Force of evil (Abraham Polonsky, 1948)

Joe Morse: “I found my brother's body at the bottom there, where they had thrown it away on the rocks... by the river... like an old dirty rag nobody wants. He was dead - and I felt I had killed him.”

Joe Morse (John Garfield) descent to reality – to find his brother dead on the rocks under Manhattan Bridge – makes him aware of a bleak world.

Force of Evil – narrated in a documentary style - is a noir film with a social background and a dark view of capitalism and democracy.

Joe Morse is a successful lawyer for a big lottery racket – Tucker enterprises – which manipulates the lottery results for their own benefit.

Joe Morse: “…the enterprise was slightly illegal. You see I was the lawyer for the numbers racket”.

His brother Leo (Thomas Gomez) owns a small lottery company which will be destroyed (along with many other small companies) by the racketeers. It’s part of a plan to make Tucker’s gambling businesses legal. Symbolically enough the date chosen to perform this deed is 4^th of July – Independence day – using lottery number 776 (from 1776, when the US declared their own independence). Joe tries to convince his brother to close the business at least for one day – and thus avoid bankruptcy but Leo doesn’t want to let his costumers down.

The two brothers are at different ends of a corrupt system, though they have different views:

Leo Morse: The money I made in this rotten business is no good for me, Joe. I don't want it back. And Tucker's money is no good either.
Joe Morse: The money has no moral opinions.
Leo Morse: I find I have, Joe. I find I have

Force of Evil was the only film directed by Polonsky before being blacklisted (both Polonsky and Garfield were later accused for their political views)

He ran all the way (John Berry 1951)

Nick Robey: “...but I am running so hard in this dream…”

At the beginning of the film Nick Robey (John Garfield) wakes up from a nightmare – he was running… he feels he won’t be lucky that day..

On the same day he takes part in an payroll robbery in which a man is seriously wounded. Running away from the police he goes to a pool where he meets Peg Dobbs (Shelley Winters). After a friendly conversation Peggy takes him to her apartment. Nick is thinking about the robbery and the wounded man and he is wondering what to do next. When Peg’s parents and younger brother return home at night Nick thinks they know about his criminal deed. Then Nick’s paranoia increases and he takes Peg and her family as hostages while he is hoping to find a way to escape.

But Nick is doomed and his dream of running all the way comes true…

In the film Nick is portrayed as a hunted man, victim of the rejection of society rather than as a cold criminal.

In the same sense the film is also a symbol of the career and status of John Garfield, a great actor that had taken part in many noir films. His political ideas had put him in the spotlight of the MacCarthy witch hunt campaign. One year after making this film he died of a heart attack. It wasn’t only him that had been blacklisted, director John Berry and the screenwriters (Dalton Trumbo and Hugo Butler) had also been in political trouble and had to be exiled – part of this paranoia is in a way present in the film. In this context the death of Nick in the gutter is a highly symbolic image…