US 76m Dir: Abraham Polonsky Key Cast: John Garfield
Based on: Tucker's People by Ira Wolfert (Novel)
I can't say I have much knowledge of modern financial crime, let alone late 40s financial crime, so I didn't really have much idea what the schemes going on in this film were all about. Fortunately, this didn't matter a huge amount as it's not really the focus of the film.
Lawyer Joe Morse (John Garfield), who works for gangster Ben Tucker (Roy Roberts), plans to consolidate all the small-time numbers racket operators into one big powerful organisation. Unfortunately, his brother Leo (Thomas Gomez) is one of the small-time operators and isn't keen to work with gangsters.
The numbers racket is really just a background for a story about brothers that doesn't shy away from it's Cain and Abel inspiration. A large part of the film seemed to be the characters pretending to each other, and themselves, that they aren't really proper criminals. Leo is convinced he has some sort of integrity because he is a lower level criminal and Joe just wants him safely away from the operation. I didn't think the film really delved into the psyches and relationship of these characters as deeply as it could and perhaps should have.
The film is not easy to define- it has some trappings of the noir genre, including it's absurdly over-the-top title which doesn't really fit the film, but in other ways isn't really like a noir film at all. It's much more grounded for a start and attempts to give the characters more realistic and convincing personalities. It's also unusual in having fast-paced and near-constant dialogue which is very poetic. Characters speak in unusual rhythms and constantly repeat lines of dialogue. This makes it feel like it veers into the territory of poetic realism, somehow joining a line between that genre and film noir to create an unusual film.
The film is considered anti-capitalist and these were the days when McCarthyism was just beginning meaning director Abraham Polonsky was unable to direct another film for twenty years due to being blacklisted. John Garfield was also of a similar political viewpoint and suffered a similar fate. The panic over communism does seem odd to us today and to write this film off as anti-capitalist and nothing more feels deeply unfair.
I have to say, I didn't love this. I found the conflict between the brothers too weak and too obvious, the plot difficult to decipher and the poetic dialogue grated on me- I think it's a device that can work well in small doses but I didn't like it being spouted for the entire film.
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