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Joe Morse is a hotshot lawyer who has fallen in with a powerful gangster, Tucker (played by Roy Roberts). Together, they conspire to consolidate all the numbers rackets being operated in New York City. By rigging the numerical combination that will hit on July 4th (the popular 776), they can then swoop in and overtake the smaller businesses that will be decimated by the overwhelming loss of capital this miracle outcome will produce. The only hitch for Joe is that his brother happens to run one of these small-time operations and regardless of his desire for upward mobility, he still feels a sense of love and loyalty toward his sibling. Leo Morse (played wonderfully by Thomas Gomez) helped get Joe through school and sacrificed for the betterment of his brother. Joe, like most noir protagonists, is conflicted between achieving a level of success and wondering what his actions will eventually cost him. Force Of Evil is adamant about showing realism and truth. No bad luck prevents Joe from achieving his desired happiness. The narrative circumstances that afflict him are purely based on his personal choices. We sympathize with Garfield’s character because even if he is a selfish crook who is willing to cheat the masses, there is still a distinct goodness in him to help the one person he cares about. The chance for redemption is always a possibility. Garfield’s Joe Morse must eventually pay for his transgressions. The biblical-infused Force Of Evil makes sure of that. The penalty is one that is somewhat different than most inhabitants of the genre face. Near the end of the picture, New York becomes an empty shell for Morse. The financial district is displayed as a hallow ghost town where little life moves within it. By the 75th-minute mark, we all journey with our suffering guide as he recounts, “I was feeling very bad there. Because I went down there. I just kept going down and down. It was like going down to the bottom of the world.” Where he is going reflects the epitomized conclusion of his greedy actions. The corpse of his brother has been thrown away on the rocks. Throughout the film, Joe Morse tried to accomplish two things…and neither was achieved.
Polonsky was blacklisted after this movie and only directed two more features, Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here and Romance Of A Horse Thief, both which were made in the early 70s after his moviemaking ban was rescinded. A real tragedy for film noir fans as the artist would of most likely continued making quality pictures in the genre. The destruction of his career means we will never really know how great of a director he might have been. I always equate him with Charles Laughton who also only directed one film noir (Laughton’s scarcity in filmmaking was more due to financial and box office disappointment) and we can never know what kind of filmography these two talented men would have forged. Still, we should at least be grateful that Abraham Polonsky was able to make at least one absolute masterpiece. That film is called Force Of Evil and maybe that is more than enough.
I would also like to point out the incredible contributions of David Raskin and George Barnes. The cinematography throughout Force Of Evil is peppered with breathtaking location photography and tight claustrophobic scenes of entrapment. The music by Raskin conveys the mood perfectly and really hits a high point in the end when it gives a hint of hopefulness amidst images of bleakness.
on March 30, 2011 at 3:26 pm Jamie “While I could go on and on about the social message fused within the script and throughout this late 40s film noir, I find myself uninterested in discussing this aspect of the picture. My primary love and enjoyment of film noir has little to do with politics or social causes and more with investigating the struggle of the individual to battle personal demons and existential feelings. My favorite noirs are mostly about protagonists fighting the inevitable cruel hand of fate or trying to overcome bad choices they have foisted upon themselves. Force Of Evil is primarily concerned with economic realities and institutional injustices, but I primarily watch it (these days at least) for the way that Joe Morse fits in with the typical noir anti-hero. He is generally a good guy who lets materialism guide his actions until certain tragedies befall him.” This is a nice passage, one I just don’t necessarily agree with. It’s impossible to deal with this film and separate the economic messages and the characters eventual outcomes. Their fates as you call it, are directly linked to financial enterprises, forever impossible to avoid. It’s a sobering fact about how small humans are, as Paul Weller said of the reality of existence: “a pound (or dollar to Americans) or a fist it’s as clear as this”. Yes, we are weak and succumb, but it’s also because it’s virtually un-scalable. As Joe says partway through the film (a line that contains the entire truth of the picture) “I wasn’t strong enough to resist corruption, but I was strong enough to fight for a piece of it.” Strange I just watched this this past weekend (it was my second viewing in about a weeks time) and like you I looked for kernels of brilliance elsewhere (other then the anti-capitalistic message). I found some, but then thinking further I was again led back through the money trail. I think all the love stuff I was especially moved by, particularly the scene in the beginning where Joe and Doris talk in the back of a taxi. It’s beautifully shot in a romantic soft focus, they discuss hopes, dreams and possible futures, futures she particularly knows they can’t have as long as he’s tied up in the numbers racket. It’s heartbreaking, and eventually every scene they have together advances these points further and becomes the center (and heart) of the film… it’s through her (ala Bresson’s PICKPOCKET) that he can finally find transcendence and forgiveness at the films close. A damn shame she isn’t mentioned at all in this review.
Beyond aesthetic or formal value, a major work of art identifies itself through themes able to resonate long after their initial appearance. For example, Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885) remains a literary milestone not only for its freewheeling plot, revolutionary use of narration, and subversive humor, but also because its ideas about what it means to be an “American”, particularly regarding race, continue to hold true. Abraham Polonsky’s Force of Evil represents a similarly resonant cinematic achievement. At once, a gripping melodrama, a prototypical example of film noir, and an expressionistic moral fable, the film also offers “one of the fiercest dissections of laissez faire capitalism ever to come out of Hollywood” (1). In the wake of recent corporate scandals (such as Enron), presidential election controversies (Bush vs. Gore in 2000), and a war launched under dubious pretenses (Iraq), Force of Evil’s central theme – what is the meaning of success in America? – is perhaps more compelling than ever. Beyond aesthetic or formal value, a major work of art identifies itself through themes able to resonate long after their initial appearance. For example, Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885) remains a literary milestone not only for its freewheeling plot, revolutionary use of narration, and subversive humor, but also because its ideas about what it means to be an “American”, particularly regarding race, continue to hold true. Abraham Polonsky’s Force of Evil represents a similarly resonant cinematic achievement. At once, a gripping melodrama, a prototypical example of film noir, and an expressionistic moral fable, the film also offers “one of the fiercest dissections of laissez faire capitalism ever to come out of Hollywood” (1). In the wake of recent corporate scandals (such as Enron), presidential election controversies (Bush vs. Gore in 2000), and a war launched under dubious pretenses (Iraq), Force of Evil’s central theme – what is the meaning of success in America? – is perhaps more compelling than ever.
Based on Ira Wolfert’s novel Tucker’s People, Force of Evil details attorney Joe Morse’s (John Garfield) attempt to convert New York City’s daily “numbers racket” into a legal lottery. Working for gangster Ben Tucker (Roy Roberts), Joe plots to ensure “776” as the winning number on July 4th (4 July 1776 being Independence Day in the United States), knowing that superstitious working class people will bet on it. When the number hits, Joe expects every “bank” to ask Tucker to help cover their losses, thereby allowing Tucker to assume control of the entire operation. Unfortunately, Joe’s brother Leo (Thomas Gomez) manages one such bank and rejects Joe’s attempts to get him out in time. Orphaned after their parents’ death, Leo sacrificed his own future so that Joe could attend law school, generating resentment and jealousy between the brothers. Joe’s struggle to divide loyalties between Tucker, Leo and Doris (Beatrice Pearson), Leo’s assistant, comprise the heart of the melodrama and lead to a tragic, if ultimately, redemptive conclusion
Son of a Jewish pharmacist, Polonsky grew up in New York, graduated from City College and Columbia Law School, and developed a strong political conscience early in life. Speaking about the Great Depression, Polonsky said, “I came of age in a country that had come to a standstill, with fifty million unemployed and the banks closed” (2). Although he encountered early success writing for radio in the late 1930s (including for Orson Welles’ Mercury Theatre of the Air), he decided to work as the educational director and newspaper editor of a regional CIO union north of New York City. An unapologetic Marxist, Polonsky’s commitment to left-wing values never wavered and he continued as an educator throughout his life. Although he was hired as a screenwriter by Paramount in 1945, his first big success came with his screenplay for Body and Soul (Robert Rossen, 1947), produced independently by Enterprise Productions. The film garnered strong reviews, even stronger box office, and producer and star Garfield encouraged Polonsky to direct his own film as a result. Polonsky wrote Force of Evil as a vehicle for Garfield and the collaboration remained the last major work for either artist before they were blacklisted in 1951. Garfield died of a heart attack one year later (most agree that stress related to the HUAC hearings and the ensuing blacklist directly contributed to his death), while Polonsky would not direct another movie for 21 years (3). A quarter of a century before The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972), Force of Evil exposes the striking similarities between American business and organised crime. Early in the film, Joe predicts that the new lottery will become “legal, respectable and very profitable” in ways similar to horse racing or lotteries in Cuba. Consequently, defending his plan to force small banks into Tucker’s grip, Joe explains, “We’re normal financiers!” Moreover, Joe and Tucker consistently refer to their new venture as “the corporation” and others quickly accept the term. When Bauer (Howland Chamberlin) arrives late for work on the first day following the takeover, Leo instructs him, “You’re working for a big corporation, not a little man”. Similarly, when Bauer rejects a competitor’s proposition by calling him a gangster, the man surprisingly replies, “What do you mean gangsters? It’s business.”
Throughout the film, Leo weakly attempts to draw a distinction between his small numbers operation and that of Tucker’s mob. He tells Joe, “I’m an honest man here. Not a gangster with that gangster Tucker… I do my business honest and respectable.” Rejecting Tucker’s strong arm tactics, he employs a dependent band of misfits – the orphaned Doris, the meek accountant Bauer, a childlike cab driver who suffers from horrendous claustrophobia – perhaps unconsciously recognising crime as the only survival method available in the slums. When Joe pleads with Leo to leave before the takeover, Leo replies, “I’m not that big of a crook”, promising to deliver on placed bets. Harshly, Joe points out the hypocrisy of Leo’s “moral superiority” and reminds him that his bank operates on the “nickels and dimes and pennies of every sucker”. As Danny Peary notes, “Joe and Leo are equally part of the pervading corruption; and the longer they stay in, constantly moving up the wobbly ladder of ‘success’, the closer they come to self-destruction” (4). Thomas Gomez’s brilliantly manic performance physically reflects the schizophrenic nature of his frustration. He alternately rants, sweats, and screams as he feels his life slowly spin out of control. When Joe suggests that “money has no moral opinions”, Leo reflects, “I find I have, Joe. I find I have.” Polonsky illustrates that morality and success remain mutually exclusive in the current economic system and Leo’s inability to reconcile his profession with his morality leads to betrayal, neuroses, and death. In Martin Scorsese’s description, “It’s not just the individual who’s corrupted, but the entire system” (5).
Using numerous biblical references, Polonsky creates a contemporary moral fable, eschewing reality for a symbolic discourse on preserving moral integrity. The film begins with a bird’s-eye view of Wall Street, prominently featuring Trinity Church, immediately identifying money as the new religion. When Joe argues with Leo about the lottery scheme he pleads, “I’m paying you back, Leo. I’ll make you rich with an office on Wall Street in the clouds.” For Polonsky’s characters, heaven now exists in New York’s financial district. Of course, the brothers’ relationship mirrors that of Cain and Abel, directly quoted when Leo complains to Joe, “All that Cain did to Abel was kill him”. Interestingly, though, while the brothers fight heatedly, they also defend each other against outsiders. For example, when Leo suspects that Bauer may become an informer, he screams, “I’ll kill you with my own hands rather than let you put the mark of Cain on my brother”. Routinely, characters speak about moral quandaries in terms of good and evil. Disappointed with Doris’ decision to leave him, Leo says, “Black sheep like to make everybody else look black”. Meanwhile, the film’s celebrated “ruby” sequence replays the temptation of Eve and the apple as Joe outlines his philosophy of life,
Garfield performs the speech magnificently, prompting Andrew Dickos to describe him as “the most biblically angry of all the young men of the screen” (6). Fortunately, for Joe, Doris resists the desire for wealth at all costs – without giving up on Joe’s potential for salvation. With the film’s title, Polonsky describes the greed at the heart of American capitalistic culture. In his view, while wealth and power comprise success in America, they also contribute to spiritual and physical death. In fact, despite film noir’s reputation as a fatalistic genre, no other film noir (or any other movie, for that matter) comes close to matching the number of death references offered by Force of Evil: in the film’s opening moments Joe proclaims, “If you don’t get killed, it’s a lucky day for anybody”; when Joe first contacts Leo regarding the lottery scheme, Leo angrily tells him, “Come back around when I’m dead”; meeting Doris for the first time, Joe explains, “You can’t tell about life until you’re all through living it”; defending Leo’s erratic behavior, Joe tells Tucker, “Just because I’m killing myself over that dumb brother of mine doesn’t mean I’m ready to die for anyone else”. Most poignantly, Leo ruminates about the fleeting nature of life itself just before his murder, “I’m a man with heart trouble. I die almost everyday myself. That’s the way I live. Sometimes you’re dying while you’re breathing.” A pervasive atmosphere of death slowly grows over the course of the film, creating the desperate sense that while everyone strives for success, no-one wins. Salvation, instead, comes through personal responsibility and a decision to change the system. As Polonsky told Sherman and Rubin, “Having reached the absolute moral bottom of commitment, there’s nothing left to do but commit yourself. There’s no longer a problem of identity when you have no identity left at all. So, in your next step, you must become something.” (7) In turn, Joe must create his own moral universe and follow Doris’ lead toward a vision of people over profit
Produced at a time when film noir began to incorporate documentary-style techniques in films like Call Northside 777 (Henry Hathaway, 1948) and The Naked City (Jules Dassin, 1948), Force of Evil remains proudly expressionistic. Its abstract compositions, extremely high and low angles, and single-source lighting (inspired by Edward Hopper’s paintings), convey a claustrophobic world of difficult choices. Like many of Hitchcock’s films, dangerous stairwells abound and typically signify an impending moral struggle: Joe and Tucker slowly walking down a large spiral staircase as Tucker plants seeds of mistrust; the tall, steep stairwell Joe must climb to visit his brother’s slum apartment; Bauer’s fruitless escape attempt up a stairwell during a police raid; Joe’s lonely walk down stairs and across Wall Street after he discovers his office has been bugged. Polonsky saves the largest staircase for last. Learning that Leo has been murdered and left near rocks along the Hudson River, Joe rushes to the base of the George Washington Bridge. “I just kept going down and down”, says Joe as he traverses seemingly endless stairs. “It felt like I was going down to the bottom of the world, to find my brother.” Echoed by David Raksin’s evocative score, Joe reaches Leo’s body, accepts his culpability and begins his physical and spiritual regeneration with Doris at his side. It’s a remarkable journey, particularly for an 80-minute, low-budget, crime picture. However, using “highly stylized conventions… to create critical social messages”, Polonsky replaces Huckleberry Finn’s river with city streets to update America’s struggle for identity (8). 57 years later, in the age of corporate globalisation, its lessons remain more important than ever. As Jean-Luc Godard famously said of the equally brief, yet profound Au Hasard Balthazar (Robert Bresson, 1966), “it’s the world in an hour and a half”. Endnotes Nicholas Christopher, Somewhere in the Night: Film Noir and the American City, The Free Press, New York, 1997, p. 100. Patrick McGilligan and Paul Buhle, Tender Comrades: A Backstory of the Hollywood Blacklist, St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1997, p. 483. For the best available Polonsky biography and a detailed history of the blacklist, see Paul Buhle and Dave Wagner, A Very Dangerous Citizen: Abraham Polonsky and the Hollywood Left, University of California Press, Los Angeles, 2001. Danny Peary, Cult Movies, Delta, New York, 1981, p. 102. Martin Scorsese Presents Force of Evil, Republic Pictures Home Video, 1996. Andrew Dickos, Street With No Name: A History of the Classic American Film Noir, The University Press of Kentucky, Lexington, 2002, p. 70. Eric Sherman and Martin Rubin, The Director’s Event: Interviews with Five American Film-Makers, Athenaeum, New York, 1969, p. 16. Buhle and Wagner, p. 125.
