Force of Evil (1948)

From my favorite movies..

For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

A Major Disappointment

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Copyright 31 January 1949 by Roberts Productions, Inc. A joint presentation of the Enterprise Studios and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Released through M-G-M. New York opening at Loew's State on 25 December 1948. U.S. release: December 1948. U.K. release: 4 July 1949. Australian release: not recorded. 7,065 feet. 78 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Joe Morse, lawyer for Ben Tucker's numbers syndicate, has helped arrange for a fixed lottery on July 4, the day when superstitious bettors will always bet on 776. That number has been set to win, which will wipe out the small independent numbers banks and allow Tucker to take over. However, Joe's older brother, Leo, runs one of these small banks, and Joe fears that the strain will kill Leo, who has a weak heart. NOTES: First film directed by Abraham Polonsky, one of the most famous of Hollywood's blacklisted writers. It was 20 years before he was allowed to direct another film: "Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here".COMMENT: Film noir was never flavor-of-the-month at M-G-M. In Australia, for example, the distributor didn't even bother to hold a trade or media screening, let alone notify the trade papers of a release date. "Force of Evil" is of course a gem, a little masterpiece of film noir, with a powerful performance by Garfield and strong support by Thomas Gomez — probably his best performance ever — and Roy Roberts and Marie Windsor. Newcomer Beatrice Pearson is suitably colorless — she made only one more film, Lost Boundaries (1949) — and there's an appropriately seedy roster of character players. Abetted by George Barnes' atmospheric lighting and Richard Day's gritty sets, Polonsky's involving direction drives the hero's predicament home with palm-sweating force. Garfield is ideally cast to engage audience sympathy. The actor's natural charisma combines with Polonsky's tight direction to give a sense of participation that's almost overwhelming.OTHER VIEWS: This film is a dynamic crime-and-punishment drama, brilliantly and broadly realized ... A sizzling piece of work. (Bosley Crowther in The New York Times).

A great film noir that use poetic dialogue to the best, it can. Force of Evil, based on the novel, Tucker's People is directed by Abraham Polonsky in his directing debut. Sadly, Polonsky would be blacklist in the 1950's Red Scare and rarely made any more films. The film tells the story of a lawyer, Joe Morse (Garfield), working for a powerful gangster, Tucker, who wishes to consolidate and control the number racket in New York when everybody around him wants to quit it before it gets violent. Joe Morse to be the very best, has to step on a few familiar faces to take control. One of which is a smaller number racket by Morse's older brother Leo Morse. He's willing to snitch on his friends and family if it takes him to the top. The movie is full of messages about the different between good and bad, and also have frequent biblical allusions ranging from Abel & Cain, Juda's betrayal and stigmata. It's a great poetic, literary speech that Abraham Polonsky & Ira Wolfert wrote in Force of Evil. The dialogue is rich and ornate that it resembles a modern urban verse play.The lines are catchy. Most of the speeches is lush, incantatory in its repetitive rhythms, and plays like a soliloquy. He wrote with a fatalistic moral vision, a view of a world filled with kaleidoscopically complex nuances & ironies. The story arc is almost allegorical, interpretation keeps intruding on the tougher elements of the plot. This factor adds no distinction and only makes the going tougher. Garfield, as to be expected, comes through with a performance that gets everything out of the material furnished. Unburdening himself of conflicted feelings about his own corruption, Joe Morse plays a syndicate lawyer, but secretly brutal. With each bad intention, he intellectual reexamining the premises of his life more and more. A great film noir that uses the numbers racket as a metaphor for the pervasive corruption in life. Polonsky makes elaborate form of dialogue that plays in a way, that it's sounds like confessional meditation on morality. What's great in Force of Evil is just the fact that not all gangsters talk like a thug. Also to note in this terse, melodramatic thriller is the realist location photography. The New York locale shots give authenticity. Great use of shadows, and classical music. Check it out if a huge fan of film noir. It's one of the better ones.

Joe (John Garfield) plays a corrupt lawyer who is in partnership with gangster Ben Tucker (Roy Roberts) to control the "numbers" game. Joe tries to help his brother Leo (Thomas Gomez) who operates an illegal small bank for betting who is going to be made bankrupt by a fixed scam that will make banks pay out more than they have. The idea is for the gangsters to then come in and take things over. Leo refuses to listen, but is forced to draw himself into the new conglomerate that Ben Tucker is organizing. A rival gangster turns up wanting a share of the spoils from this particular scam and as a result of a killing and a kidnap, and phones being tapped by the prosecutor's department, the whole set-up is brought before a court.This is a boy's film about gangsters and it can get pretty confusing if you don't pay attention throughout. The female roles are irrelevant to the plot which is a shame in the case of Marie Windsor who plays "Mrs Tucker". She is the best of the cast in her scenes and she completely outshines the rather feeble and bland Beatrice Pearson who plays "Doris". I also found the love interest between John Garfield and Peatrice Pearson difficult to believe. The acting is generally good with Thomas Gomez also deserving a mention. I didn't like him at the beginning but he managed to change my opinion so that I was sympathetic to him towards the end.In fact, the end section of the film is the most memorable with several good scenes including a set-up in a cafe, a confrontation between the main bad guys, clever use of the telephone bugging operation and a discovery on some rocks under a pier. Unfortunately, I lost interest in the film whenever Beatrice Pearson was on screen, which seemed like way too much, and the story can get confusing, so the film loses points on those accounts.It's a film that has a message similar to "On The Waterfront" in saying that the only way to topple powerful gang cartels is to stand up to them legally.

"Force of Evil" is a movie that always has been regarded as a classic and important movie in the film-noir genre. Quite frankly I can't really see why. Perhaps it's because of the back-story of the movie and not so much because of the quality of the movie itself.It got directed by the blacklisted director Abraham Polonsky, who put some Marxist elements into the movie. It was also sort of fun to notice how Sovjet like the approach of the movie its visual style was at times. It uses some similar shots and framing used in Sovjet period of Sergei Eisenstein for instance.Thing that is pulling this movie down mostly for me is it's cheap look and feel. It makes the movie harder to watch and even a bit clumsy perhaps at times. It's a very low budget and no fancy writing can change this.The writing is good though and a typical example of the genre. It has some well written characters and twists and turns to it. Still it's also missing some of the usual ingredients, which can be seen as lacking but also as being different and more original.I wasn't too impressed with the movie its acting. The low budget can also definitely be seen back in the movie it's casting. First of all it's ridicules to think that John Garfield and Thomas Gomez could be brothers but it's even worse that most of the actors just weren't very good in their roles. Even John Garfield didn't impressed much with his role.It's still simply a good movie for what it is, mostly thanks to its writing but I can't think of any reason why this movie should be regarded as a relevant or classic piece within its genre really.7/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/