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FORCE OF EVIL
1948
Director
Abraham Polonsky
Starring
John Garfield
Marie Windsor
Thomas Gomez
Beatrice Pearson
Runtime
76 minutes
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“A world of sleaze and greed imploding before your eyes.” – Martin Scorsese
One of the most distinctive works of the noir era, Abraham Polonsky’s directorial debut is a furious exposé of the New York numbers racket and a riveting tale of one fallen man’s attempt to reclaim his soul (John Garfield, in one of his best roles). Unfortunately for Polonsky, the House Committee on Un-American Activities also felt the film was an veiled attack on the nation’s capitalist system. Polonsky was blacklisted, unable to put his name on any work he produced over the next twenty years. FORCE OF EVIL is innovative and superlative in every respect; its stylized art direction complementing vivid New York location footage.
“The irresistibly corrupting ‘force of evil’ is capitalism, which destroys humanistic traditions of honor, selflessness, and family loyalty. Wall Street…is just a dressed-up version of the old numbers racket, where corrupt lawyers, brokers, and politicians prey on hapless suckers. The most attractive people are old-school gangsters running storefront numbers parlors; the worst are class traitors like the Garfield character (Joe Morse), concerned with nothing but ‘making my first million dollars…. the social and political allegory driving FORCE OF EVIL draws on New York’s historic immigrant culture as much as its role at the center of finance capitalism.” – Richard Koszarski, “Keep ’em in the East”: Kazan, Kubrick, and the Postwar New York Film Renaissance
One of the most distinctive works of the noir era, Abraham Polonsky’s directorial debut is a furious exposé of the New York numbers racket and a riveting tale of one fallen man’s attempt to reclaim his soul (John Garfield, in one of his best roles). Unfortunately for Polonsky, the House Committee on Un-American Activities also felt the film was an veiled attack on the nation’s capitalist system. Polonsky was blacklisted, unable to put his name on any work he produced over the next twenty years. FORCE OF EVIL is innovative and superlative in every respect; its stylized art direction complementing vivid New York location footage.
“The irresistibly corrupting ‘force of evil’ is capitalism, which destroys humanistic traditions of honor, selflessness, and family loyalty. Wall Street…is just a dressed-up version of the old numbers racket, where corrupt lawyers, brokers, and politicians prey on hapless suckers. The most attractive people are old-school gangsters running storefront numbers parlors; the worst are class traitors like the Garfield character (Joe Morse), concerned with nothing but ‘making my first million dollars…. the social and political allegory driving FORCE OF EVIL draws on New York’s historic immigrant culture as much as its role at the center of finance capitalism.” – Richard Koszarski, “Keep ’em in the East”: Kazan, Kubrick, and the Postwar New York Film Renaissance