Tomorrow (March 4)
marks the occasion of what would have been actor John Garfield’s centennial
birthday. To commemorate this event,
Patti at They Don’t Make Them Like They Used To is hosting The John Garfield Centennial Blogathon,
a four-day look at the movies and career of—if I may interject a
personal note—one of my favorite movie actors.
The films discussed and the participants can be found here…and the
following is Thrilling Days of Yesteryear’s
contribution.
John Garfield’s contract with Warner Bros. officially came
to an end in 1946. The studio had
catapulted the stage actor to silver screen success in films like
Four Daughters (1938) and
The Sea Wolf
(1941), but they also insisted on casting him in B-pictures and potboilers like
They Made Me a Criminal (1939) and
Dust Be My Destiny (1939)…so like his stable
mates Bette Davis and Olivia de Havilland, Garfield fought with the studio constantly
over appropriate pictures and roles. As
such, a great deal of Garfy’s time at the studio resulted in suspensions when
the two opposing forces (Garfield and WB) could not come to terms. In that same year, Julie declared his
independence (one of the first Hollywood stars to do so) by co-founding The
Enterprise Studios with David L. Loew and Charles Einfeld…and their first
success was a boxing film starring Garfield called
Body and Soul (1947—released
by United Artists), directed by Robert Rossen.
The scriptwriter for Body
and Soul, Abraham Polonsky, got his chance to sit in the director’s chair
with the second of the two films Garfield
made for Enterprise: Force of Evil (1948). Polonsky also co-wrote the screenplay for the
film along with Ira Wolfert, who was the author of the novel on which the film
was based, Tucker’s People. Force
of Evil, a box office failure upon its initial release, has since come to
be recognized as a film noir classic…and in 1994, was selected the Library of
Congress’ National Film Registry for those films that are “culturally,
historically, or aesthetically significant.”
It is also my favorite John Garfield film.
In the movie,
Garfield
plays Joe Morse—a street-smart attorney who supplies counsel to racketeer Ben
Tucker (Roy Roberts). Both men have been
working on a plan to consolidate and control “the numbers racket”—an illegal pari-mutuel
system based on racetrack results in New York City—and ambitiously turn it into
a legitimate operation much like a lottery or sweepstakes. To accomplish this, they will arrange for the
number 776 to be the winner of a July 4th race, gambling that superstitious
players will bet on the significant digits…and when the “banks” (those
individuals who take the bets) go belly up because they can’t cover the losses,
Tucker and Company will generously offer to make good by taking them over.
Joe’s brother Leo (Thomas Gomez) is the owner of one of
these small banks (as Joe explains: “…they were like banks because money was
deposited there—they were
unlike
banks because the chances of getting money
out
were a thousand-to-one”)…and because Joe owes him a debt of gratitude (Leo put
him through law school after their parents died), he’s arranged for his brother’s
bank to be spared the fate of the other small timers, who’ll be left to their
own devices. The problem for Joe is that
Leo has waved off his offer to join Tucker’s operation—despite the fact that
they’re essentially in the same business; Leo has nothing but contempt for
Tucker while believing himself a honorable man.
When Leo spurns Joe’s entreaties for the final time, Joe arranges for
his brother’s bank to be raided by the police.
The gendarmes round up Leo and his “employees,” including a young woman
named Doris Lowry (Beatrice Pearson), who minutes before gave her notice to Leo
but was unlucky to be caught up in the net.
Joe, out of loyalty to his brother and interest in
Doris,
magnanimously bails them all out in the hopes that Leo will see the light.
The raid does nothing to change Leo’s mind, and the next day
when 776 is the lucky winner for bettors, his bank has been wiped out. Leo wearily agrees to become part of Tucker’s
“combine” against his better judgment, and his bank in placed in charge of the
others. But there are storm clouds on
the horizon: Leo’s bookkeeper Freddie Bauer (Howland Chamberlain) doesn’t like
the idea of working with “gangsters”…and when he announces his intention to
quit, the combine leans on him to put such silly little notions out of his
head. The governor has also appointed a
special prosecutor to crack down on the numbers racket, threatening the future
of Tucker’s burgeoning “policy” enterprise.
(Bauer seizes upon this to place a phone call to the police, offering to
give them information on the location and make-up of the banks in the hopes
that Tucker will be forced to close down his combine soon.) Joe will later discover that his law partner,
Hobe Wheelock (Paul McVey), has been cooperating with the prosecutor by giving
him the details of Morse’s involvement with Tucker.
Tucker’s most pressing problem arrives in the form of rival Chicago
gangster Bill Ficco (Paul Fix)—who was shut out when Tucker took over the beer
concession in New York City during Prohibition, but is determined to get a slice
of the numbers pie. One of his goons (Stanley
Prager) asks Bauer to set up a meeting between Leo and Ficco…and at this
meeting, Leo is kidnapped and Bauer is shot and killed. Tucker then informs Joe—who’s furious about
the news of his brother—that like it or not, he’s bringing in Ficco to alleviate
the eventual heat from the special prosecutor.
That’s when Ficco tells Joe that Leo is dead…and after Morse arranges
for the prosecutor’s office to hear all this via a wiretapped telephone, a
shootout leaves both Tucker and Ficco in the same place as Leo.
Joe, having learned that Leo’s body was dumped on some rocks
by the
Hudson River, runs to the spot where Leo’s corpse
lies accompanied by
Doris. Seeing his brother’s remains tossed away “like
an old dirty rag,” Joe decides he will cooperate with the special prosecutor
and take what’s coming to him with
Doris providing moral
support.
In Body and Soul,
John Garfield plays a boxer who sells his soul to become a success by aligning
himself with racketeers; in Force of Evil,
Julie plays a lawyer who sells his soul to become a success by aligning himself
with racketeers. The two films pretty
much act as bookends (so if you haven’t seen either film, you’d be well advised
to watch Body before Force) with Force offering what I
believe is the quintessential Garfield character—an educated man of the streets
who achieves redemption after having to adjust his moral compass.
Body and Soul has
probably the bleaker ending of the two films.
The subject matter isn’t particularly daring (corruption in the fight
game—quelle surprise!) but at its
conclusion, when pugilist Charlie Davis (Garfield)
is threatened by his crooked manager (Lloyd Gough) after Davis
announces his intention to quit Charlie shoots back: “What are you gonna do? Kill me? Everybody
dies…” (The implication is, yes, Davis
won’t be long for this world after the Sweet Science Powers That Be get through
with him.)
Force of Evil has
a bit more optimism in its ending, but remains a much more fascinating film
because of its bold assertion that there is no discernible difference between
legitimate and illegitimate business (the movie even begins with a shot of Wall
Street—which in light of recent events over the past several years makes Force quite prescient). The goon assigned to approach milquetoast
bookkeeper Bauer even takes offense when Freddie spits out the word “gangsters”
to him. “What do you mean, 'gangsters'?”
the hood asks Bauer. “It’s business!” It also harkens back to a time when the
concept of lotteries wasn’t embraced by as many people today (who justify them
by touting the good they do, funding education and the like)—Joe Morse explains
that the racket was called “policy” because lower income people used the
nickels and dimes to play the numbers rather than putting it toward their
insurance (policy) premiums.
The bleak worldview of
Force
of Evil is the responsibility of director-writer Abraham Polonsky, who
never made any bones about being an avowed Marxist…and that’s what got him in
trouble with the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1951. (Polonsky wouldn’t directed another film
until
Tell Them Willie Boy is Here
in 1969 as a result of being blacklisted.)
For Polonsky, there was no distinction between the two arenas of crime
and business—since brothers Joe and Leo Morse have been so poisoned by a
money-and-power-driven capitalistic society they have no other recourse but to
make crime pay. Leo (a first-rate
performance from character great Gomez) is one of the most fascinating
characters of any noir film: a man who truly believes that he’s doing no harm
with his small-time numbers racket (he runs the operation, according to Joe, “the
way another man runs a restaurant or a bar”) and that he’s far more decent than
a shark like Tucker. His devoted wife
Sylvia (Georgia Backus) even insists on referring to him as a “businessman”:
LEO: I’ve been a businessman all my
life…and honest—I don’t know what a
business is…
SYLVIA: But you had a garage…you
had a real estate business…
LEO: A lot you know…real estate business…living from
mortgage to mortgage…stealing credit like a thief…and the garage! That
was a business! Three cents overcharge
on every gallon of gas…two cents for the chauffeur and a penny for me…penny for
one thief, two cents for the other…well,
Joe’s here now—I won’t have to steal
pennies anymore…I’ll have big crooks
to steal dollars for me!
Polonsky often referred to
Force of Evil as an “autopsy on capitalism,” and his and Wolfert’s
screenplay hasn’t lost any of its audacious Marxist content: that people are
the product of their environment (having been born in the slums, both Leo and
Joe haven’t really been able to escape; Joe may be a little luckier but he’s
still rubbing shoulders with crooks), that capitalism breeds decadence (the
interior of the courthouse in certain scenes is practically indistinguishable
from those set against the backdrop of Leo’s “bank” in the slums) and that the
interaction of different classes ultimately results in conflict. Polonsky sort of stopped short in addressing
a solution to the corruption brought on by the capitalist system, however—preferring
to fall back on the old
Hollywood maxim of “Don’t sell
out.” (And really…when you think about
the film afterward:
Garfield’s
character agrees to turn informer—which is kind of out-of-step with the actor’s
sticky situation when he was called upon to testify before HUAC, too.)
Despite its flaws—I may be alone in this, but I’m not
particularly enamored of Beatrice Pearson’s performance as Garfield’s love
interest (Pearson made only one additional film, 1949’s
Lost Boundaries, before going back to the stage)—
Force of Evil remains a captivating film
for me, and has been so ever since I was fortunate to catch it on Cinemax one
Sunday afternoon back in the late 1990s.
It was preceded by an introduction from director Martin Scorsese (this
intro was included on the VHS release of the film), who has long championed the
movie and who has never been shy in admitting its influence on his own films
(the “counting room” in Leo’s bank foreshadows those featured in Scorsese’s
Casino), remarking that it accurately reflected “a world I knew and grew up in.”
I love the poetry of Polonsky and Wolfert’s script (written
in blank verse and choc-a-bloc with Biblical allusions to Cain and Abel, Judas,
etc.) and how the crisp, “street” dialogue is delivered by Garfield (“I didn’t
have enough strength to resist corruption…but I was strong enough to fight for
a piece of it”), Gomez, Roberts and the other characters to perfection. I’ll confess that while I’m not quite sure
what Marie Windsor was supposed to bring to the film outside of portraying
Roberts’ slut-puppy wife (who’s on the make for Garfield) the noir siren is
always a welcome presence, and there’s great contributions by character faves Barry
Kelly (as a “bus inspector”), Jack Overman, Tim Ryan (surprisingly effective as
one of Roberts’ hoods) and Sid Tomack (as the “human calculator” hired to make
sure “776” hits). The cinematography by George
Barnes (who was given by Polonsky a book of Edward Hopper’s Third
Avenue paintings to achieve the “look” the
director wanted) is quite striking (I also marvel at how Barnes films the
characters so that they are dominated by their surroundings) and the score by
David Raksin moodily effective.
But at the risk of being a gushing fanboy,
Force of Evil is my favorite
Garfield
film and I’ve made no secret of my admiration for the actor over the many years
I’ve been scribbling things down in this little scrap of the blogosphere. The street background of the characters he
played in his many films couldn’t be disguised, and yet Julie always seemed to
have a little more Moxie on the ball, coupled with a troubled wonderment as to
whether or not he was “doing the right thing.”
In films like
Out of the Fog (1941) and
Nobody Lives Forever (1946), he made unlikable characters likable
with a vulnerability, a boyish charm and an animal magnetism that was
attractive to both men and women; in vehicles like
The Fallen Sparrow (1943),
The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946),
Humoresque (1946),
Body and Soul,
Gentleman’s Agreement (1947),
We Were Strangers
(1949),
The Breaking Point (1950)
and
He Ran All the Way (1951) he
literally lights up the screen. I don’t
think there’s a
Garfield film I
don’t like…well, maybe with the
exception of
Tortilla Flat (1942).
Force of Evil
finally got the
DVD treatment in 2004 on a
disc released by the now-defunct Artisan company—but last year it was
resurrected by Olive Films, who secured the rights to many of the properties
owned by Republic Pictures. Republic
obtained the four-picture output of The Enterprise Studios, which soon went out
of business due to the bad b.o. for both
Force
and
Joan of Arc (1948); their last
release was another underrated noir,
Caught
in 1949. I can’t vouch for the Olive
Films release but I was kind of hoping they would have included the intro that
Scorsese did for the videocassette version (in addition to
Pursued,
Johnny Guitar
and
A Double Life) to remind me of
when I fell under the spell of my favorite Garfield film so many years ago.
