

[markswisshelm-64287 · 7/10 · 13 August 2022]

Iron Man is a boxing movie like Freaks is a circus movie. Todd Browning was a serious pioneering director who had been making films since the teens. After his success with Dracula I doubt he was interested in making a B picture. He took well worn boxing pulp magazine story tropes and added an awful lot of sexual innuendo going on just below the surface. He stripped the R. W. Burnett source material ,which is itself excellent and worth a read, of most of its characters and nearly all of the boxing. In that brief pre-code era he could push the limits of adult material in a way that would be impossible after 1934. Jean Harlow is great as Mason's wife, the beautiful strong confident gold digging ex showgirl Rose who knows what she wants from men and uses sex to gets it. When things go tits up for her she just packs up her loot and blows town without the clunky burden of a production code need to make her face her comeuppance and suffer a bad end. With a running time of just over an hour Browning had to get down to business quickly and use the barest subtext to establish that boxing manager/ trainer Regan doesn't just love his younger protegee Kid Mason, he loves, loves him. Ayers is usually in some state of undress when they are together and twice in the film they wind up sleeping in each other's bed. As the only character that really cares about Mason Regan seems to be the good guy in the story but Browning drops a few crumbs of dialog in to create some unease about even his true motives. Regan who looks to be about five years older than Mason asks him if he remembers the first time they got drunk together. "Yeah, I was about 15 when you took me fishing and you bought me beer and I fell out of the boat". "Then you came up with a story to tell my Grandma that I saved a baby from drowning". When Rose want's to get rid of Regan it's not because she cares if he's banging her husband but that she want's her new lover of convenience Lewis to take over Mason's management. Mason is now the champ so this is presumably a bribe to get Lewis to use his Hollywood connections to get her into the movies. Regan realizing that he is losing Mason sinks into drink and depression. When confronted by Rose about selling Mason's contract he surprises her by readily agreeing to give it to her for free but under the condition that at some point in the future Mason must defend his tittle against a boxer of Regan's choice. Regan pulls himself together and begins training another young man who can defeat Mason. Moments before the fight Mason receives proof that he has been a cuckold and Rose has left him. With this distressing knowledge and a tough opponent Mason does in fact lose the title. If this was Regan's plan it may have worked. The last moments of the film has a broken and sobbing Mason alone with Regan in his dressing room. The last line is Regan's oft repeated gruff but affectionate admonishment to "put on your robe Kid before you catch pneumonia". Mason looks up and smiles credits roll.

The only print I've seen of this film is of so-so quality and a few minutes have been cut which I suspect are some Ayres bare booty shower room shots. This would not be unheard of in a pre-code sports themed film. A- list director, up and coming cast coming off other strong performances, Jean Harlow for God's sake and pre-code material. Any one of those alone would make this film a must see.

Tough in the ring...and an idiot outside of it!

[planktonrules · 2/10 · 31 August 2016]

This is a film that could have worked better. However, making the leading man this obnoxious and one-dimensional doom this film from the onset. You can't help but not only hate the guy but think he's a total idiot as well!

When the film begins, Kid Mason (Lew Ayres) has lost his first boxing match...and his loving Rose (Jean Harlow) takes a powder*. Without her bad influence, his boxing career soon takes off and he quickly (too quickly) works his way up to the big fight with the champion. This is about the time Rose returns--and Kid is so stupid that he takes her back no questions asked. Although he wins the fight, Kid soon gets a swelled head--and spends much more time partying and hanging with society folk than practicing in the gym. And, incidentally, he's instantly become a complete jerk. Can Kid's trainer (Robert Armstrong) save this palooka** or is Kid just destined for a huge fall?

The biggest problem with this film was pacing. It ran 68 minutes but could have used another 20 to help develop the characters as they come off as one- dimensional and more caricatures than people. Additionally, Kid changes too much too fast to be realistic--from a sweet guy to a complete nasty jerk instantly! None of the film makes sense because of it and it's all very superficial and silly. It's hard to believe this sub-par film was directed by Tod Browning...the same brilliant and innovative man that brought us Bela Lugosi in "Dracula" and the scariest movie of its time, "Freaks". Not worth your time....unless you are REALLY desperate!

I decided to pepper my review with some cool 1930s slang. *Take a powder-- leaves him. **Palooka--a boxer.

The Fighting Fool

[lugonian · 6/10 · 29 April 2018]

IRON MAN (Universal, 1931), produced and directed by Tod Browning, stars Lew Ayres, a recent success at the time for his breakthrough performance as a German youth in the battleground of war in ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT (Universal, 1930). While IRON Man pales in comparison from the Academy Award winning anti-war drama, it's interesting on its own merits due to its supporting players headed by the platinum blonde bombshell, Jean Harlow (in her only film for Universal), who's HELL'S ANGELS (United Artists, 1930), stirred quite attention to her bad girl personality, and Robert Armstrong, for many known for his role of Carl Denham in the iconic classic, KING KONG (RKO 1933). While Armstrong recently played a prizefighter in BE YOURSELF (United Artists, 1930) opposite Fanny Brice, this time he does better taking secondary role as prizefighter manager.

Following the unscored boxing glove punching bag image super-imposed through the title credits, the story introduces "Kid" Mason (Lew Ayres), a young boxer who just lost his championship prizefight. George Regan (Robert Armstrong), his best friend from his childhood days as well as his boxing manager, quits on him because he refused to fight the way he tells him. Mason's biggest problem is his wife, Rose (Jean Harlow), whom he deeply loves, but her affections are hardly the same especially after his most recent downfall. Rose soon walks out on him and sets for Hollywood to accomplish herself as an actress in the movies. With her out the way, Mason reunites himself with Regan, and becomes a new "Wonder Boy" of the boxing ring, fighting better than he's ever done before. All goes well until Rose, pretending to be seriously ill with the flu, connives her way back into Mason's life again. Living in a luxurious apartment surrounded by liquor bottles and Rose's rowdy friends, Mason's career as a boxer declines once more. Rose becomes responsible for breaking up her husband's friendship with Regan, and acquires a new boxing manager in Paul H. Lewis (John Miljan) for Mason, a man Rose met in Hollywood, with intentions on getting her into the movies. In the meantime as Mason gets a championship boxing match with Rattler O'Keefe (Morrie Cohen) at Madison Square Garden, Rose and Lewis go on their cheating ways, in more ways than one. Others in the cast include: Ned Sparks (Gus Riley, a gambler); Claire Whitney (Louise Lewis); Mary Doran (A show girl after Mason); Eddie Dillon (Jeff); Mildred Van Dorn (Gladys DeVere); Mike Conlon (McNeil); and Tom Kennedy (The Bartender).

Surprisingly directed by Tod Browning, best known for unique melodramas as Lon Chaney in THE UNKNOWN (1927) and Bela Lugosi as DRACULA (1931), IRON MAN is quite ordinary, with little of his ideal structures carried onto this production. Aside from notable camera tracking over a gathering of people seated at a long dinner table, the duration of the story relies more by the acting by its performers. The boxing sequences, which usually are highlights, are mostly brief with camera capture usually in long shots. Although credited at 73 minutes, the available print runs at 68, indicating some tightening through its jump cuts. Aside from Harlow's unfaithful wife portrayal as she did in HELL'S ANGELS, Armstrong gets his running gag line several times whenever he sees Ayres' Mason half-naked by telling him, "Put your clothes on ... you want to get pneumonia?"

While IRON MAN s typical boxing-ring story taken from novel by W.R. Burnett, IRON MAN was remade again, first as SOME BLONDES ARE DANGEROUS (1937) with William Gargan, and again as IRON MAN (1951) starring Jeff Chandler. The IRON MAN title would later be used for an entirely different story in a 2008 motion picture starring Robert Downey Jr. playing a Marvel comic action figure rather than a boxer.

Unseen on commercial television for decades, especially when last broadcast on New York City's WOR, Channel 9 in 1965, IRON MAN was never distributed to home video nor (to date) presented on cable TV. This, along with GOLDIE (Fox, 1931), are thus far to be the most rarely shown/revived Jean Harlow feature productions from her pre-MGM days (1932-1937). This original IRON MAN gets by on its own merits more for its casting than for its golden glove punches. (**1/2 boxing gloves)

Keep the Squares Out of Your Circle

[view_and_review · 6/10 · 25 August 2022]

Our Iron Man was not Tony Stark and he didn't have a metal suit capable of flying. Our Iron Man was Kid Mason (Lew Ayres) and he was a prize fighter. He began the movie losing in the ring because he didn't listen to his trainer/manager, George Regan (Robert Armstrong). In the process he lost his wife, Rose (Jean Harlow), because she didn't like losers.

Kid wised up and started listening to his manager and in short order he was the champ. Not only that, he got his wife back, much to the chagrin of Regan who knew exactly what kind of woman she was.

Once Kid was back in the clutches of his ambitious and selfish wife, he was a changed man.

Anyone who's followed boxing knows the story of the young and hungry fighter who wins the title and loses that hunger and that fire. It seems that such a story is as old as boxing itself. Boxers always have corner men, in and out of the ring, and sometimes those corner men don't care anything about the fighter himself; he's just a meal ticket.

The story of Kid Mason is a cautionary tale to people of any career choice when it involves being successful and earning a lot. There will be people around you who will leech off of you and don't care one bit about your well-being. You gotta keep those squares out of your circle.

Free on YouTube.

Iron Man Made of Clay

[HarlowMGM · 4/10 · 25 January 2012]

IRON MAN originally ran 73 minutes but most prints today are in the 66 minute range but even at that abbreviated length, it's a chore to sit through. One of the worst examples of a stiff early talkie, it's films like this that unjustly give that era a bad reputation when there were actually many fine films from the period that were done with finesse and hold up superbly today. IRON MAN, alas, is an awkward, boring mess.

Lew Ayres stars as a lightweight boxer whose marriage to money-loving blonde Jean Harlow may be the root of his less than spectacular career. When Jean leaves him, manager Robert Armstrong molds him into the champ he always had the potential to be. When his career is on the upswing, a seemingly changed Harlow returns much to Armstrong's displeasure and their mutual hostility ultimately leads to a threat in the Armstrong/Ayres friendship and professional ties and Ayres' status as champ, with Armstrong mentoring a rival boxer.

IRON MAN is easily the worst film of Jean Harlow's career. She is wasted in a cardboard role that only gives her a few scenes and she is handled most unsympathetically by director Tod Browning, who apparently was scarcely less hostile to her than Armstrong's character. Browning may have been a master of horror, but he's a disaster here in the world of boxing and metropolitan life. Lew Ayres is badly miscast as the fighter and walks through the film with a sullen pout to perhaps suggest toughness although for the most part he's a milquetoast, passive both to wife Harlow and manager Armstrong.

Armstrong's manager is more control freak than the devoted pal he is supposed to be and there is a undercurrent of homosexuality in his possessiveness of Ayres which may have escaped the actor but certainly not director Browning (Armstrong and Ayres private talks frequently take place in bedrooms!) Ayres is (naturally) frequently shirtless but while handsome he is pretty dull here. Fans of the cast or director might want to check IRON MAN out just to see another one of their films but will most likely rank it at the bottom of their works.

Dark, Hypnotic & Seedy

[Falconeer · 8/10 · 29 January 2019]

You might not like the Legendary Jean Harlow in this, one of her earliest efforts. She plays Rose, an absolutely despicable gold digger, who uses her man, Prizefighter 'Kid Mason,' for the money he makes in the ring. Innocently gullible Mason (Lew Ayres) doesn't realize his girl is an opportunist , even when she abandons him for Hollywood stardom when his winning streak comes to an end. This is an early talkie, and it shows in certain early scenes, that might seem a bit awkward. But this quality only adds to the shadowy, mysterious aura of the production. There is a barely disguised homosexual suggestiveness in the relationship between Mason and his manager/trainer, who dissolves into an alcoholic mess when his boxer chooses Rose over the friendship. And Harlow's 'Rose' is truly a vile character, who is completely amoral and duplicitous. She was so good at playing these types of women, and she doesn't disappoint here. If you want lurid entertainment, look no further than "Iron Man." You get booze, chain smoking, fixed fights, crooked promoters, prostitution etc. The early 1930's were a special time for cinema; the ability to film with live sound was so new, and before 1934, with the advent of the Hollywood "morality code," film makers could sure get away with a lot. If films like "Iron Man" and "Scarface" were made after 1934, I'm sure they would be quite different. Recommended for fans of boxing films, 30's noir, and especially Harlow enthusiasts.

Excellent sport drama

[searchanddestroy-1 · 8 January 2024]

I know that this Tod Browning's picture will be remade twenty years later starring Jeff Chandler, but this movie is not the best about prize fighting, it's not THE SET UP or THE CHAMPION, or REQUIEM FOR A HEAVY WEIGHT or RAGING BULL.... It must be seen as a sport drama, a character study in the sport domain. Lew Ayres was here at his peak, just one year after ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT. So, yes, from Tod Browning in a no Lon Chaney Sr like film, without any monster or twisted, weird plot, it is a worth watching item. It belongs to the best sports dramas, at least for the pre code era, I have ever seen, better than some Warner movies, which were too fast paced for my taste and above all for this kind of story.