“Funny thing. All I ever asked you people is
just for a place to hold up for a while, that’s all. That’s something you’d
give to an alley cat”
Garfield
describes yet another working-class man who resorts to violence to escape the
suffocating confines of the slum. In his
last film before his premature death at just 39, Garfield courses through the
full gamut of his considerable acting ability. Made by a who’s who of Tinseltown
talent harassed by the HUAC, the film was held back by United Artists while
writers Trumbo and Butler found their names changed to secure screenings.[i]
Visually,
it isn’t the most inventive noir – Berry is more concerned with character
development – but Wong Howe’s framing and expressive lighting provide many memorable
moments. Pursued unremittingly after he shoots
a policeman during a payroll heist, he runs through a rail yard. Darting
between stationary trains, his terrified face is thrust into sweating close-up
as he contemplates his next move, every inch of dramatic tension extracted. Nick hides out in a public baths as the
dragnet pulls tighter; a brilliantly conceived scene sees him hiding under
cover of water as the law circle the swimming pool, the metaphor of drowning in
his own guilt made vivid.
It’s
at the baths that Nick meets Peggy Dobbs, a plain, naïve young woman susceptible
to flattery. He uses her as cover to avoid the police and then escorts her home.
Unlike Nick’s family, Peggy’s are close knit, a model of blue-collar modesty. Although
Peggy demonstrates a fondness for him, Nick takes them all hostage when he sees
a police car crawling in the street. Unused to the tough-guy life, he garbles a
frenzied confession. His sense of being cornered is rendered in true noir
style, black shadows representing bars within the frame. Garfield’s depiction
of an essentially decent man whose mind becomes fractured by his moral descent is
exemplary; one moment he tries to ingratiate himself, the next he is monstrous,
engulfing the screen with erratic threats.
Boorishness
aside, Nick betrays a need for validation, underscored by the attitude of his
mother when she is questioned by the police – “Get him! Kill him!” As in many of
the socially aware noirs of the period – TheSound of Fury, Garfield’s Force of
Evil and Body and Soul – the
script doesn’t merely show brutal actions, but illustrates the reasons behind such
anti-social behaviour. Nick has been debased by his upbringing and turns that
against others; Peggy’s pleas to his better nature are knocked back in the same
vicious manner (“I was in a jam. I wouldn’t look at you twice”) as his mother rejected
him. The Dobbs family act as a surrogate for Nick, whose lack of an effective
father figure in his youth perhaps explains the way he begins to lay down the
law in the Dobbs home, albeit with assistance from a .45.
The
final reel is signalled by a lightning storm. Wong Howe lights the set from increasingly
low angles, distorted shadows climbing the apartment walls as the tension
mounts. Nick softens to Peggy’s amorous approaches, but the atmosphere in the apartment
becomes explosive when Nick revels in telling Fred, the head of the household,
that he and Peggy are planning to elope. A reckoning looms between a betrayed
father and the outsider who has stolen into his safe domestic space.
Berry’s
film roundly explores the psyche of an uneducated man who has fallen into a life
of crime, and there was no better actor than Garfield to portray him. His brooding
style foretells Method techniques, while his belligerence is torn from the
pages of Cagney and Bogart’s style sheets. Like many of Garfield’s characters,
Nick wants the easy option, a fast track to riches, but here he is occasionally
humbled by the stolid Fred Dobbs, who has earned his comforts with hard graft.
Clark Hodgkiss
[i] The House Committee on Un-American Activities was
originally formed to root out US citizens with Nazi ties, but is better known
for exposing and blacklisting US citizens involved with Communist or
left-leaning political causes. Garfield, involved with liberal causes
throughout his career, supported the Committee for the First Amendment, which
opposed government interference in the political beliefs of individuals. He was
effectively blacklisted, and it is often thought that the pressure of dealing
with the HUAC exacerbated Garfield’s deteriorating health – he already had
heart problems and, on May 21st, 1952, he died of a coronary
thrombosis
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