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DVD Force of Evil
Based on an obscure crime novel titled Tucker's People, Abraham Polonsky's Force of Evil has attained classic status since its release in 1948, when film noir was thriving on the fringes of the Hollywood studio system, where the shadowy attributes of noir were allowed their fullest expression. Which is to say, this gritty drama is drenched in greed, cynicism, and corruption of the soul, as embodied by John Garfield in one of his most memorable roles. He's perfectly cast as Joe Morse, a lawyer whose connection to a ruthless racketeer has nearly destroyed his sense of morality. His participation in a rigged numbers racket could prove disastrous for his high-strung older brother (superbly played by Thomas Gomez), whose small-time policy bank stands to go broke when the rigged numbers pay off--a financial windfall for Joe's powerful boss at everyone else's expense.
Joe's corruption is tempered only by remnants of guilt and his redeeming attraction to Edna (Marie Windsor), his brother's secretary, whose common decency gnaws at Joe's rotten conscience. But before Joe can rise from his self-made hell, Force of Evil takes him to the darkest pit of tragic humanity--a downward spiral perfectly expressed through George Barnes's exquisitely stark cinematography. In style and substance, this is quintessential noir, its plot unfolding with uncompromising toughness and intelligence. More's the pity, then, that director Polonsky was later victimized by the Hollywood blacklist, curtailing a promising career for two decades until Polonsky directed Robert Redford in 1969's Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here. It seems only fitting, then, that Polonsky's remarkable debut is now recognized as one of the finest dramas of its kind. --Jeff Shannon
I have no idea why this movie is so highly regarded.Perhaps it is politics since Polonsky was blacklisted as a communist.I found it very hard to understand and quite boring(Go ahead communist sympathizers and call me stupid or vote " not helpful" !).To begin with Marie Windsor does not play brother Leo's secretary.This role is played,dreadfully,by Beatrice Pearson.Marie Windsor,played the very small part of gangster Tucker's wife.It would seem to me that the two reviewers that seemed to love this film so much would know this if they had actually watched it.Second,this movie is about numbers banking,if you're not an accountant you may not understand what the heck is going on for the first half of the movie.Finally,for the second half when the law and the gangsters are squeezing Garfield's character,the wall st. lawyer,ruining his career and causing the death of his brother leo,it is still terribly hard to understand and not at all entertaining.I'm sure many will dismiss my review as coming from someone that just doesn't understand Polonsky's genius and that I must prefer Bruce Willis movies.But I challenge anyone that wants to click "not helpful " to actually try to watch this movie first.
Certainly one of the more sophisticated gangster movies of this era
This review is for the 2004 Republic DVD.
John Garfield stars a Wall Street, New York criminal attorney named Joe Morse, who works not only as a legal counselor, but also has a secret business partnership with a major crime figure in the numbers racket named Ben Tucker (Roy Roberts). Tucker and Morse have a long term plan of legalizing the numbers racket with the help of New York politicians so they can run their lottery as private legitimate business. They also have a short term plan of forcing all of their competitors into bankruptcy by fixing the winning number for on the 4th of July where many people typically bet the number 776. But there is one minor wrinkle in destroying the competition. Joe has a brother named Leo (Thomas Gomez) who runs a small-time outfit and would be ruined by this fix. Without divulging the details of the fix, Joe tries to help Leo avoid getting victimized by the this set-up, but if anything, the intervention ends up backfiring and then conflict comes from all directions.
'Force of Evil' is in essence a gangster movie and goes into great detail about the nature of the numbers racket. It's overall a very good movie, with plenty of conflict and suspense, but some parts of the film just didn't seem to work. The most prominent waste of movie time was an attempt at a romance between Joe Morse and Doris Lowry (Beatrice Pearson). I think the other problem was the contrived conflict between what was perceived as a "morally upright" smalltime illegal outfit going against an "evil" big time illegal outfit. To it's credit or maybe to its fault, the film shows a more sophisticated side of organized crime, rather than an gangster movie with some merciless thugs who "whack" anyone who gets in their way.
The DVD quality is excellent overall with very little in the way of film deterioration, although the picture wasn't super crisp as some digitally remastered DVDs I've seen from movies this old. The sound was OK but not great due to an occasional short segment of minor audio distortion. There weren't any bonuses on this DVD.
Movie: B
DVD Quality: A-
Great Noir
I was pleasantly surprised to discover "Force of Evil" is a top-shelf film transfer. It has been properly restored, even surpassing John Garfield's companion film "Body and Soul" -- which was and is considered more marketable. "Force of Evil" casts Garfield as a corrupt lawyer who faces a conscience crisis over illegal lottery operations in a dispute with his older brother (Thomas Gomez). There's an irony in the fact that the film foreshadowed the current climate of government-sponsored lotteries, with their concomitant corruption of societal values. And "Force of Evil" was released in 1948.
This silky smooth film noir pits gruff police detective Dana Andrews, stiff and blunt in his street-bred manners, against a cultured columnist and acidic wit (Clifton Webb at his prissiest) in a battle of wits during a murder investigation. The cop is a romantic hiding under a hard-boiled exterior who falls in love with the beautiful victim through the portrait that hangs in her apartment. Gene Tierney, whose heart-shaped face mixes the exotic with the girl next door, brings the poise and calm of a model to her role as the object of every man's gaze and the target of a killer. Laura, handsomely shot in dreamy black and white, is the first and best of Otto Preminger's cool, controlled murder mysteries. In the gritty world of film noir it remains the most refined and elegant example... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Gene Tierney - Dana Andrews Director(s): Rouben Mamoulian - Otto Preminger DVD Release Date: Released the 15 March 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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A certified film noir classic, Criss Cross embraces the genre's darkness with an uncompromising tale of doomed lovers and multilayered betrayal. Reuniting with director Robert Siodmak after their success with The Killers, Burt Lancaster plays a love-struck loser who seals his fate when he returns to Los Angeles to find his ex-wife (Yvonne DeCarlo) eager to rekindle their love against all better judgment. She encourages their torrid affair but marries a mobster (Dan Duryea); to deflect suspicion, Lancaster lures Duryea into an armored-truck robbery, creating a vortex of greed and passion from which he cannot escape. Featuring the brief screen debut of Tony Curtis, Criss Cross is a stylish masterpiece of clashing fates and fatal attractions; Franz Planer's... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Burt Lancaster - Yvonne De Carlo Director(s): Robert Siodmak DVD Release Date: Released the 06 July 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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The long-awaited emergence of Nightmare Alley into the light of DVD should achieve two things: make a legendary film noir available to a new generation, and restore the horrific charge to the lately watered-down term geek, a concept that once had the power to give people very bad dreams indeed.
To his lasting credit, Tyrone Power--20th Century Fox's extraordinarily handsome but not terribly interesting star of the '30s and '40s--begged for the chance to play Stan Carlisle, the predatory charmer who snakes his way through this bracingly unwholesome story. A spieler for--and lover of--carnival mind reader Zeena (Joan Blondell), he displays uncanny skill at "reading" the susceptible rubes, including a tough sheriff who turns to jelly after Stan psychs him out. Once Stan's... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Tyrone Power - Joan Blondell - Coleen Gray Director(s): Edmund Goulding DVD Release Date: Released the 07 June 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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The synopsis of this film is that a beautiful singer Mavis Marlowe (Constance Dowling) is separated from her alcoholic husband Martin Blair (Dan Duryea) and refuses to even let him visit her in her swanky high-rise apartment. This depresses Martin so much that he goes on a major bender, but on that same night Mavis is discovered murdered in her apartment by man named Kirk Bennett (John Phillips). While in the apartment, Bennett realizes that someone else is in the apartment, possibly the murderer, but somehow this person slips past Bennett. For some reason Bennett decides not to call the police but instead flees the scene of the crime but is seen by Mavis's maid. The police come to Bennett's home and break the news to his wife... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Dan Duryea - June Vincent - Peter Lorre Director(s): Roy William Neill DVD Release Date: Released the 06 July 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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An amazingly effective film noir action movie, shot on location in New Orleans in 1950, that has twists of plot and explosions of violence that can still make audiences gasp. Elia Kazan, of all people, directed this story of a public health worker (Richard Widmark) and a police detective (Paul Douglas) who have only a few hours in which to capture some fleeing felons who may be infected with the plague. The bad guys are played, with enormous relish, by Jack Palance and Zero Mostel, the latter only a few years before Kazan ratted him out to the House Un-American Activities Committee. In retrospect, this modest crime picture looks like a crucial turning point in the formation of Kazan's distinctive style, a clear precursor to the blistering location work of landmark films like On the... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Richard Widmark - Paul Douglas - Barbara Bel Geddes - Jack Palance Director(s): Elia Kazan DVD Release Date: Released the 15 March 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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