Force of Evil

 The reception of films on their release is something of a riddle:  Abraham Polonsky's Force of Evil was largely disregarded when it hit the screens in 1948.  Those critics who reviewed the movie, with a few exceptions, considered the picture to be a standard, low-budget crime film, well-made but mediocre.  This is puzzling because Force of Evil is now regarded as a landmark in American cinema and, perhaps, the best (or one of the best) film noir.  But, of course, in 1948, there was no film noir genre, a style of movie-making with existentialist overtones, known to film reviewers.  (The French discovered the genre hiding in plain sight among cheap American crime pictures -- but this was later, in the sixties.)  Accordingly, it's possible that Force of Evil's idiosyncrasies couldn't be assimilated to the standard categories of pictures (musical, western, comedy, crime movie) expected by audiences and reviewers.  Furthermore, Force of Evil at a 79 taut minutes has a complex, exceptionally byzantine plot -- if you blink twice or go out for popcorn, you will have missed key narrative points.  The film is written in a highly poetic and theatrical diction -- a British critic is said to have shouted out during a screening that "this thing is in blank verse!"  Force of Evil was intended as the lower bill picture on a double feature, (the B-side on a hit single) probably paired with some splashy technicolor romance or comedy with A-list stars.  Lots of critics likely just skipped the first feature in favor of attending the big budget picture.  Those who did see the movie may have been confused by its exceptionally intricate plot and elaborate rhetoric and, in any event, anticipating the main feature, were in no mood to devote much mental energy to this picture.  But Force of Evil, almost lost (Scorsese introduces the picture by saying that it was saved "by accident") is now regarded as a masterpiece.  In a nicely restored version, the picture (mostly half invisible when shown on TV) deserves its reputation and, indeed, exceeds expectations.

Some of the narrative confusion in Force of Evil is intentional.  During the first few minutes, a narrator describes the activity of "banks" -- there is no reason for the viewer to not consider these banks to be lending institutions of the sort often shown in movies, for instance, the bank and bankers in It's a Wonderful Life.  But, in fact, these "banks" are illegal gambling enterprises that collect bets on four digit numbers, "bank" the cash, and, then, make pay-outs to winners. The film insists upon a confusion between legitimate business and illicit racketeer-influenced enterprise -- Polansky had been a card-carrying Communist and he intends that viewers understand that banking is a racket, whether legally condoned or illegal -- furthermore, Polonsky insists that the organs of the State are instrumental in suppressing competition and fostering monopoly interests; the "banks" are engaged in cut-throat competition and disadvantage one another by calling in tips that lead to police raids on adversary businesses.  The police, it seems, are the main force for violence in the industry although the criminals will, now and then, shoot it out with one another or assassinate rivals.  This perverse industry is predatory:  we see that most of the bets are literally nickel and dime, gambling by pauperized proles who can't afford to be wasting their money in this way.  The suckers are motivated by patriotism -- at the outset of the movie, the poor folks placing bets want to buy a chance on "1776" because it is the eve of the Fourth of July.  Organized crime is just business conducted by another means.  The criminals operate in corporate-style syndicates that buy-up or exterminate competition, that expand mercilessly, and that are represented by expensive corporate-style lawyers.  The system is totalizing -- the film's claustrophobic ambience suggests a closed-loop:  everyone is either corrupt or being corrupted.  There are no innocents anywhere in the film:  greed motivates the punters, avarice drives the bosses and gangsters, and, even, the nice girl heroine is avid to be corrupted by the crooked Joe Morse, the lawyer for the criminal racket.  

Joe Morse's brother, Leo is fifty with no prospects and a bad ticker; he runs a small-scale "bank" and has done this for twenty years.  He's a little fish in a tank full of sharks.  A mobster named Tucker has rigged the number for selection on July 4 to be "1776".  Since everyone is putting money down on that number, this pick will bankrupt all the "banks" -- they won't be able to cover the bets placed at 100 to 1 odds.  This will force the "banks" to borrow money from Tucker who will, then, consolidate the enterprises under his control and force the little operations out of business.  Joe Morse is trying to protect his brother Leo and has arranged with Tucker that Leo will be appointed head "banker" by the syndicate.  The scheme is successful, but there is a problem:  Leo and his crew of crooks, who represent a better, less ruthless, grade of criminals don't want to be bought out by the vicious Tucker.  Police raids are called in on Leo's enterprise and his loyal employees, including his long-time secretary, Doris, end up arrested and tossed in jail.  This is a warning.  Tucker sends Joe down to spring Leo's workers, including his skittish and fearful accountant and Doris -- they have to pay a fine, subsidized by Tucker and Joe Morse.  In the taxi ride to Doris' house, Joe stops for a second to buy roses for the attractive young woman and courts her, although he warns Doris that there is something "black" about him. Leo continues to resist Tucker and so there's another raid called in on Leo's "bank".  Meanwhile a rival gang run by a killer named Fico are trying to horn in on Tucker's monopoly over the number's racket.  And, all of this occurs in the context of the State planning to appropriate the numbers racket for its own profit -- the State intends to sponsor a legal lottery which is just another numbers enterprise.  This complex situation leads to betrayals and murder in which the lawyer, Joe Morse is complicit.  Despite his efforts to protect his brother, Leo gets assassinated and dumped in a stony crevasse under the George Washington Bridge.  

This rococo plot is adorned with spectacular set pieces and brilliant chilling details.  The plot is tightly built like a steel combination lock.  Tucker has a serpentine moll who hangs out in a boudoir full of plaster-of-paris cherubs; she takes a shot at Joe Morse but the lawyer remains true to Doris, the good girl who is very rapidly becoming a bad girl.  When the plot to exploit 1776 as a number is revealed, the mentally defective enforcer and janitor at Leo's "bank" lets out a startling, bestial bray -- he's claustrophobic on account of crashing his taxi in the East River and being trapped underwater for a few minutes and he shrieks with panic every time the cops raid the "bank".  Leo's timid accountant is terrified by the cops and tries to escape by running up a narrow flight of stairs; when he encounters a burly cop with a nightstick, he screams and tries to vault over the policemen on the steps below him, a startling image. Later, the accountant is gunned down in a sleazy restaurant, falling to the floor with his eyeglasses broken like the student killed by the Cossacks on Eisenstein's Odessa Steps.  Polonsky has the sadism and flair for violence that we see in Fritz Lang -- if he had been allowed to make more movies, he might have been one of film's great master of violent action sequences.  There are tiny but telling moments:  when Morse lifts a phone receiver, he hears a slight click signifying that his phone is tapped.  The film cuts to an extreme close-up of Morse's panicked eyes.  Near the end of the movie, Joe Morse, who is now doomed by his involvement in the racket, goes to an after hours joint with his girlfriend, Doris.  He's drunk and, in the background, there's a Black jazz band playing in front of a strange painting on a wall that looks like a huge multifoliate rose, possibly referring to the roses with which Morse wooed Doris earlier in the movie.  Joe goes out on Wall Street before dawn; the streets are eerily deserted and, in a famous shot, he stands beneath a brooding figure of George Washington, a statue in front of the lower Manhattan Federal Reserve Bank -- this rhymes with the notion of the criminal "banks" and with the mobsters dropping Leo's body under the George Washington Bridge.  When Joe goes with Doris to retrieve Leo's corpse, the voice-over (Joe) says that he just went "down and down and down".  We see a tiny figure of Joe running down a long flight of steps in front of a massive stone wall -- it's as if he is descending into Hell.  Throughout, the dialogue is spoken very fast and rendered in what seems to be Shakespearian meter and diction.  The speech is so fast and intricate that it's often hard to understand -- as with Shakespeare, you have to listen with every fiber of your being.

After directing this film, Polonsky was blacklisted until 1969 when he was allowed to direct again, a curiosity Western with Robert Redford and Kathleen Turner called Tell them Willie Boy is here.  The movie was a success d'estime but probably not watchable today because of its use of White actors playing roles of oppressed Indians.  I think Polonsky may have made another film, a quasi-Western about Cossacks in Russia -- after that, he went silent and died shortly thereafter.  Polonsky's mangled career is one of the great tragedies in American film history.  Who knows what he would have done if he hadn't been silenced for 21 years?  That said, on the basis of Force of Evil, it's reasonable to think that Polonsky would have been corrupted by the system and Hollywood's big money like everyone else.  It's the nature of things.