Force of Evil

"Joe Morse: Wouldn't you like to celebrate on a really large scale, Miss Lowry? Doris Lowry: What are you celebrating, Mr. Morse? Joe Morse: A clear conscience. Doris Lowry: Oh, whose?"

Abraham Polonsky came to prominence with the box-office success of Body and Soul in 1947, and made his directorial debut a year later with Force of Evil. Acclaimed as a masterpiece of postwar American noir, the film critiques the capitalist ethos turned hard-boiled. Polonsky's unflinching portrait of two brothers caught in a downward spiral of corruption suggests comparison to the biblical story of Cain and Abel. Its eloquent prose, that some have likened to blank verse, drips with cynicism. John Garfield adds a virile edge as Joe Morse, the mob lawyer who tries to save his small-time bookie brother from financial ruin in a numbers racket takeover. As the film plunges deeper into an amoral abyss, the congested New York City of its opening frames gives way to a bleak landscape reminiscent of an Edward Hopper painting. Finally, the abyss swallows Garfield "down, down, down... to the bottom of the world."

Force of Evil was added to the National Film Registry in 1994.