Palooka is a comedy film based on the comic strip Joe Palooka by Ham Fisher. Fisher's strip concerns the exploits of a heavyweight boxing champion. With the efforts of Fisher, along with various assistants and successors, the strip lasted for over half a century and inspired spin-offs to radio, movies, television and merchandising. Fisher originally changed the appearance of Palooka to fit each reigning real-life champ, but with the coming of African-American Joe Louis in the 1930s, the image of the cow-licked blond Palooka remained unchanged.
In the film Joe Palooka (Stuart Erwin) is a naive young man whose father Pete (Robert Armstrong) had been a champion boxer. The elder Palooka's lifestyle had caused Joe's mother Mayme (Marjorie Rambeau) to leave him and to take young Joe to the country to raise him. But when a shady boxing manager (Jimmy Durante) discovers Joe's natural boxing talent, Joe decides to follow him to the big city, where he becomes a champion and begins to follow his father's path of debauchery, much of it including the glamorous cabaret singer Nina Madero (Lupe Velez). The film also stars William Cagney, the younger brother of actor James Cagney.
Palooka is available online as a free download.
