THE BREAKING POINT (1950)

With CASABLANCA, YANKEE DOODLE DANDY, ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD, THE SEA WOLF (a dozen more just as good) behind him, claiming this lesser-known film from a 64 yr-old Michael Curtiz as being as good as any he made sounds hyperbolic.*  More so as it’s a remake of Howard Hawks’ free-and-fancy entertainment from the same source, Ernest Hemingway’s TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT/’44.*  Here, with a far more serious tone and relative faithfulness to Hemingway, everyone seems fully committed to its tough-minded tale of WWII vet John Garfield drowning in debt as his sinking independent boat business threatens home & family (two little girls, close physical bond with wife Phyllis Thaxter).  Chartered, then stiffed by a businessman & mistress (a blonde Patricia Neal) after an overnight fishing run to Mexico, he’s forced into illegal trade (human trafficking), a justified murder and nothing to show for his trouble.  With his back still against the wall, he goes rogue again; if anything, now more dangerously with some wiseguys out to rob a horse track.  Beautifully constructed and paced (Ranald MacDougall script), wonderfully shot in moody shoreline light by Ted McCord, the characters are complicated & fascinating (Garfield an unusually conflicted/flawed hero), Wallace Ford a sweaty con-man out of a nightmare, and the remarkable Juano Hernandez (just off his INTRUDER IN THE DUST breakthru) as boat-mate.  (That’s Hernandez’s kid stealing the film’s heartbreaker last shot.)  So, where has this beauty been?  Hiding in plain sight as Warners quickly buried it when Garfield got smeared as a Commie in ‘Red Channels,’ a rumor-driven Witch Hunt cheat sheet.  The suppression something of a sick ironic joke in that Garfield just about the only member of the old Group Theater NOT a Party Member.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Curtiz’s work so precisely staged, composed & effective, that a preposterously bad edit on a Garfield insert/closeup sticks out like a sore thumb.  Who stuck it in here?

DOUBLE-BILL: Garfield’s previous, UNDER MY SKIN/’50, also underseen/also Hemingway, no more than ‘goodish.'  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/06/under-my-skin-1950.html  OR:  *That third adaptation, THE GUN RUNNERS/’58 (not seen here), with Audie Murphy in the Bogie/Garfield spot, and director Don Siegel reluctantly on board.