This film starts out as Gabe Jordan, a New Orleans columnist, prepares to retire, and talks about all of the interesting people in New Orleans that he has written about over the years. But he settles on one person of interest that sticks out prominently in his mind - Socks Barbarosa (Ralph Meeker). Now the name is interesting enough as he neither wears socks differently from anybody else, nor does he have a red beard, but I digress.So the story of Socks is the plot, and oh what a tangled mess it is. First, Socks is supposed to be heading for the championship in the ring, but one night he just runs away before the fight even starts. He says he is quitting, and will not say why. This is apparently enough for his blind backer, the Judge (Kurt Kasnar), to turn from friend to enemy. Every time he sees the guy he practically hisses and spits on him Come to think of it, I think he does spit on him. Socks is in love with Angie, the Judge's daughter (Leslie Caron), and she wisely postpones their wedding because married women can't work burlesque, which is what she has been doing and Socks is not trained to do anything but fight.So Socks hits the skids for awhile, drinking his troubles away, and then joins the army and goes to Korea where he wins the Congressional medal of honor. He comes back, feted by military brass and the political elite of New Orleans, but after awhile he is forgotten again. So he picks up where he left off before Korea, whining endlessly about how bad he has it. I think he was going for the Frank Sinatra, "I'd-have-no-luck-if-it-wasn't-bad" vibe, but Meeker just plays this like a 20-something that never grew up. He lacks Sinatra's ability to project an interesting melancholy mystique.I'll let you see how this film meanders to its confusing conclusion. It is probably worth a look for a few reasons that have nothing to do with the main character or the plot. For one you have musical interludes featuring the musical talent of the great Louis Armstrong and the dancing of Leslie Caron who does the best she can with a part in which she is completely miscast. Also, the film does have great atmosphere. You feel like you are on the gritty rain soaked streets of New Orleans back before it became riddled with crime and was just full of characters. You can almost hear Marlon Brando tear his tee shirt while crying "Stella!" somewhere out there in the French quarter. Thus it's a 50/50 proposition as to whether it is worth your time.

**SPOILERS** Bizarre but interesting movie about a professional prize fighter Socks Barbarrosa, Ralph Meeker, who just loses it when he's about the fight Terry Waulker, Pat Valentino, the #1 contender for the Heavyweight Championship of the World. Bolting from the ring as he's being introduced Socks locks himself in his dressing room announcing his retirement from boxing?During all the confusion Socks knocks on his butt, by accident of course, the blind-proving that justice is truly blind-"Judge" Gus Evens, Kurt Kasznar,who just happens to be the father of Socks' fiancée leggy nightclub danger Angie Evens, Leslie Caron! This strange action on Socks part has his forthcoming marriage to Angie put on hold with "The Judge", who's to give away the bride, being the one person to object to Socks having his daughter's hand in marriage.As you would expect Socks becomes somewhat of a freak show wherever he goes with everybody making him the butt of their jokes about a man who cracked up at the very moment that he was to become, by beating Terry Waulker, the top contender for the heavyweight crown. In fact Socks did have his match with Waulker, who lost his $15,000.00 purse because Socks chickened out, in the empty arena knocking him flat on his a** in less then a minute!The movie gets even more bizarre when Socks is about to get his life, and head, back together as an assistant bar tender at his good friend's Peppi Donnato's, Glbert Roland, drinking establishment,"The Punch Bowl", that he's drafted into the US Army at the height of the Korean War. Socks' military experience in the movie is so short, about three minutes, that if you went to buy a soda and bag of popcorn, or go to the bathroom, you would have missed it. All Socks does is take out an important bridge, singlehanded, on the Yalu River blocking a major Communist Chinese offensive! In this selfless and heroic action Socks ends up saving hundreds, if not thousands, of his fellow GI's from total annihilation!Winning, or better yet earning, the Congressional Medal of Honor, the highest medal the nation has to offer its fighting men or women, Socks comes back home to New Orleans a hero but, as you would expect, that doesn't last for long. The very unforgiving "Judge" still has it in for him for Socks knocking him down as well as refusing to have his daughter Angie tie the knot with him.More hurt then ever, what does the guy have to do to get people to like him!, Socks in a last effort to win over "The Judge" secretly gets renowned eye surgeon Dr. Robet Ardley, Larry Gates, from Socks' hometown of Milwaukee to operate and get "The Judge" back his sight. Finding out that Socks is behind him getting his important eye operation "The Judge" goes completely haywire in him not wanting the hated Socks to do anything for him! It's then that Dr. Gates cools "The Judge" off in telling him the real story being Socks strange and and somewhat crazy behavior that began when he was a little boy in Milwaukee. It's after that amazing revelation, on Dr. Gates' part, about Socks hidden and somewhat embarrassing past that everybody, on and off the screen, realizes what a serious head case Socks really is! Dr. Gates' explanation about Socks' mental, or head, problems not only brings out the reason for Socks' off the wall actions but the fact that the poor guy, as much as he tries not to, just can't help himself!Touching ending with Socks redeeming himself both in and out of the boxing ring and finally getting "The Judge" to like him and letting Socks marry his daughter Angie. It's also Angie who got her father to understand Socks strange predicament as well as her own in the movie. Angie tells her father that she in fact is not working as a nurse at the New Orleans General Hospital but dancing half naked, to the hooting and cheering of an almost all male audience, at the anything goes Chez Bozo dance hall in downtown New Orleans. And even being more direct Angie tells "The Judge" that while he's putting the one man-Socks- who can bring back his sight down she's breaking her back every evening at the Chez Bozo to pay his bills and supporting him while he going around feeling sorry for himself!P.S there's also in the film the great trombonist and jazz singer Louie Armstrong as Shadow Johnson who's a good friend of "The Judge". Shadow like Angie tries unsuccessfully to make "The Judge" see the light in what a good fine and caring person Socks really is until "the Judge", with both Socks' and Dr, Gates help, finally "sees" it for himself!

Would-be 'hard-bitten' product from MGM suffers from too many disparate ingredients. A retiring newspaperman in New Orleans reflects on his best subject: a prize-fighter named Socks (!) who infamously deserted a boxing match at the eleventh hour; after stints as a huckster and as a soldier in the Korean War, he makes a celebrated comeback. This may very well be revered director Raoul Walsh's worst film--but really, no director could segue smoothly between these slabs of superficial melodrama, including a fighter with neuroses, his ballet-dancing girlfriend, her blind father the Judge, and a jazz-singing, trumpet-playing member of the troupe. As an early vehicle for Ralph Meeker and Leslie Caron, it's a wash-out; neither star is shown to a good advantage, although Caron's jerky choreography is an odd hoot and Meeker does look great in boxing gloves. Louis Armstrong's final musical number in a barroom is rousing--and his general good will is infectious--yet the music, the milieu, and the material never quite come together. * from ****

This is one of the few movies I consider so bad they're interesting. The champion in this category is "The Guilt Of Janet Ames." "Glory Alley" is not that awful but it is a real mess. Yet, it is intriguing.Ralph Meeker, the brilliant star of "Kiss Me Deadly" who did way too few movies, plays a boxer named Socks Barbarosa. Maybe Bill Clinton named his cat after this character.Meeker is also very good in "Show In The Sky." He was generally underused ion movies, though."Glory Alley" is a kind of faux-Damon Runyon. Runyon gone South to New Orleans. We have Socks. We have a blind man called the Judge. His helper, played by Louis Armstrong, is named Shadow.The Judge has an Italian accent; yet his daughter has a French accent. And no wonder: She is Leslie Caron. Caron and Meeker could have been a fantastic combination. She's appealing. It's hard, though, to believe that she is doing music hall numbers at a dive called Chez Bozo and her father doesn't know it. He seems to know everything else that's going on.The movie is narrated by newspaper reporter John McIntire. It's a voice-over narration, looking back on the vents we're seeing. But this is no noir. McIntire tells us it's the most fascinating story he ever covered -- and he's never told the truth till now -- is that of Socks Barbarosa.Well, it could have been a fascinating story. It's peopled with fine actors and a superb leading man. But it doesn't hold together. This is not to mention its preaching: Much of the dialogue, especially toward the end, sounds as if it came from a sampler on a wall. Nor what sounds like the MGM Chorale that accompanies some of Armstrong's trumpet playing and is sort of an uplifting Greek chorus.