John Garfield - The First Rebel

Widely regarded as one of the best film noir movies ever made (and probably the film for which Garfield is best remembered today) "The Postman Always Rings Twice" tells the story of handsome drifter Frank (Garfield) who takes a job at a roadside cafe and falls under the spell of Cora (Lana Turner) the discontented young wife of the owner (Cecil Kellaway).
Such is Frank's obsession with Cora that he goes along with her plan to do away with her husband.
Plotting a murder and living with guilty consciences (hubby is actually a nice guy, if a bit dense) take their toll and the illicit lovers begin to turn on each other - in the true film noir fashion of greed and betrayal.
The chemistry between Garfield and Turner fairly crackles - the movie steams with repressed sexuality; Lana's coldness is emphasized by her ice-white costumes, complemented perfectly by Garfield's dark, brooding looks.

The New York Times noted: "Garfield reflects the life of the crude and confused young hobo who stumbles helplessly into a fatal trap...."

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"He Ran All the Way" was Garfield's final film. His performance is one of his finest. He's Nick, a small-time thug ("You think slow Nick - you move fast, but you think slow.") who commits murder during a burglary, then takes a family hostage, hiding out in their home. Garfield effectively portrays Nick's ambivalence - terrorizing the family yet at the same time, lonely, wanting to belong, hungry for the affection he sees them display for one another. It's a poignant portrayal of the eternal outsider, destined to never grasp the decency and peace for which he yearns.

with Shelley Winters

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In "Out of the Fog" Garfield is Goff, a flashy hood who's draining the savings of two citizens of a small village, under the guise of "protection" for their business. He's cocky, glib - a real city slicker...and thoroughly despicable. This guy has no saving graces whatsoever.

putting the bite on Thomas Mitchell

Desperate, Goff's victims, played by Thomas Mitchell and John Qualen, decide to put an end to their dire situation by doing away with their tormenter, aided by Mitchell's daugher (Ida Lupino).

A 1941 reviewer reported:"Mr. Garfield is a sleek and vicious character, a petty hoodlum who turns gentle people into murderers."

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<<publicity shot with Patricia Neal

"The Breaking Point" was taken from Ernest Hemingway's book "To Have and Have Not." Unlike the 1944 Bogart-Bacall film, which took the title and not much else, this one follows the story that Hemingway wrote.

Garfield is Harry Morgan, captain of a fishing boat he rents out to tourists and wannabe fishermen. When his latest client skips out on him without paying, Morgan is left broke, and with the client's predotory girl, Leonora (Patricia Neal). Lenora does her best to make a play for Morgan, but he's not having any - he loves his wife (Phyllis Thaxter) and their two daughters too much.
Strapped for cash, Morgan takes on a job for a crooked businessman (Wallace Ford) but the deal turns violent when his 'cargo' turns out to be some very shady characters.

The New York Times had this to say: "All the character, color, and cynicism of Mr. Hemingway's lean and hungry tale are wrapped up in this realistic picture, and John Garfield is tops in the principal role...the shrewdest, hardest acting in the show."

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"The Sea Wolf" is one of the best Warners' films to come out of the early '40s. A dark, atmospheric film - Sol Polito's camerawork and Erich Wolfgang Korngold's music score do much to further this - Garfield plays an escaped convict who finds himself trapped aboard the mysterious ship "The Ghost," and at the mercy of tyrannical Captain Wolf Larsen (Edward G. Robinson); Larsen's not only losing his eyesight, but his mind as well.
It's really Robinson's movie, so dominant is his portrayal of the mercurial Captain, but as George Leach, one of only a very few on board who dare to stand up to Larsen, Garfield gives a strong performance. His tentative romance with Ruth (Ida Lupino), another lost soul (and ex-convict), provides a thread of hope through an otherwise bleak and fatalistic storyline.

Barry Fitzgerald skitters and cackles through his role as the slimy "Cookie", Gene Lockhart is the drunken ship's doctor who chooses to jump from high up the mast rather than put up with Larsen's cruelties. Alexander Knox plays the intellectual who captures Larsen's attention because he's the only other person on board who can participate in the Captain's verbal sparring.
The New York Times reported: " 'The Sea Wolf' rolls along ruthlessly and draws a forbidding picture of oppressive life at sea...John Garfield plays the part of a recalcitrant crewman with concentrated spite."

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"Daughters Courageous" is like a parallel universe for Four Daughters.. Because of Four 's plot Warners couldn't exactly have Garfield's character in a sequel, yet such was the clamoring for more of him, they simply put him with the very same cast in another story. No problem.

In "Courageous" (what exactly are the daughters being courageous about, anyway...?) Garfield's a cocky guy from the wrong side of the tracks who reluctantly falls for Priscilla Lane. Priscilla's long-lost father (Claude Rains) makes properly disapproving paternal noises about the relationship, but he hardly has a leg to stand on, having deserted the entire family a couple decades earlier. Now he's back, wanting in on the family circle - and naturally his daughters (courageously?) have some objections.
Fay Bainter plays Mom, who's late-in-life engagement to respectable businessman Donald Crisp is also threatened by the return of hubby number one.
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"Flowing Gold" is a fairly minor entry in the Garfield anthology, butinteresting, if only to see him paired with the fascinating Frances Farmer. The troubled actress made so few films that any chance to see her is a treat. (The two had worked together before on the stage in Theater Group productions.)

"Gold" tells the story of the rough and tumble wildcatters working to strke it rich in the oil fields in the West. Garfield is, once again, on the lam from the law. He shows up at a work site, hoping to blend in, and when he saves the life of the foreman (Pat O'Brien) the two become fast friends.

But trouble soon comes between the two pals - in the form of Frances - a tough lady struggling to save her father's oil business from bankruptcy - O'Brien has hopes, but when Frances meets Garfield, that's the end of Pat's chances. But before the happy ending, there's a lot of good battle-of-the-sexes repartee between the two, and eventually Garfield's able to clear his name and start anew.

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"Between Two Worlds" tells the offbeat story of passengers aboard a mysterious ship; their destination and how they arrived on board isn't quite clear to them at first. When they begin to realize that they are all dead and the ship is taking them to the afterlife, each reacts differently.
Garfield plays a hardbitten newspaper reporter with his usual brash self-assuredness. Paul Henreid and Eleanor Parker do their best as bewildered lovers, Sydney Greenstreet is a standout as the other-wordly Judge.

For the most part, the film falls short of the necessary ethereal atmosphere, although Erich Wolfgang Korngold's beautiful music score almost makes it work at times.

This sequel to "Four Daughters" isn't really a Garfield film, but such had been his impact in the first film, Warners billed him in most of their publicity for it. view ad
His character of Mickey Borden is reprised in "Four Wives", but only as footage from "Daughters" in flashback sequences.
Ann (Priscilla Lane), Mickey's widow, has agreed to marry Felix Dietz (Jeffrey Lynn), but discovers that she carries Mickey's child. Her sisters rally around her as she tries to reconcile her unresolved feelings for Mickey with her uncertainties about her future.

The "Four Daughters" are played by 3 real-life sisters (Priscilla, Lola, and Rosemary Lane) and Gale Page ("3 Lanes and a Page" one reviewer quipped). They're wholesome and happy, they adore their eccentric musician father (Claude Rains), and the movie begins as a pleasant ramble through their family life.

Then in ambles Garfield's Mickey Borden, with his scruffy attire, his sarcastic quips, his breezy air that's hiding his vulnerability - a being totally foreign to this squeaky-clean environment. Audiences had never seen anything like him on the screen before, and the role catapulted Garfield to instant movie stardom.
Mickey Borden captivates one of the Four Daughters, Ann (Priscilla Lane), even though she's engaged to marry clean-cut Felix (Jeffrey Lynn). When Ann learns that one of her sisters is also in love with Felix, she decides to clear the field and runs off and marries Mickey. Now that's sisterly devotion.

But the troubled Mickey has his own form of sacrifice up his sleeve - and he decides to do what he terms his first-ever unselfish act....but we don't want to give away the whole story.
Reviewers at the time fell all over themselves praising Garfield and ignoring everybody else: "compelling a fascinating interest from his first to last scenes" (Variety); "a young man of lowering aspect...distracts us entirely from the nice things of life" (New Yorker); "steals the acting honors with his realistic portrayal of doomed pessimism" (Newsweek); and the NY Times: "With cigarette dangling from his mouth, no money, not even a clean shirt, with a personal grudge against the Fates...Mr. Garfield, the eternal outsider."
Garfield had turned the tide, paving a new path for leading actors for decades to come.

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In "They Made Me a Criminal" Garfield's Johnny Burns, a boxer who's just won the lightweight championship. His celebratory party turns into a drunken brawl and Johnny's forced to leave town because of a false murder charge. He ends up out in the country, on a farm run by a young woman (Gloria Dickson) who is trying to regenerate a bunch of New York ruffians (played by the 'Dead End' Kids) - sort of a bucolic reform school.

Close on Johnny's trail is Detective Phelon (Claude Rains). When Johnny re-enters the ring in order to raise money for the farm, Phelon is about to haul him in - but relents when he realizes that Johnny is a reformed character.

"Destination Tokyo" was one of many films cranked out by Hollywood as patriotic war efforts. In this one Garfield's a crew member on a submarine captained by none other than Cary Grant.

Garfield spends most of his time bragging about his exploits with 'dames', but when the Captain picks him as part of a special mission, his bravery and resourcefulness are more than enough to meet the demand.

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"Dangerously They Live" was made just prior to the USA's entry into WWII. Garfield gets to play an action hero instead of a thug. He's an intern at a hospital where a patient with amnesia is brought in (Nancy Coleman). Turns out she's a spy and she's got Nazi agents hot on her trail. In fact one of them poses as her father to get her out of the hospital, and whisks her off to a Long Island estate, where she will be questioned mercilessly - as soon as her memory returns, that is. Garfield knows something's fishy, and sets out to rescue her - putting his own life in danger.

"Air Force" was another Hollywood war effort. Garfield has a small part as a crewmember of a Boeing B-17 bomber named the MaryAnne.
Directed by the esteemed Howard Hawks, the film tells the story of the bomber's action during the first days of America's involvement in WWII - in fact it begins on December 6, 1941 as the MaryAnne is en route to...Pearl Harbor.

The New York Daily News reported: "The story is simply told by Dudley Nichols, who wrote a powerfully effective screenplay, by Howard Hawks, whose masterly direction makes it an outstanding achievement, and a cast that is distinguished by the excellence of team work." view magazine ad

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"Blackwell's Island" was supposed to be just another Warners' B movie, but before its release the studio found they suddenly had a star on their hands - Garfield. Some extra footage was shot to beef up his role a bit - that of a reporter who's milking the exploits of a gangster (Stanley Fields) for all he can get out of it. He even goes to the extent of getting himself thrown in prison to further report on corrupt doings inside.

Once inside however, Stanley takes a dim view of having Garfield around and makes life very tough for him. But Garfield manages to make it out with a hot story, one that is instrumental in prison reforms.

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"The Fallen Sparrow" is good early film noir - the moody darkness, the camera angles, the sense of unease and uncertainty....
Garfield is a Spanish civil war vet who's just been released from the hospital and returns to his old neighborhood in New York City. Seems his boyhood pal, to whom Garfield had sent a battle trophy - a flag from one of Hitler's personal regiments - has had an "accidental" and very fatal fall from an apartment house window....and the flag has disappeared.
Not buying the 'suicide' verdict the police are handing out, Garfield sets out to solve the mystery.
He's hampered by several factors - not the least of which is he's never fully recovered from the physical and psychological torture he got in a Fascist prison camp. He's also up against some really nasty characters, led by the sublimely evil Walter Slezak.
And then there's the beautiful damsel in distress (Maureen O'Hara) - except - whose side is she really on...?
It's a strange and restless film; particulary memorable is a scene where Garfield goes frantically about the room, turning up music on the radio, gulping a drink, trying to drown out what he thinks are the sounds of his Fascist captors coming for him again.
In a 1943 review, The New York Times called 'Sparrow' an "uncommon and provocatively handled melodrama."

"Juarez" was Warners' big historical epic for 1939, and a showcase for two of their hottest stars, Paul Muni and Bette Davis. The two didn't have any scenes together in the film, but that didn't stop the studio from publicizing them as a pair.
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Muni woodenly portrays the title character (one reviewer quipped that perhaps he had so much makeup on he couldn't move much) - the Mexican patriot who seeks to overthrow the Austrian rulers that Napoleon (Claude Rains) has decided should rule his country.
Garfield portrays one of Juarez's lieutenants and gets to be dashing and heroic - at least it was a departure from the street thug roles he was always being handed.
By far the best part of the movie belongs to Brian Aherne as the Emperor Maximillian, and to Bette Davis as his wife Carlotta. Aherne's extremely sensitive portayal of the doomed Maximillian is a masterpiece of pathos, and Davis' going mad scene is truly disturbing.

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Taken from the John Steinbeck novel, "Tortilla Flat" tells the story of raffish ne'er-do-wells Pilon (Spencer Tracy) and Danny (Garfield.) These two, and their buddies, would much rather drink wine and play music than work - and most of the time they manage to get away with it.
But Danny falls for the gorgeous high-spirited Delores (Hedy Lamarr) and before she'll marry him, she wants him to be responsible and get a job - whereas Danny figures the house he's inherited is enough of a 'dowry.'

But Pilon and pals have moved in, freeloaders extraordinaire, and besides that, Pilon plans to steal the life savings of Pirate (Frank Morgan), an amiable old guy who lives for his big family of dogs, lovingly called "the boys."

Pilon has a change of heart when he finds out Pirate plans to use his savings to buy a religious artifact, and while he's at it, Pilon decides to help make life better for Danny and Delores.

This was Garfield's first loan-out to another studio. MGM was considered the top studio of the day, and Garfield thoroughly enjoyed the experience. But MGM specialized in gloss and glamour and the movies it made as a rule were not Garfield's style.

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Taken from a Hemingway story called "My Old Man," "Under My Skin" has Garfield as a crooked jockey who spends most of his time womanizing and otherwise enjoying the fruits of his ill-gotten gains.

His young son doesn't know Dad's throwing races for dough and idolizes him. Eventually, Garfield tries to go straight but it doesn't quite work out - there are some powerful crooks who'd prefer not to lose their lucrative scam.

The New York Times reported that Hemingway's story "has been pretty well doused with antiseptics," yet Garfield does give a strong performance as a man who in more ways than one, just can't win.

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"Body and Soul" was a landmark film for Garfield - his first independent production upon leaving Warner Bros. His performance as pro fighter Charlie Davis would garner him an Oscar nomination for Best Actor, only one instance of the praise heaped upon the film.
Garfield's Charlie is a slum kid, determined to be a success. The only thing he can do better than anyone else is fight - so he signs with a promoter and it isn't long before he's at the top.
He's engaged to marry the lovely, sensible Peg (Lilli Palmer) and all appears to be just dandy - until Charlie's success and fame begin to go to his head; his greed for more power and more money begins the downhill domino effect on his life and on those closest to him.
The gritty photography by ace camerman James Wong Howe is a particular standout, adding much to the realism of the fight scenes. Garfield also went against racial prejudices and cast the fine black actor Canada Lee in a pivotal role.

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"Pride of the Marines" tells the true story of Al Schmidt, a Philadelphia working man who joins the Marines after the Japanese attack on Peal Harbor, is blinded by a grenade blast, and goes through the traumatic adjustment to his disability.
Garfield very much wanted to make this film, feeling it was important to show a 'regular guy' triumphant over highly irregular circumstances.
The pre-war scenes with Al's erratic courting of of wife-to-be Ruth (Eleanor Parker) are amusing - Ruth is understandably exasperated by Al's macho attitudes - but Al comes around eventually. Garfield is breezy and devil-may-care - he rear-ends the car belonging to Ruth's date for the evening: "Didn't you see him?" Ruth cries. "See him? I hit him, didn't I?" Al responds.
All this playfulness heightens the contrast of the scenes at the front lines. In an age when war movies were highly patriotic morale-boosters and always showed American servicemen as fearless, invincible heroes, "Marines" has some startling realism that somehow slipped by the censors. A sequence just prior to the grenade blast that injures Al is truly chilling: it is night in the jungle, Al and his buddies are in a foxhole. The unseen enemy is tauntingly calling "Marine tonight you die Marine tonight you die" over and over. In tears, Al fires off short machine gun bursts, sobbing desperately, "Why can't I shut you up - why can't I shut you up!"
Garfield's performance throughout the film is one of his very best - infusing his character in the early scenes with a carefree cockiness, followed by bitterness and anger at his helplessness as he comes to terms with his blindness.

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Dust Be My Destiny (1939) is a Warners programmers that Garfield's presence manages to lift above the mediocre.

In Dust he plays Joe Bell, an angry young man in and out of jail and work farms.
(His main crime seems to be riding freight trains.) At Joe's latest "residence", the overseer is a tad psychotic and also takes a dim view of daughter Mabel's interest in young Joe.

Mabel (Priscilla Lane) believes in Joe, though, and they plan on getting married as soon as he serves his sentence. However, when old Pop tries to stop them he's knocked down in the ensuing scuffle and pronounced dead. Joe and Mabel have to take it on the lam, but they're young and in love, they can ride the rails together....you get the idea.

The only problem is Joe eventually gets caught, and poor Mabel is forced into a difficult decision. In writer Robert Rossen's original treatment, both Joe and Mabel were shot and killed, but in 1939 that kind of resolution was not in the cards, and instead we have a courtroom scene with the triumph of American ideals, etc. Hooray!

East of the River (1940) is a version of the well-worn tale of two brothers, one good and one bad. Guess which one Garfield plays. He's Joey Lorenzo, racketeer, and his adopted brother Nicholas (William Lundigan) is the college grad. Joey's girl, played by Brenda Marshall, is on her way to a life of petty crime until she meets brother Nick and sees the light. Or maybe it was that college degree. Either way Joey loses out, but not before he puts up resistance and tries to separate the two. It's his formidable Mom, played by Marjorie Rambeau, who finally steps in and sets him straight.

with Marjorie Rambeau

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Humoresque (1946) is a bit of a departure for Garfield: he plays Paul Boray, violin virtuoso, who catches the eye of wealthy society patroness Mrs. Helen Wright (Joan Crawford.) Mrs. Wright likes to sponsor young talent; she also has some serious problems, alcoholism being only one of them.

Written by Clifford Odets and directed by Jean Negulesco, Humoresque is lush and luxuriant film noir, if there is such a thing. As Paul's pianist the ascerbic Oscar Levant is on hand with his trademark dry comments ("I think I'll go home and write a song: 'If I Had a Million Dollars Would I Talk to You?' "). The cast also includes J. Carroll Naish as Boray's father and Paul Cavanagh as the neglected Mr. Wright (is that name a pun?)

There is surprising chemistry between Garfield and Crawford -- as Garfield's Boray bluntly puts it: "We're like two wrestlers looking for a hold." And what is there about Joan Crawford that lends her so well to playing women with neuroses? ("I was married twice before, once to a cry-baby and then to a caveman -- between the two of them I said good-bye to my girlhood.")
Garfield's brooding intensity works very well in his role as the driven young musician, and this is Crawford at her best, post-flapper but pre-gargoyle, her sculptured face mirroring all of her trauma and conflict.

In "Nobody Lives Forever" (1946) Garfield is Nick Blake, just back from the war and running into a little trouble: his girl has not only found someone else, but she spent all the money he left with her for safe-keeping. Not cool. He gets his money all right (after roughing up the new boyfriend) and goes to L.A. There he meets up with former "associate" Doc (George Coulouris in a typically slimy role) and agrees to help fleece a rich widow (Geraldine Fitzgerald). She's classy, she's good-looking, she's somewhat naive, and, you guessed it -- he falls for her. Naturally, Doc doesn't take too kindly to this turn of events: "Get that dame outta your head and make that take!" "You come up with a rod & I'll make you eat it," is Nick's reply. It takes some fast thinking and a bit of gun-play before Nick can disentangle himself from the bad guys and win his lady. view photo

Castle on the Hudson (1940) is a remake of the 1933 Spencer Tracy-Bette Davis "20,000 Years in Sing-Sing."

Garfield is Tommy Gordon, a small time gangster sent to prison where he runs up against stern warden Pat O'Brien. O'Brien sets about some rehabiliation efforts that gradually begin to make an impression on Tommy. That is, until Tommy's girl Kay (Ann Sheridan) is seriously hurt in a car wreck. Although still unsure of Tommy, the warden agrees to let him out to visit Kay, on the grounds that Tommy will return on an 'honor system.'

But at Kay's apartment the two are confronted by Tommy's lawyer, who turns out to be the one responsible for Kay's injuries. The two men fight - and Kay shoots the lawyer.

Tommy takes the blame for the shooting, and must decide whether to keep his promise to the warden and return to prison - knowing full well that he will face a murder charge.

with Ann Sheridan and the long arm of the law

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In "Saturday's Children" Garfield won an on-going battle with Warners to let him play something other than a thug or a criminal; unfortunately the film was a box-office flop, although critics praised Garfield's performance.

He plays Rims Rosson, a shy, naive young inventor who has dreams of adventure but who in reality is just another office clerk who's always strapped for money. When he marries his girlfriend Bobby (Anne Shirley) his situation does not improve - before long both of them begin to feel trapped and frustrated. It takes some intervention from Bobby's dad (Claude Rains, who steals almost every scene he's in - per usual) to convince the young couple to make a go of their marriage.

The movie isn't bad at all, and it's a pleasure to see Garfield using all his boyish charm to make his gullible character very likeable indeed.

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In "Force of Evil" Garfield plays a lawyer who measures success only in terms of dough. No predictable cliches here as in his movies a decade earlier - this one's gritty and full of unsavory characters, and even the 'nice guys' usually have their own agendas.
Garfield's character Joe is part of a crooked syndicate that is swallowing up small businesses - one of which belongs to Joe's brother Leo (Thomas Gomez). Joe is unable to convince Leo to play along, and Leo is killed by the mob. Stricken, Joe sets out to destroy the syndicate and regain his self-respect.

The New York Times reviewed Garfield as "sentient underneath a steel shell, taut, articulate --- he is all good men gone wrong."

"Thank Your Lucky Stars" has a plot so thin as to be invisible - and what's there is better off ignored completely - but plot is not what this movie's about. It's a showcase for some of Warner's biggest stars in skits that are a far cry from their usual images - with very entertaining results.

Picture Bette Davis being slung about the dance floor by a jitterbugger-on-steroids, Errol Flynn singing a bar song in a Cockney accent, and Humphrey Bogart being brow-beaten by S.Z."Cuddles" Sakall.
Garfield must've had a good

time with his bit - he talk-sings a very...unique version of "Blues in the Night" - complete with throttling Eddie Cantor every time he can reach him - which, given how a little bit of Mr. Cantor goes a lonnnng way in this film, ain't a bad idea.....

Dust Be My Destiny (1939)

Dust Be
My Destiny (1939)