 Dick Powell had been a crooner but was making a new career as a dramatic actor . When Columbia Pictures agreed to make Johnny O 'Clock for him in 1947 , Powell successfully campaigned for Rossen to direct , and this became Rossen 's debut in directing . As this crime melodrama proved a modest success , Roberts Productions signed Rossen to direct Abraham Polonsky 's script of Body and Soul , described by Bob Thomas as " possibly the best prizefight film ever made . " Rossen preferred an ending in which the hero wins a boxing match and then is killed by a gangster , but Polonsky insisted on his own ending , in which the hero escapes into obscurity before the fight . Following the success of Body and Soul , Rossen formed his own production company and signed with Columbia Pictures a contract that gave him wide autonomy over every second film that he made at the studio . 
