John Garfield (March 4, 1913 – May 21, 1952) was an Academy Award nominated American actor. Garfield was especially adept at playing brooding, rebellious, working-class character roles. Garfield is acknowledged as the predecessor of such Method-style American film stars as Marlon Brando, James Dean, and Montgomery Clift.
Born Jacob Julius Garfinkle in New York City to Jewish immigrants David and Hannah Garfinkle, he was raised in Sea Gate, Brooklyn until sent to a school for problem children in the Bronx after the death of his mother when he was seven years old. It was there, under the guidance of the school's principal, noted educator Angelo Patri, that he was introduced to boxing and acting. Unfortunately, he contracted an illness at early in life which severely damaged his heart, limiting his ability to engage in strenuous athletic activities. He won a scholarship to an acting school hosted by Maria Ouspenskaya, and made his Broadway debut in 1932.
He became a member of the ...
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Last updated: 11/11/09 at 08:11 PM
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He Ran All the Way is a 1951 crime drama, considered a film noir, starring John Garfield and Shelley Winters. The film was Garfield's last as heart problems forced him to end his career. He died less than a year later, at age thirty-nine, from coronary thrombosis due to a blood clot blocking an artery in his heart. During the film's initial run, director John Berry and writers Dalton Trumbo and Hugo Butler were uncredited due to blacklisting during the Red Scare. The film's plot of a family held in their home by a killer on the lam has often been emulated, by such films as 1955's The Desperate Hours.
Petty thief Nick Robey (John Garfield) botches a robbery, leaving his partner Al (Norman Lloyd) severely wounded as Nick escapes with over $10,000. Meeting bakery worker Peg Dobbs (Shelley Winters) in friendly conversation, when Peg takes Nick to her family's apartment, he decides to take the family hostage until he can escape. As a manhunt for Nick begins outside, the robber becomes...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043625
The Breaking Point is the second film adaptation of the Ernest Hemingway novel "To Have and Have Not." The film, directed by Michael Curtiz, is considered more faithful to the novel than the 1940s version starring Humphrey Bogart.Garfield plays Harry Morgan a pennyless fishing hire proprietor whose business is on the skids and whose family is feeling the economic pinch. He begins to work with a shady lawyer who persuades him to run illegal immigrants into California. When this goes wrong he comes even more under the influence of the lawyer who blackmails him into helping the escape of a gang of crooks who pull a racetrack heist....,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042281
Under My Skin is a 1950 American film directed by Jean Negulesco, starring John Garfield and Micheline Presle. It is based on the short story My Old Man by Ernest Hemingway about a jockey being threatened by a mobster after winning a race he had agreed to throw.
It was remade in 1979 under the original Hemingway title "My Old Man" as a CBS television movie starring Kristy McNichol, Warren Oates, and Eileen Brennan.
...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042005
Film-noir Force of Evil (1948) was the directorial debut of Abraham Polonsky who had already achieved a name for himself as a scriptwriter, most notably for gritty boxing film Body and Soul (1947). Like Body and Soul it starred John Garfield and was a thinly veiled attack on the spiritually corruptive power of capitalism. Perhaps unsurprisingly Polonsky was a known communist and later tangled with Senator McCarthy and the HUAC.The plot of Force of Evil concerns a lawyer, Joe Morse, (Garfield) working for a powerful gangster, Tucker, who wishes to consolidate and control the numbers racket in New York. This means assuming control of the many smaller numbers rackets, one of which is run by Morse’s older brother Leo Morse (Thomas Gomez). The plot which unfolds is a terse, melodramatic thriller notable for realist location photography, almost poetic dialogue and frequent biblical allusions (Cain and Abel, Judas’s betrayal, stigmata).The complex relationship between the brothers forms the...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0040366
Gentleman's Agreement is a 1947 film about a journalist (played by Gregory Peck) who falsely represents himself as a Jew to research anti-semitism in New York City and the affluent community of Darien, Connecticut. The movie was controversial in its time, as was a similar film on the same subject, Crossfire, which was also released the same year and also nominated for an Oscar for best picture. Gentleman's Agreement was based on Laura Z. Hobson's 1947 novel of the same name.
The movie is available on DVD as part of the 20th Century Fox Studio Classics collection.
Philip Schuyler Green (Gregory Peck) is a widowed journalist who has just moved to New York City with his son Tommy (Dean Stockwell) and mother (Anne Revere). Green meets with magazine publisher John Minify (Albert Dekker) and Minify asks Green to write an article on anti-semitism. After initially struggling with how to approach the topic in a fresh way, Green is inspired to adopt a Jewish identity ("Phil Green" instead of...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0039416
Body and Soul is a film released in 1947 film noir film which tells the story of a boxer who becomes involved with a corrupt promoter. It stars John Garfield, Lilli Palmer, Hazel Brooks, Anne Revere and William Conrad.The movie, written by Abraham Polonsky and directed by Robert Rossen, is a cautionary tale where the pursuit of money becomes the focus that derails a common man in his quest for success.Charley Davis, against the wishes of his mother, becomes a boxer. As he becomes more successful the figher becomes surrounded by shady characters, including an unethical promoter named Roberts, that tempt the man with a number of vices. Charley finds himself faced with increasingly difficult choices.The film received positive reviews when first released. Some modern film reviews finds the film's message heavy handed today but most reviewers continue to praise Garfield's performance. [1]TV Guide's review notes "The fight sequences, in particular, brought a kind of realism to the genre...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0039204
Nobody Lives Forever is a 1946 black-and-white film based on the novel I Wasn't Born Yesterday by W.R. Burnett.
Former conman Nick Blake, a G.I. returning to the states after World War II, looks up his old girlfriend in an attempt to get the money she has been holding for him since he left to serve in the army. He finds that not only is she dating another man, but the money he gave her to hold is gone. Blake shakes the money from his girlfriends new beau and leaves town.
Blake meets up with old conman Pop Gruber who tries to convince him that he's getting too old to con and that if he keeps it up he'll end up as "an old man selling pencils on the side of the road." Blake ignores him and ends up getting recruited by Pop to work for untrustworthy con artist Doc Ganson.
The plan is to have Blake, a lady's man, romance a rich widow and scheme her out of her fortune. The plan hits a snag when it turns out that Gladys is young and beautiful. Blake falls in love with her and attempts to...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038780
The Postman Always Rings Twice is a 1946 film noir based on the 1934 novel by James M. Cain.
This adaptation of the novel is the best known, starring Lana Turner, John Garfield, Cecil Kellaway, Hume Cronyn, Leon Ames, and Audrey Totter. It was directed by Tay Garnett, with a score written by George Bassman and Erich Zeisl (the latter uncredited).
Frank is a drifter who stops at a rural diner for a meal, and ends up working there. The diner is operated by a young, beautiful woman, Cora, and her much older husband, Nick, who is of foreign extraction. Frank and Cora have an affair. Cora is tired of her situation, married to a man she does not love, and working at a diner that she wishes to own. She and Frank scheme to murder Nick in order to start a new life together without her losing the diner. Their first attempt at the murder is a failure, but they eventually succeed.
The local prosecutor suspects what has actually occurred, but doesn't have enough evidence to prove it. As a...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038854
Tortilla Flat is a 1942 film with Spencer Tracy, Hedy Lamarr, John Garfield, Frank Morgan, Akim Tamiroff, and Sheldon Leonard based on the novel by John Steinbeck. It was directed by Victor Fleming. Danny inherits two houses, so Pilon and his poor, idle friends move in. One of them, Pirate, is saving money which Pilon endeavors to steal, until he discovers that it is being collected to purchase for Pilon's dead dog a golden candlestick, which he intends to burn for St. Francis. One of the houses burns down, so Danny allows his friends to move into the other house with him, and in gratitude Pilon tries to make life better for his friend. Things are fine at first until Danny's passion for a lovely girl (Hedy Lamaar) causes him to actually go to work. A misunderstanding caused by Pilon about a vacuum cleaner causes Danny to lose it, he becomes drunk and a bit crazy. He almost dies in an accident in the cannery but through Pilon's prayers, is restored to health. He then marries his...
Juarez is a 1939 film with Paul Muni, Brian Aherne, Bette Davis, and John Garfield about the conflict between Maximilian I, a political dupe who, according to the film, has been sent by the French as a puppet ruler, and Benito Juarez, the would-be President of Mexico. The film is so constructed as to engender sympathy for the plight of Maximilian although he fully asserts his power. He is finally arrested, imprisoned, and executed by order of Juarez, who, in the final scene, kneels before Maximilian's coffin and says, "Forgive me".Though Muni and Bette Davis are top-billed, it is Brian Aherne, as Maximilian, who has the most screen time in the film....,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0031516
Daughters Courageous is a 1939 drama film starring three of the four Lane Sisters (Lola, Rosemary and Priscilla). The fourth sister was played by Gale Page. It also starred John Garfield and Claude Rains. Based on the play Fly Away Home by Dorothy Bennett and Irving White, the film was directed by Michael Curtiz.
Freewheeling Jim Masters returns home after a 20-year absence, during which he was declared dead, to find that his wife, Nancy, is about to marry Sam Sloane, a stable local man in Carmel, California. She must now choose between her ex-husband, and her new fiancee. The Masters daughters are also upset that their irresponsible father has re-entered their lives after so long an absence. Meanwhile, the youngest daughter, Buff, is drawn to tough-guy Gabriel Lopez, a man that reminds Jim Masters of himself.
Daughters Courageous follows 1938's Four Daughters, by the same stars and director, but is unreleted to the other three films in the Lane Sisters' series because it is about a...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0031212
Four Daughters is a 1938 musical drama film that tells the story of a happy musical family whose lives and loves are disrupted by the arrival of a cynical young composer who interjects himself into the daughters' romantic lives. It stars the Lane Sisters plus Gale Page, Claude Rains, Jeffrey Lynn, John Garfield and Dick Foran. The Lanes were real sisters, members of a family singing trio. The film was written by Lenore J. Coffee and Julius J. Epstein from the Fannie Hurst novel Sister Act. It was directed by Michael Curtiz. The Lemp sisters, Ann, Kay, Thea and Emma, are prodigies in a musical family headed by their father, Adam. The Lemps also run a boarding house, and among the tenants is Felix Deitz, a young composer whom the four daughters aim to attract. Emma, the oldest daughter, is the object of affection for a nervous neighbor, Ernest, but she rebuffs his attentions. Thea, a pianist and the second oldest, is courted by a local wealthy man, Ben Crowley, but is not sure she...,
John Garfield was born
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