See the moon—see the stars—all for one thin dime

[sovay]

I have been recharging with TCM tonight, meaning I just finished watching a nice little B-movie by Jean Negulesco called Nobody Lives Forever (1946). John Garfield stars as Nick Blake, a demobbed grifter whose homecoming is as sweet and loving as can be expected in a film noir universe—his torch-singer girlfriend not only forgot to send him a dear-John while he was overseas, she failed to mention she started a nightclub with her new man and used Nick's savings to do it. Abandoning New York and its bad memories for the deceptive sunshine of Los Angeles, Nick falls in with old compatriots and old enemies and reluctantly agrees to become part of a long con involving wealthy widow Gladys Halvorsen (Geraldine Fitzgerald), and you will not be played for a sucker if you bet that true love will eventually interfere with the best-laid plans of crooks and cynics, but the film gets in a pleasing amount of caper/noir in the meantime. The romance plays out with all the offstage strings and softly-lit close-ups a three-hanky special could wish for, but the rest of the cast are a gallery of character actors and they regard the relationship with dawning horror, either as a double-cross in the making or a horrible professional slip-up. They may be types, but they're all so perfectly sketched: George Coulouris as the twitchy, touchy former high-roller constantly choking on his resentment of the rough diamond he's had to import into his plans; Walter Brennan as Nick's wry once-mentor, a stubbed-out cigarette of a man reduced to picking the pockets of drunks in a ten-cent telescope scam; George Tobias as his right-hand shlep, the genial, resigned sort of second banana who gives up on the slot machine he's been feeding all night just in time to see it cash out for the next fellow. There's a bellhop who used to be a jockey in Florida and clocks all the con men as they come in, an all-night diner proprietor who'll really blow his stack if one more customer calls him "pal." A pair of supporting hoods are named Windy and Shake. There was more of a shootout at the end than I was expecting, but the last few seconds dodge the fade-out kiss and give the closing lines to Tobias and his sarcastic Brooklyn honk. I will watch most things by Negulesco; he's the only director who ever gave Peter Lorre a romantic leading role. I am quite seriously considering Humoresque (1946), which would finish around four in the morning. It has Oscar Levant.

In any case, it reminded me that several months ago I found a photograph of John Garfield and never posted it, although I was very struck by it at the time:



I didn't know he'd ever looked like Edward G. Robinson.

Comments

[sovay]

why aren't you writing screenplays? You come up with the best lines.

. . . Because I have no idea how to structure a film? Besides, these are all narrative lines, and I think voiceovers have gone out of fashion these days.

I *so much* enjoy vicarious film watching with you.

Hah! Thank you. I like sharing things I like. Probably some of it is the impulse to retell—I'm still not satisfied with my description of Tobias' Al Doyle. He's a big man and he's more of a comic character than Garfield's Nick, especially with his wisecracks, his plaintive drunk scene and his hard-luck experience with various inanimate objects, but he's not stupid, or he wouldn't be Nick's go-to guy, and he can be a hard man when he has to with barely a change of face. There's more between the lines of these archetypes than first appears. It's hard not to feel something for Coulouris' hangdog Doc Ganson, who used to be a top-flight racketeer and lives mostly now in the back room of a smoky bar, banking on the next score that will put him back on his feet: he's like a man playing the part of a con artist, always a touch hollowly as if he doesn't really believe it himself, or he has to remember every time how it's done. He's overblown when he's on top and vicious when cornered, and there is at nearly all times that doubting edginess that is close to paranoia, but he's not just a heavy. He's a parody of himself now, swinging between extremes. He would not have been an unimpressive figure in his heyday. And now I'm shortchanging Walter Brennan, who was playing old-timers by his mid-thirties—he puts some nice shadings into "Pop" Gruber, who'll do his best to look out for his old protégé and his new flame, but Ganson can still put the screws on him. Richard Gaines polishes his glasses expertly as Gladys' financial advisor, who in another movie would have been stuffy and flustered and is here merely a very honest, genuinely polite man who can't spot a shark at twenty paces. You should see the film yourself if you get the chance!

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Okay, reading this I've put my finger on one aspect of what I love about what you do: it's the character sketch; it's the insight you bring to it, all the angles: "he's like a man playing the part of a con artist ... He's overblown when he's on top and vicious when cornered..." --it's like whatever character you cast your eyes on, you see completely, and then you're able to *tell* it, and not as a mere catalogue, but in a way that makes the character come alive.

So yes. That's one thing.

You should see the film yourself if you get the chance!

If we lived in the same city, I'd drop in on you one evening (but never without calling ahead) and watch one.

[sovay]

--it's like whatever character you cast your eyes on, you see completely, and then you're able to *tell* it, and not as a mere catalogue, but in a way that makes the character come alive.

I consider that a very serious compliment. Thank you.

If we lived in the same city, I'd drop in on you one evening (but never without calling ahead) and watch one.

You would be welcome.