Out of the Fog

This story features John Garfield at his nastiest. He is a dirty little thug who spends his time beating up poor fishermen in order to extort money from them. Just when you think it can't get any worse, it does as later in the movie Garfield not only wants one sailor's money but his lovely daughter as well! But, because Garfield is tough and ruthless, no one seems willing to go to the police or stand up to him in any other way. However, how this dilemma was solved was very atypical of Warner Brothers movies of this era and helps to raise this picture above most others. I won't divulge the exact ending, but it really tied the movie together well and felt very real as well as satisfying.

I found "Out of the Fog" to be a dreary film, in part because it takes place entirely at night (in a Hollywood studio's version of the slums of Brooklyn), and in part because its take on human nature is bleak.

John Garfield, as a small-time gangster, offers up no redeeming qualities; he's pure evil in a smarmy sort of way, and so not very interesting. According to TCM's Robert Osborne, Humphrey Bogart was considered for this role. Though Garfield was strong in other movies, I believe Bogie would have brought more to the table in this one than we see from Garfield.

Ida Lupino as the working class girl who wants to see a bigger, brighter world, falls equally short. She's sweet and kind to her father, yet dates Garfield's Goff character even after learning that Goff is shaking down dear old Dad. Her acting fails to reconcile these two facts (although the screenplay may equally be to blame).

Though "Out of the Fog" apparently had its roots in socialist perspective, it comes off as patronizing; the working class folk should be happy with their lot, it suggests, and when their pleas for help are ignored by their government (represented by the court here), their only ally is the working class cop who walks the local beat.

"Out of the Fog" fails as a film noir crime drama and as a morality tale. The ending is happy -- though everyone we're supposed to care about returns to their bleak existence -- but it is an unsatisfying resolution.

What a treat! I just watched this movie, and apart from the ending which makes things come into place a little too neatly and quickly for my taste, I loved it. Not least the sense of style that Litvak and cameraman par excellence Wong Howe use to make this not very inspiring script come to life. The huge set, a provincial fishing village in Brooklyn, is wonderfully lit and photographed, only partly visible through the fog that weigh on young lusty Ida Lupino's mind as she dreams of better things, of Cuba and crystal-clear water, of glamorous, dangerous men who take what they want and make no excuses for themselves. At times the story is so downbeat that it takes a small miracle here and there to rise above it, but nearly all is ultimately forgiven. John Garfield is deliciously wicked as the racketeer who sets out to destroy everybody's lives in order to eke out his own beastly living, Thomas Mitchell and Anthony Qualen are brilliant in the real starring parts as the two old-timers who finally realize that they have to make a stand against the evil of this world. In a small, but significant part as a hilarious, bankrupt man in a sauna, George Tobias shines. If it ever comes your way, you should see it. It's the real thing.

John Garfield must have felt right back home with this gritty and relevant social drama that was originally on Broadway in 1939 as a Group Theater production. He fits the lead of Goff who's a dirty little protection racket gangster, terrorizing the gentle people who inhabit the Sheepshead Bay area of Brooklyn.

What must have annoyed Garfield no end was the ethnic cleansing of the story, the uprooting of all the Jewishness from the original play to the film. Out Of The Fog was originally entitled The Gentle People which was written by Irwin Shaw and ran for 141 performances on Broadway in 1939. If Garfield had not been in Hollywood in 1939 he could easily have been in the lead on Broadway.

On Broadway the part was played by Franchot Tone. Garfield fits the role perfectly, but I certainly would love to have seen what Tone did with the part. The Gentle People was hardly the kind of property that his studio MGM would have bought. Over at Leo the Lion Franchot Tone was rarely out of his dinner clothes, it was later when freelanced that he showed he was capable of this kind of role on screen.

The parts played by the two older men who are among several of Garfield's 'clients' are John Qualen and Thomas Mitchell. On Broadway they had distinctly Jewish last names and were played by Lee J. Cobb and Sam Jaffe. Garfield approaches these two men who are partners in a fishing boat and offers them 'protection' for $5.00 a week, a special rate because he's liking Mitchell's daughter Ida Lupino.

Shaw's play is of course an anti-Nazi allegory, but Warner Brothers decided to take the ethnicity away from the victims. Still the message is comes through loud and clear as Qualen and Mitchell decide that when the law doesn't work, they have to take matters in their own hands.

As always the mark of a good play or film is the development of lesser characters like Aline McMahon who is the longstanding perpetually suffering mother with continual aches and pains. Also Eddie Albert who plays Ida's steady reliable beau who looks rather plain next to Garfield's flash.

Robert Homans as the Irish cop on the beat who delivers a final summation for the results of the story has some words to the wise. There are times when conventional law enforcement won't do the job.

Always liked John Garfield films and his style of acting, in this film John plays the role as Harold Goff who is a racketeer who lives around the water front and burns people's boats who do not pay for his protection money. Jonah Goodwin, (Thomas Mitchell) is an elderly man who owns a business and loves to fish along with his friend, Olaf Johnson, (John Qualen) who is a chef in a local store. These two men are confronted by Harold Goff who demands five dollars a week protection money for their boat, they eventually give in and start paying him. However, Harold starts dating Jonah Goodwin's daughter, Stella Goodwin and she starts falling in love with him. Harold finds out that Jonah has saved one-hundred and ninety dollars and so he decides to grab that money from him and that is when the trouble starts to happen. This is a great picture and one you will not want to miss. Enjoy.