Out of the Fog (1941) Anatole Litvak

“Out of the Fog” is based on a 1939 play called “The Gentle People” by Irwin Shaw. The play ran for a respectable four and half months on Broadway and had one heck of a cast that included Franchot Tone, Lee J. Cobb, Sam Jaffe, Sylvia Sydney, Elia Kazan, Martin Ritt and Karl Malden. It was produced by the legendary Group Theater and directed by the visionary Harold Clurman.  The play was an anti-fascist parable (Shaw subtitled the play, A Brooklyn Fable) of the meek overcoming the arrogant and the powerful. In the play the two main characters were elderly gentle Jewish men, Jonah Goodman and Philip Anagnos, who are shaken down for five dollars a week in protection money by a smart aleck, stylishly dressed, wise ass gangster named Harold Goff (Tone). Goff also awakens the dreams and sexuality of Jonah’s bored daughter Stella (Sydney) who has hopes of leaving her meaningless existence for a more exciting life. When Goff learns the two fishermen have money saved to buy a boat, he demands they hand the savings over to him too. In order to rid themselves of Goff’s extortion and threats, the two fishermen lure him into their boat. Once they are out in the ocean they kill him and toss him overboard but not before taking his wallet filled with the money.

Out of the Fog (1941) Anatole Litvak

“Out of the Fog” is based on a 1939 play called “The Gentle People” by Irwin Shaw that ran for four and half months on Broadway. The play had one heck of a cast that included Franchot Tone, Lee J. Cobb, Sam Jaffe, Sylvia Sydney, Elia Kazan, Martin Ritt and Karl Malden. It was produced by the legendary Group Theater and directed by the visionary Harold Clurman.  The play was an anti-fascist parable (Shaw subtitled the play, A Brooklyn Fable) of the meek overcoming the arrogant and the powerful. In the play the two main characters were elderly gentle Jewish men, Jonah Goodman and Philip Anagnos, who are shaken down for five dollars a week in protection money by smart aleck, stylishly dressed, wise ass gangster, Harold Goff (Tone). Goff also awakens the dreams and sexuality of Jonah’s bored daughter Stella (Sydney) who has hopes of leaving her meaningless existence for a more exciting life. When Goff learns the two fishermen have money saved to buy a boat, he demands they hand that over to him too. In order to rid themselves of Goff’s extortion and threats, the two fishermen lure him into their boat, once out in the ocean they kill him and toss him overboard but not before taking his wallet filled with the money.   

Force of Evil (1948) Abraham Polonsky

 

John Garfield has always been one of my favorite actors probably ranking in my top ten if I were to create such a list. He was always at his best when he played a guy from “the wrong side of the tracks”, scrappy, always behind the eight ball like say, Joe Bell in “Dust Be My Destiny” or Frank Chambers in “The Postman Always Rings Twice.” In a film such as “East of the River” he manages to rise above the mediocre material making the film more interesting than it has a right to be. When Garfield’s contract with Warner Brothers eventually ended he formed his own production company, Enterprise Productions, his first film for his new company was “Body and Soul” directed by Robert Rossen with a screenplay by Abraham Polonsky.