- One of the few directorial credits for blacklisted screenwriter Abraham Polonsky, Force of Evil is a surprisingly evocative film noir. The story follows an overconfident lawyer named Joe Morse (John Garfield) who is much too involved with known mobster Ben Tucker (Roy Roberts) to be completely legitimate. Tucker and Joe are hatching a scheme to control New York's numbers racket, but Joe is concerned that his hapless brother Leo (Thomas Gomez) will lose his shirt on the deal. Paradoxically, Leo sees himself as a highly principled man despite working as a banker for the racket. His utterly innocent secretary and family friend Doris (Beatrice Pearson) is on the verge of quitting just when the first police raid hits. Want to guess who called in the raid?
- While its plot displays many of the usual double-crosses and sly moves associated with film noir, Force of Evil's most convincing attributes are certainly Polonsky's direction and the cinematography by George S. Barnes. The film's ending is especially striking, featuring both a terrifically dim office shootout and Joe's descent to the base of the George Washington Bridge, standing in for hell. Add in a few clever quips, delivered either by Garfield ("I didn't have enough strength to resist corruption, but I was strong enough to fight for a piece of it.") or the film's oddly perfunctory femme fatale, Marie Windsor ("A man could spend the rest of his life trying to remember what he shouldn't have said."), and you end up with a film that is much more obscure than it deserves to be.
- Also featuring Jack Overman and...allegedly a young Beau Bridges??
