Directed by Michael Curtiz • 1950 • United States
Starring John Garfield, Patricia Neal, Phyllis Thaxter
Michael Curtiz brings a master skipper’s hand to the helm of this thriller, Hollywood’s second crack at Ernest Hemingway’s “To Have and Have Not.” John Garfield stars as Harry Morgan, an honest charter-boat captain who, facing hard times, takes on dangerous cargo to save his boat, support his family, and preserve his dignity. Left in the lurch by a freeloading passenger, Harry starts to entertain the criminal propositions of a sleazy lawyer (Wallace Ford), as well as the playful come-ons of a cheeky blonde (Patricia Neal), making a series of compromises that stretch his morality—and his marriage—further than he’ll admit. Hewing closer to Hemingway’s novel than Howard Hawks’s Bogart-Bacall vehicle does, THE BREAKING POINT charts a course through daylight noir and working-class tragedy, guided by Curtiz’s effortless visual fluency and a stoic, career-capping performance from Garfield.
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Detour
Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer • 1945 • United States
Starring Tom Neal, Ann SavageFrom Poverty Row came a movie that, perhaps more than any other, epitomizes the dark fatalism at the heart of film noir. As he hitchhikes his way from New York to Los Angeles, a down-on-his-luck nightclub pianist ...
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History Is Made at Night
Directed by Frank Borzage • 1937 • United States
Jean Arthur plays a married woman who falls in love with a French headwaiter, much to the chagrin of her possessive and jealous husband.
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He Ran All the Way
Directed by John Berry • 1951 • United States
Starring John Garfield, Shelley Winters, Wallace FordJohn Garfield’s final film before his blacklisting and untimely death is a slam-bang pulp noir crackling with tightly wound tension. In one of his finest performances, Garfield plays a hardened so...
