Die Macht des Bösen

FORCE OF EVIL has remained hovering over me like a ghost all these years. I was studying at Manhattan's Grand Street Playhouse at the time, and the political climate that was beginning to engulf the public had started. Polonsky barely hid the real undercurrent of this remarkable film. When it finally hit the VHS bins, I was almost first on line. I agree with all of the positive remarks on this strong movie, that has all kinds of ghostly memories hovering over it. I did indeed develop a strong crush on Beatrice Pearson, who was an established Broadway actress. She later did quite a turnaround, and even more effective role in LOST BOUNDARIES with excellent work alongside Mel Ferrer, Susan Douglas, Richard Hylton and Carleton Carpenter. From what I have read (if it is to be believed), she was difficult with a friend around offering advice at every turn. Pearson, after BOUNDARIES, returned to Broadway. Wherever she is now may be a mystery, but if she ever reads this, I hope she knows that this is one fan who still smiles at thoughts of her hair falling over the side of her face, her lovely smile, and the sight of her sitting atop a high hall mantle.

Martin Scorsese has hailed this film as one of the forgotten masterpieces of the film-noir genre. He took it a step further by resurrecting the film from the vaults and teaching it at NYU in the late 60's. He said it was the first film he ever saw that related "to a world he knew and saw." Indeed, the film's realism and location shooting is great to see, especially Wall Street circa 1948. Those scrapers have stood for a long time. This is not traditional noir, however. It is an excellent study of a personal battle between two brothers. Joe (John Garfield) is a rich, corrupt mob lawyer, not unlike Duvall in the Godfather flicks. His older brother Leo (A great actor named Thomas Gomez) is a banker trying to live on the "up and up".

The relationship is a tragic one. Thomas Gomez must be one of the most underrated actors of his day. He steals every scene he's in with the quick-talking Garfield, who was so good in THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE. This may be familiar to fans of RAGING BULL, where both sets of brothers in two very different films love each other, but have a difficult time displaying affection.

Two fabulous scenes stand out and would be impossible if shot in color. The first occurs when Garfield stumbles upon a darkened office with his door slightly ajar. The light from his office cuts through the middle of the screen, allowing Garfield to snoop. Another is the shootout at the film's climax, where all of the three shooters are lying in the shadows, creating suspense based on what we cannot see. It is all done in a very impressionistic way, a superb use of lighting and shadow. This is black and white at its best. Pure and evil. A truly great film. I would stay focused on the scenes between Gomez and Garfield. This sad brotherhood plays incredibly against a brilliant backdrop of crime and double-crossing.

FORCE OF EVIL is another reminder of how good Hollywood films of the 1940's were. Without them, we probably would not have the classics of the past 25 years.

An unethical lawyer, with an older brother he wants to help, becomes a partner with a client in the numbers racket.

The plot which unfolds is a terse, melodramatic thriller notable for realist location photography, almost poetic dialogue and frequent biblical allusions (Cain and Abel, Judas's betrayal, stigmata).

What I really liked about this film is how it portrays the numbers racket. Whoever wrote this clearly knew what he was talking about. As someone who has studied the Mafia and its activities, I have a pretty good idea of how the numbers business works and how it can (or cannot) be rigged. These concerns are addressed in a very knowledgeable way.

McCarthy blacklist victim Abraham Polonsky's angry and poetic film noir is perhaps the most candidly subversive picture ever made in a commercial genre, almost explicitly equating capitalism with crime in the metaphor of the numbers racket. It belongs on the face of it to the post-war-disillusionment school of American thrillers (eg The Blue Dahlia, Key Largo), in which the evils that ordinary Joes spent the war fighting turn out to be business as usual when they get back home. But what makes it so unusual is its insistence, contrary to the message of other social-comment crime thrillers of the 1940s, that it's a bad system, rather than bad people, that's to blame for the woes of the world. The fate of Mob lawyer John Garfield's decent, kind-hearted brother Thomas Gomez, a small-time policy banker, shows us what happens to good people who try to play straight in a crooked game. If the bad guys in the film turned good, Polonsky implies, they'd only get the same. Polonsky described the source novel, Tucker's People, as "an autopsy on capitalism".

Sermon over: none of the above gets in the way of a raging, doom-laden crime melo that, like a snowball, gets faster and weightier as it barrels along. Superb New York location photography, a vitriolic script, and committed, sincere performances lock our attention to every second of its 81 New York minutes. If it weren't for Gun Crazy (scripted under a front name by another dangerous pinko, Dalton Trumbo), Force of Evil would be the best film noir ever made.

Superficially, "Force of Evil" can be considered a film noir and gangster movie. But it is so much deeper than that. The very bleak message I got from the film is that even decent people must submit to corruption to survive.

The character of Leo, superbly played by Thomas Gomez, is inherently honest and noble but he must live and work in the naturally shady numbers racket. He knows that he will be eventually crushed. This knowledge makes Leo one of the most bitter and tragic characters in film...a decent man whose life is dominated by futility.

The protagonist of the film, portrayed by John Garfield, is Leo's brother. He has ridden his job as a sleazy mob lawyer to a life of fame and ease. He has everything Leo doesn't. Yet despite his blustery banter, he,too,is uneasy with his position. He knows Leo is headed for disaster and pulls all the strings he can to protect him, even though Leo reacts to him with contempt. Their relationship is doomed by the corrupt methods both use to survive. Garfield's character finds redemption of a sort by the film's end but not before inevitable tragedy has struck.

There are many more levels to this complex film and discussion of them all could fill many pages. Above all, it is a beautiful movie,expertly directed with tremendous black and white imagery. The dialogue combines snappy patter with almost poetic sensibility. And the performances of all concerned are top notch. This is truly a treasure of cinematic art. Be prepared to think deeply when you watch it