The Fighting Gentleman (DVD)

Small-town mechanic Jack Duncan take his waitress girlfriend Jeanette Larkin to a carnival where he's knocked unconscious trying to earn $25 in an exhibition bout with a champion boxer. After training vigorously for a month, he returns to the carnival and flattens the professional pug. When trainer Doc Moran encourages him to take up fighting full time, Jack weds his loyal sweetheart and begins a new career. Their marriage is disrupted when the newly pregnant Jeanette sees him kissing another woman at a victory party. She leaves him, knocking the former grease monkey for a loop.

Achieving success during the silent-movie era while still in his teens, William "Buster" Collier Jr. often played juvenile leads but was occasionally seen in kid-brother roles as well. With the coming of sound Collier's star began to fade despite his well-received turn as a young gunman in the Oscar-winning 1931 western, Cimarron. In the early 1930s he starred in a succession of Poverty Row melodramas, of which The Fighting Gentleman produced a good example. It sports a familiar plot but is neatly made and features a first-rate supporting cast.

• drama