L'enfer de la corruption

A richly provocative movie that could serve as a bible of film making, "Force of Evil" succeeds on a number of planes , establishing itself not only as classic noir, but as a reflection of its period. Visually, the compositions are exciting, from the elegant decor gilding the halls of power to the closeup of horror that punctuates Bower's brutal murder, the rich complexity seldom falters. There are echoes here of Eisenstein, and one can't help noticing the presence of Robert Aldrich as Assistant Director, an apprenticeship that would payoff in the visually similar "Kiss Me Deadly", suggesting that Aldrich served for a time as trustee of the blacklisted Polonsky estate. The script occasionally rises to the level of poetic Blank Verse, and is expertly intoned by John Garfield, Beatrice Pearson, and Thomas Gomez in a sweatily memorable performance.

Thematically, Marxist Polonsky and co-scripter Ira Wolfert take a shot at the Darwinist world of capital, where big fish survive by eating smaller fish or by muscling in on the catch (Ficco's strategy), while working class minnows offer up dimes and quarters in hopes of instant metamorphosis. It's an ugly world where corruption and greed reach from top to bottom. Since the Production Code of the time couldn't leave matters in an unregenerate state, an upbeat ending is tacked on that defies the logic of what has gone before. Nevertheless, the sharply-etched images remain, vividly - memorably. And it's ironic that any intended remake will have to consider that the biggest fish of all has taken over the numbers racket and renamed it - the State Lottery. I wonder if Polonsky was amused.

This is a gripping film noir, dark and despairing in mood, co-written and directed by Abraham Polonsky, shortly before he was blacklisted in Hollywood for his left-wing views. Those views are perhaps implied in the plot, which is about the illegal numbers game, and the attempt of a big operator to gain a monopoly of the racket in New York. The film shows how everybody from the individual punter putting a few cents on a number to the gangsters making a fortune out of the operation is soiled by the racket. For Polonsky, the numbers game may have symbolised capitalism as a whole, with both bosses and workers being corrupted by the system. However, the details of the plot are less important than the mood, characterisations and visual aspects of the movie.

John Garfield is brilliant as the charming, amoral lawyer Joe Morse, a Mr Fixit for racket-boss Ben Tucker (Roy Roberts). Thomas Gomez plays Joe's sick, world-weary brother Leo, who also runs an illegal numbers game, but independently of the mob, in an honorable and decent fashion. Some of the best scenes in the film show Joe trying, as he sees it, to help Leo by bringing him into Tucker's operation, while Leo resists and berates Joe for using his ability and education in such an ignoble cause. Much of this intense dialogue is reminiscent of that in plays by Clifford Odets or Arthur Miller.

Also compelling, but with a lighter feel, are scenes between Joe and Doris (Beatrice Pearson) a quiet but assured young woman who works for Leo. Joe adopts slick patter, and runs himself down, in an attempt to gain her sympathy. Also in the movie, but with a disappointingly small part, is Marie Windsor, as Edna, Tucker's wife; in a longer, more commercial, film, her role of femme fatale would almost certainly have been expanded.

But it is the sets, location work, cinematography and editing which lift the film above the average. Practically every scene and shot has visual interest, and it is definitely one film you want to go on longer than its allotted 80 minutes.

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.

The VHS version I own of Force of Evil is one with a forward by Martin Scorsese. In it Scorsese says that this film was the first one that depicted a world he knew, growing up in New York City. Scorses was mesmerized by it as a kid and studied it frame by frame as when he grew up. He pays tribute to Force of Evil saying that you can see the influence of it Mean Streets, Raging Bull, and Goodfellas.

Of course the fact that the film was shot totally on location in scintillating black and white noir in New York City, gave it a dimension that no other noir films have, save possibly Night and the City which was also shot on location in London.

John Garfield who was as quintessential a New Yorker as you could get plays Joe Morse, smooth lawyer for a big time racketeer Roy Roberts who is looking to either take over or muscle out the small time policy banks in the numbers racket. One of those banks is owned by Garfield's brother, Thomas Gomez.

Garfield is as ruthless as Roberts, but with a velvet glove. He tries to get Gomez to go along with the syndicate, but Gomez balks. There's also a prosecutor looking into the numbers racket and a tapped phone which figures prominently in the climax.

Given the leftwing polemics of both the star and director Abraham Polonsky, Force of Evil got the attention of the ultra rightwing House Un American Activities Committee. Polonsky was blacklisted for over 20 years and Garfield died under the strain of the investigation.

Given what has happened to the Soviet Union, I wonder if Garfield and Polonsky were alive today what they would say and how they would feel about their work here. It's interesting to speculate.

But as entertainment Force of Evil is a great success and that is the first rule of film. Also look for a good performance by Marie Windsor as Roberts's wife with a yen for Garfield. One of her first femme fatale roles and one of her best.

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.