one of my absolute favorites!

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

This is an entertaining movie, but one that goes for the cheap, easy ending, where Jeff Chandler's character of Coke decides to fight clean and loses to Rock Hudson's Speed. I think it would have been a better to have Coke be so angry about his former friends abandoning him that he approaches the O'Keefe fight with such fury, displaying it in the ring as well, that he ends up either killing or seriously injuring O'Keefe. Only then does he realize what his style of fighting can do. Perhaps, in the end he redeems himself by fighting with more restraint in the next battle, and losing, or maybe, as someone pointed out here earlier, his win at all costs drive makes him an outcast. Let me say, that despite the rather cheesy ending, The Iron Man is a good movie, well acted and worth watching.

This film is a remake of Iron Man of 1931 with Lew Ayres and Jean Harlow, also made in 1937 as Some Blondes are Dangerous, but here Evelyn Keyes, the blonde is not the central character. Jeff Chandler, Rock Hudson and James Arness are workers in a mine and also boxers. Chandler wins his fights when he hates and gets furious, he becomes an animal and also the public does not like him. Rock Hudson is the nice guy and Evelyn Keyes is Chandler's girlfriend and Stephen McNally his brother and also agent. The fight scenes do not look very real, specially when Chandler gets punched on the face, it does not seem to affect him, it is almost like he does not defend himself, he only cares about hitting. I think that in a real fight he would be knocked out in a couple of minutes fighting this way. The film is interesting, specially because of the presence of Hudson and Arness at the beginning of their careers.

Can it be merely coincidence, even in the relative innocence of 1951, that the boxers in Iron Man go by the names of Coke and Speed? (The fact that they're played by Jeff Chandler and Rock Hudson, whom viewers today will identify as, respectively, a cross-dresser and a gay man, adds another latter-day dimension to their sweat-lubricated clinches.) In any case, their stimulating monikers do no injustice to the story – a jacked-up, strung-out fight movie that's a worthy entry in that oddly distinguished, brutal genre.It starts in Coaltown, Pennsylvania, a mining community where the only excitement is wondering when the shafts will cave in. When Chandler takes on a bully and thoroughly thrashes him, his brother (Steve McNally) and girl (Evelyn Keyes) see a glamorous future and fast money for him – and for them. The only catch is that Chandler isn't a born boxer: He's clumsy and gets pummeled. But when he's hurt (and then jeered at), he falls into blind, murderous rages, going after his opponents by fair means or foul. He wins purses and titles but not the hearts of the fans – they don't like dirty fighters, and come only in hopes of seeing him get his comeuppance. But they keep coming, and soon Chandler's poised for the heavyweight title.The story, ably directed by Joseph Pevney, follows a familiar course: The fallings-out with his brother and his wife, the big-time sportswriter who becomes his manager (Jim Backus), the fixed fight, the fallacious sense of invincibility. And the ending is a little too pat and feel-good. But it's one of Chandler's best roles (he's as good as Kirk Douglas in The Champion, if not so convincing as Robert Ryan in The Set-Up, both of two years earlier). Evelyn Keyes has but two things to do: First egg him on, then beg him to stop, but she's, as always, distinctive. (She gets slugged by him, too.) Hudson's another case entirely. In the part of the loyal sparring-partner who turns into the challenger, he's confined to playing L'il Abner – a good-natured but dim-witted lout. But in the final grudge-match, he reverts to the sheer, feral physicality of which he was capable but rarely called upon to display – and, in its final scene, he all but steals the movie away from Chandler. He's the breakout star.

A well-cast Jeff Chandler, in his physical prime at about age 32, plays a Pennsylvania miner named "Coke" Mason who reluctantly becomes a boxer in order to earn some extra money. (He wants to use this money to marry girlfriend Evelyn Keyes and open up a radio store.) "Coke" is a mild-mannered fellow who proves to be an indifferent fighter until he's goaded into anger. Then, with an almost audible "click," he turns on his opponent in a murderous rage and attacks him without mercy. This streak of brutality quickly earns him the enmity of the crowd even as it causes his rapid rise in the standings. Meanwhile his friend and fellow boxer "Speed" O'Keefe (Rock Hudson) has the boyish good looks and clean-cut manner which make him a crowd favorite. Inevitably the two meet in the ring to decide the world heavyweight championship.These ingredients could easily be combined into a serviceable B-movie but there's a problem here: the character played by Evelyn Keyes. The script can't decide whether she's the faithful girlfriend who's appalled by the violence of the boxing ring or instead the greedy golddigger who sees her boyfriend as a means to a life of wealth and comfort. This confusion about her character proceeds to muddle the script's conception of other characters. Stephen McNally as Chandler's ambitious brother also has the makings of a villain as does Joyce Holden as the "other woman." However, since Keyes might (or might not) be the story's real villain, these two characters are often left in a state of limbo -- not quite good, not quite bad. An air of indecision thus lingers over many parts of the movie and keeps it from having the desired impact.The movie's fight scenes lack the gritty reality of those in, say, "Raging Bull," but this movie almost seems slanted at a female audience so instead of blood and bruises we get attractive "beefcake" shots of Chandler's and Hudson's bare torsos, gleaming with sweat and shaved of hair. (Knowing what we do now of these two actors' private lives, it's easy to imagine how much they enjoyed filming these "beefcake" scenes -- not to mention getting buck naked for the showers that followed!) Fans of "beefcake" get a bonus in also seeing James Arness stripped to the waist for an early fight scene with Chandler.Though it's hard to imagine Rock Hudson as the heavyweight champion of the world, he has an eager, likable quality that hasn't yet been hardened by the movie-star status soon to settle around him.This "Iron Man" is a re-make of a 1931 "Iron Man" starring Jean Harlow. Notes indicate that the Jean Harlow version was also re-made in 1937 under the title "Some Blondes Are Dangerous" but information on this movie seems to be missing from the files.Finally, you can tell how old this movie is by one simple fact: virtually all the boxers in it are white!