Golfo del Messico

I just saw this movie in the last week at a recent Film Noir Festival here in San Francisco. Garfield owns this role as a down on his luck captain of his boat. He is willing to take shady deals to make money for him and keep his family (his two young daughters) with money. His wife played by Phyllis Thaxter gives a fine turn as a wife and mother. Patricia Neal is smooth and dangerous in her role as a two timing blonde broad. The daughters that played the kids were effective and smart like their ages were depicted. Garfield's mate Wesley Park was very good in his role of Garfiled's suffering partner. The reptilian role of the attorney was convincing and nasty. The final minutes of the movie had me choked up with the performances from Garfield and Thaxter. Another great movie by Michael Curtiz. Why isn't this movie on DVD?

"The Breaking Point" is technically considered to be a remake of Ernest Hemingway's "To Have and Have Not," first brought to the screen with Bogie and Bacall. But it feels like a whole different story in just about every conceivable way. John Garfield excelled at playing prototypical noir heroes, desperate men doing desperate things when feeling trapped by an unfair fate. This is the role he has here, and watching his character dig himself deeper and deeper into shady doings that he knows are shady from the outset is like watching a slowly unfolding car accident. Patricia Neal is extremely fetching and knows how to deliver a sardonic one liner like no one's business, but the script doesn't do a whole lot with her other than have her appear here and there as window dressing. The stand out for me was Phyllis Thaxter as Garfield's plain Jane wife. It's refreshing in a film from 1950 to see a housewife portrayed as something other than a mindless cipher for her husband's thoughts and desires. Instead, she has a mind of her own and reserves of strength he might not give her credit for.

The most quietly astonishing thing about "The Breaking Point" is its treatment of Garfield's friend and ship assistant, a black man played by Juano Hernandez. The fact that he's black is a complete non-issue in the film. He's treated as an equal by Garfield and his family, and none of the stereotypes about black people that were so prevalent in movies from this time period, even in movies with their hearts in the right places, are present here. The final scene of the film involves this character's son, and it's so striking, and so devastating, that in retrospect the entire film almost seems to be about that scene even though it has almost nothing to do with everything that's come before it.

Michael Curtiz provides the no-frills direction.

Grade: A

The Breaking Point cannot properly be called a remake of To Have And Have Not as that classic film was altered to make the story relevant for domestic consumption in wartime America. There was also added the legendary chemistry of Bogey and Bacall in their first film together. Ernest Hemingway did not write that for the movie-going public.

The Breaking Point is far more Hemingway and far more realistically done. John Garfield makes a perfect Hemingway hero and the locations along the California coast aren't glamorized in any way. This is a working class locale and the black and white cinematography and wind swept look given by same reflects Garfield and the area he is raising his family in.

Garfield plays a World War II veteran who wanted to earn a living on the sea and have Phyllis Thaxter raise their daughters in that coastal location. But business comes in cycles and a bad season finds Garfield owing everyone including the butcher, the baker and candlestick maker. Most of all he owes for fuel and that guy is ready to take the boat for payment.

When a charter client stiffs him on the bill, Garfield is forced to make some bad choices to pay his bills and support his family. Providing some of those bad choices is Wallace Ford playing a truly sleazebag shyster living on the Mexican side of the Pacific coast who ostensibly will get you a quickie Mexican divorce, but dabbles in all kinds of illegal fields. Actually I'm being unfair, shysters make bad lawyer jokes about Ford.

Providing a little temptation for Garfield is Patricia Neal who is trying very hard for the same Lauren Bacall effect. She's the girlfriend of the client who stiffed Garfield in the first place and she has most original and cynical point of view about life and men.

The Breaking Point provides John Garfield with one of his best performances in his next to last film. And he far more fits the Hemingway conception as does the overall film itself.

No one played the haunted/hunted character better than John Garfield (Humphrey Bogart is a close second). Here, Garfield is a boat captain that gets in way over his head. The thing with Garfield's characters, is that even though the audience sympathizes with his plight, the character always brings it on himself. With Garfield's usual acerbic delivery, his Harry Morgan is hard to like but when he is with his family, one sees that he is basically a headstrong but good guy. Even though Michael Curtiz directed this, the tone and especially the ending shot kept reminding me of Fritz Lang. I think this film should be commended for the ending, which although a somewhat happy one, reminds the audience of the affect of one's actions on everyone. This generally was ignored in a lot of the crime dramas from the 30's to the 60's. My only complaint is the Patricia Neal character seemed tacked on for romance sake. She didn't add much and certainly didn't have an impact on the main thrust of the story. But that is a minor quibble. Another gem for one of the move overlooked actors - John Garfield.

... He is the same guy as always, struggling against odds, railing about making it, etc., but toned down a bit. He takes umbrage but there is a restraint that is not present in his earlier more angry-young-man roles. Maybe because he looks as little filled out and older and is a family man to boot. There is a relative maturity in the character that is appealing. Despite playing the proverbial "same role" as some actors are thought of as doing, there is no sense that he is phoning it in. And he holds up more effective than ever with the ultimate no-nonsense imperative of tough guys. Tough but regular too, I like the opening sally, i.e., to the effect that when out to sea a certain tranquillity can reign but back on land nothing but trouble. I like that, especially with the ultimate irony to come.

The domestic scenes are not Hemingway, but added for the movie. A wonderful decision. It rounds out Garfield's character giving him a softer side and allows for the domestic sweetness and wholesome prettiness of Phyllis Thaxter to be his wife. I like to feel that her all-to-obvious new hairdo was not lost on her husband and that it might have helped him decide on another matter regarding a certain lady.

Garfield's remark to his 10-year-old daughter about being "too old to run around (the house) like that" (i.e., in night clothes) was a surprising but effective slice-of-life detail that perhaps only in a small way ushers in the new 50s sensibility regarding such matters that will make films more frank and real with youth (teens) issues.

Patricia Neal is stunning as the would-be femme fatale, - would-be because she falls short of treachery. Her worldly manner and sophisticated beauty provides a stark contrast to Garfield's women in the story. She wants to seduce, and pending the outcome, have the goods on him for revenge. Is she too sympathetic for this? Up in the air,,pending definitions. Reliable veteran character actor Wallace Ford has a good gig as a low-level conduit to the underworld. He has good dialogue, pushy and sarcastic with his own clients but totally subservient when around the big boys. A happy addition to the story. The poor boy alone on the pier resonates and is discomforting.