Force of Evil (1948)

Men are able to wield with guns a force of evil not nearly so vile as that with which they load like bullets into the recesses of their minds.  Screenwriter-turned-director Abraham Polonsky’s message-heavy family melodrama falls into the shadows of the noir genre by…

theriverjordan

In 1948 Abraham Polonsky made one the most damning anti-capitalist films of American cinema and was subsequently blacklisted, unable to direct another film for twenty years, a fact which makes Force of Evil all the more potent. Whilst certainly classifiable as a film…

James

One of my movie books by Danny Peary describes this movie as:... the darkest, seediest, most claustrophobic entry in film noir. Sounds like a must watch to me. Force of Evil is written and directed by openly marxist Abraham Polonsky. He got blacklisted in Hollywood in…

Yves Bouwen

"What do you mean 'gangsters'? It's business." Abraham Polonsky's spirited debut Force of Evil encapsulates the socially-conscious noir subgenre that critic Thom Andersen labelled 'film gris'. Purveyed by leftist filmmakers who would be dogged by the HUAC in the coming…

Richard Chandler

A film noir from the darker end of the genre. Force of Evil tells a strongly anti-capitalist story through its tale of a mob lawyer trying to pull together all the banks in the numbers racket. The film settles on the drama between him and his older brother, who runs a…

Slig001

The Big Noirvember 6/30 prompt 9: Paste Magazine's 100 Best Film Noirs of All Time I have either seen parts of this before on syndicated tv, or watched the film in it’s entirety but it’s been so long ago that I only remember some scenes… Anyway, I picked it for Marie…

Penny_S

“A man could spend the rest of his life trying to remember what he shouldn't have said.” – Joe Morse Force of Evil gets a passionate endorsement not even from me but also from Martin Scorsese which can be found on the Blu-ray of the movie. As I was watching the movie for…

Gregor Kreyca

On this viewing, I was struck by the gleeful monstrosity of Force of Evil's main character (John Garfield as ambitious, cocky mob lawyer Joe Morse). Until his presumably studio mandated, laughably flimsy closing redemption, Morse delights in his ability to manipulate…

sakana1

"A man could spend the rest of his life trying to remember what he shouldn't have said."

Timcop