"Glory Alley" is a frustrating movie because it is so dumb and completely wastes the talents of one of the more interesting actors of his time, Ralph Meeker. Meeker had a natural way of acting--tough, gritty and with incredible realism. He played a great Mike Hammer and was terrific in "Shadow in the Sky". It's odd how he didn't become more famous--maybe a few terrible films like this one could explain it.The first clue that this was a bad film was the opening narration. Rarely will you find dumber narration--and you wonder who wrote this tripe. Unfortunately, during the Korean War segment later in the film, you hear this lame claptrap again.The film is about the ridiculously named 'Socks Barbarossa' (Meeker). He's a contender for the title but, inexplicably, he simply walks out of the boxing ring seconds before a big fight begins. Why is uncertain for a while but SOME of his motivation seems to be a desire not to become a punch-drunk loser--the fate of most boxers. Naturally, folks are darn mad--but the angriest is the blind father (Kurt Kasznar) of his girlfriend (Leslie Caron).As for Caron, she still wants to marry Meeker. It might mean she can finally leave her job dancing on Bourbon Street. Now the dancing made me laugh--instead of stripping she danced a supposedly sexy dance--consisting of ballet and lots of wiggling. Coming for a cute lady like Caron, it made me laugh and seemed about as erotic as watching Irene Ryan strip! Who came up with this?!?! Meeker spends much of the rest of the film trying to prove he is a man. And, when he's sent to Korea, he risks his life and wins the Medal of Honor--and everyone loves him--except for Kasznar. As for Kasznar, he's ridiculously angry throughout the film and constantly berates Meeker. For him, the Congressional Medal of Honor isn't good enough!! Duh. So what can Meeker do next to win over Kasznar? Because without doing this, it seems unlikely Caron will ever marry him.In the end, you find out the MAIN reason he had for quitting boxing--and it makes no sense at all! All that wait, the bad narration and Kasznar's bad overacting...for nothing! A complete and total waste--showing even a very good actor can make a terrible films. And, even more amazing is that it was directed by one of the better directors of his time, Raoul Walsh! Uggh--it's bad.

This was certainly a colossal bomb of a film.It is as if pieces of various stories were melded to bring us this absolutely terrible film.Nice seeing Louis Armstrong looking so young and singing. He held the trumpet but where was his playing?I never saw the Korean War go so fast in a film. Ralph Meeker went there and returned a hero in record time. He could have mailed back his Congressional honor with this awful movie at any time.Leslie Caron is even miserable in doing what she usually did best- a chanteuse. It's just unbelievable that her father detests Meeker so. Ralph Meeker plays a boxer going up who suddenly throws it all away. Imagine, he hires Dr. "Larry Gates" to cure Caron's blindness. Gates then goes into a discussion with the father on why Meeker is so wonderful.This is total hodge-podge at its worst.

GLORY ALLEY is one of the films that signaled the end of the golden age of MGM. Set in a silly back-lot New Orleans, the drama centers on a prizefighter who inexplicably flees a championship bout just as it is about to begin. We have to wait the whole movie to find out why - and when we do the reason is so silly that it makes the whole movie seem like a complete waste of time. Ralph Meeker, a good-looking but rather genteel actor, struggles to play the street-wise boxer. It's the sort of part John Garfield played so well, but Meeker, lovingly filmed by William Daniels, just seems too pretty. The ludicrous 'on-the-skids' montage hardly helps - nor does the fact that his character is called "Socks"!Then we have Leslie Caron as his love interest. It looks like this part was hurriedly re-written for her after her triumph in AN American IN Paris. She performs ridiculous ballet routines in a seedy bar (you know the patrons would have booed her off immediately). You see she wanted to be a ballerina, but she gave it all up to support her blind father. He's played by Kurt Kaszner - an actor still in his thirties but donned with silly silver hair to make him look ancient and wise.Then there's Louis Armstrong, sadly named "Shadow", and seemingly the only African-American in New Orleans. He's supposed to be Meeker's trainer, but he spends the whole movie playing his trumpet and leading absurd sing-a-longs at the local bar. He does have a couple of good acting scenes though. The excellent Gilbert Roland floats around the film's edges with nothing to do, while John McIntire adds pseudo profound narration to the story - told in flashback like a film noir.Probably the worst sequence in the film, and that's saying something, is the ludicrous Korean War scene, with some stock footage, four soldiers, some sort of pine forest and a rear projected bridge deemed sufficient to portray a major world conflict.So we have a boxing picture, a musical, a film noir, a war film, and a pseudo-Freudian psychological study all rolled into one! What more could you ask for?It's hard to believe a fine hard-boiled director like Raoul Walsh oversaw this mess - he probably wanted to run straight back to Warner Bros afterwards.

A thrown-together gumbo from, of all directors, Raoul Walsh, Glory Alley (named for a raffish stretch of Bourbon Street) can't decide what flavor should dominate: the sweet, the piquant, the bitter. It seems to have been assembled from ingredients on hand at MGM in 1952. They were:Ralph Meeker. Best remembered as Mike Hammer in Kiss Me Deadly, he caught the studio's eye when he replaced Marlon Brando on Broadway as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire. On the off-chance that the N'Awlins setting might work its voodoo once more, the brawny Meeker was cast as a prizefighter called Socks Barbarossa.Leslie Caron. Fresh from An American in Paris, she was at best a dancer with a Gallic accent and gamine charm. Here, she supports her blind father (Kurt Kaszner) by kicking (en point, no less) in hoochie-koochie numbers in a dive called Chez Bozo; it's a cross between Harriet Hoctor and Mary Tyler Moore as Laura Petrie, dancing in Capris.Louis Armstrong. Instead of turning him into a jazz-joint headliner, he's relegated to the part of a philosophizing guide for the sightless old grump; thankfully, he sings a few songs and blows his horn now and again.All in all, Glory Alley is a Runyonesque slice of life set among the poor people of the Big Easy. Meeker, in love with Caron but hated by her father, sustains a none-too-plausible run of ups and downs (there's even an excursion to Korea). It's a pot-luck special, made (it seems) to clear out the studio's larders.