Conversations by John Garfield in his films

"This place (Hollywood) is an anesthetic. Nothing has reality."
-John Garfield

John Garfield in New York (1940), photo by John Swope

John Garfield in one of his wardrobe tests in Hollywood

John Garfield showing his wife Roberta the guns he brought back from a war tour to entertain Allied troops in 1944.


John Garfield as Mickey Borden in "Four Daughters" (1938) directed by Michael Curtiz

Mickey Borden: I wouldn't win first prize if I were the only entry in the contest.

Ann Lemp (Priscilla Lane): Mathematically speaking, I think you'd stand a fine chance.

Mickey Borden: You think they'd let me win?

Ann Lemp: Who?

Mickey Borden: They.

Ann Lemp: Who?

Mickey Borden: The fates, the destinies, whoever they are that decide what we do or don't get.

Ann Lemp: What do you mean?

Mickey Borden: They've been at me now nearly a quarter of a century. No let-up. First they said, "Let him do without parents. He'll get along." Then they decided, "He doesn't need any education. That's for sissies." Then right at the beginning, they tossed a coin. "Heads he's poor, tails he's rich." So they tossed a coin... with two heads. Then, for a finale, they got together on talent. "Sure," they said, "let him have talent. Not enough to let him do anything on his own, anything good or great. Just enough to let him help other people. It's all he deserves." Well, you put all this together and you get Michael Bolgar.

Gloria Dickson as Peggy and John Garfield as Johnnie Bradfield in "They Made Me a Criminal" (1939) directed by Busby Berkeley

Johnnie Bradfield: If you're rootin' for me, I'll go in there and bang the ears off the biggest guy in the world.

"Four Daughters" was the break-through role which would catapult John Garfield to his stardom, and "They Made Me a Criminal" was his first starring role, getting extraordinarily positive reviews.

A writer in the New Yorker saw Garfield as reflecting the plight of those young men who had come of age knowing nothing but the Depression, “I thought there was some discretion and common sense in his toughness. There is nothing noisy, stagy or showy about him. One can find hundreds along Sixth Avenue, spelling out the signs in front of the employment agencies.” John Garfield had been an amateur boxer, and the fight scenes, photographed by James Wong Howe, have a gritty reality.


John Garfield as Tommy Gordon in "Castle on the Hudson" (1940) directed by Anatole Litvak

John Garfield as Johnny Blake and Frances Farmer as Linda Chalmers in "Flowing Gold" (1940)

Linda (Frances Farmer) has grown up into a very attractive woman. Johnny goes to work for Hap, but his arrogant attitude gets on Linda's nerves. She is particularly annoyed by his nickname for her, "freckle nose". The two are attracted to each other despite themselves, though Hap does not realize it.

They finally admit they love each other. Johnny tells her he killed a man in self-defense, and they plan to go to the Venezuela oil fields.

John Garfield as Wolf in "Destination Tokyo" (1943) directed by Delmer Daves

Sparks (John Forsythe): How come they picked you?
Wolf: I don't know. Strong arm, strong back, weak mind!

Lana Turner and John Garfield as Cora and Frank in "The Postman Always Rings Twice" (1946) directed by Tay Garnett

Cora Smith: I want to make something of this place, I want to make it into an honest-to-goodness...

Frank Chambers: Well, aren't we ambitious.

"Then one day, stead of her going in alone, we both went in, and after she came out of the hospital, we cut for the beach. They gave her a yellow suit and a red cap, and when she came out I didn't know her at first. She looked like a little girl. It was the first time I ever really saw how young she was. We played in the sand, and then we went way out and let the swells rock us. I like my head to the waves, she liked her feet. We lay there, face to face, and held hands under water. I looked up at the sky. It was all you could see. I thought about God". -Frank Chambers in "The Postman Always Rings Twice" novel by James M. Cain

Lana Turner: "John Garfield was so ahead of any actor, including all of your greats, because he was of a new medium that women aren't accustomed to. And the fact that I was fortunate enough to do this film with him, because the chemistry was there, you'd do a scene and he'd bang it back to you. He was really vibrant, and so gentle, and terribly intelligent, a very shy man. I wish we had him back". -Interview Live at Town Hall (1975)

John Garfield and Geraldine Fitzgerald as Nick and Gladys in "Nobody Lives Forever" (1946) directed by Jean Negulesco

Nick Blake: I don't wanna get rough with you unless I have to!

Nick Blake: People like me don't change.

John Garfield and Joan Crawford as Paul and Helen in "Humoresque" (1946) directed by Jean Negulesco

Paul Boray: All my life I wanted to do the right thing but it never worked out. I'm outside always looking in. Feeling all the time I'm far away from home and where home is I don't know. I can't get back to the simple happy kid I used to be.

John Garfield and Hazel Brooks as Charley and Alice in "Body and Soul" (1947) directed by Robert Rossen

Charley Davis: What are you gonna do? Kill me? Everybody dies.

John Garfield as Dave Goldman in "Gentleman's Agreement" (1947) directed by Elia Kazan

Phil Green (Gregory Peck): They're more than nasty little snobs, Kathy. Call them that, and you can dismiss them too easily. They're persistent traitors to everything this country stands for, and you have to fight them, not just for the Jews, but for everything this country stands for.

John Garfield & Celeste Holm as Dave and Anne in "Gentleman's Agreement", based on Laura Z. Hobson's novel (1947).

Dave Goldman: You're concentrating a lifetime into a few weeks. You're not changing the facts, you're just making them hurt more.

John Garfield as Joe Morse in "Force of Evil" (1948) directed by Abraham Polonsky

Joe Morse: If you need a broken man to love, break your husband. I'm not a nickel, I don't spend my life in a telephone! If that's what you want for love, you can't use me.

Joe Morse: You're tired, I'm tireder. What can happen to either one of us? You tell me the story of your life and maybe I can suggest a happy ending.

Leo Morse (Thomas Gomez): The money I made in this rotten business is no good for me, Joe. I don't want it back. And Tucker's money is no good either.

Joe Morse: The money has no moral opinions.

Joe Morse: I found my brother's body at the bottom there, where they had thrown it away on the rocks... by the river... like an old dirty rag nobody wants. He was dead - and I felt I had killed him. I turned back to give myself up to Hall; because if a man's life can be lived so long and come out this way - like rubbish - then something was horrible and had to be ended one way or another... and I decided to help.

In the mid-1940s, Garfield left Warners to start his own production company, but he returned to the studio for "The Breaking Point", a film that reunited the actor with director Michael Curtiz.

Garfield had previously worked with Curtiz in his movie debut, Four Daughters (1938) and the director's reputation for box office hits was confirmed by his work on Casablanca (1942), Mildred Pierce (1945), and the holiday classic White Christmas (1954).

Garfield recalled, "Curtiz wanted to know my secret of being sexy. He decided it was time to get some honest sex into his pictures. I told him I learned everything from [stage and screen actor] Luther Adler, who was a master at making sure all the lights were turned out. I told Mike he should make Luther a technical adviser for all his pictures."

Patricia Neal as Leona Charles and John Garfield as Harry Morgan in "The Breaking Point" (1950) directed by Michael Curtiz

Upon the release of "The Breaking Point", Hemingway said this movie was the best film adaption of any of his books to date.

Garfield completed the picture, but his career took a downward turn after being investigated by the HUAC. Larry Swindell (author of the biography "Body and Soul: The Story of John Garfield") stated: "There was no more talk of a new contract offer from Warners, and ominously and suddenly, there were no offers at all. The telephone stopped ringing. Scripts stopped coming his way".

Patricia Neal plays Leona, a two-timing woman, an anything-goes sensationalist who gains respect for Harry as she sees what he's really made of.

John Garfield is amazing, a mass of virility, integrity, toughness and resentment, who also feels a strong love for his wife and kids.

Phyllis Thaxter projects concern without being a nag, and is shaken
only when she thinks that the predatory Leona might have made a claim on her man. Lucy does her best to steer Harry in the right direction by threatening to leave if he gets involved in any more criminal acts. We know that she will stick to Harry no matter what, but Harry believes her.

The Warner Archive Collection's DVD-R of The Breaking Point is a stunning B&W transfer of this unjustly-neglected winner, easily a top noir title for suspense and romantic intrigue.

To Have and Have Not may be the Hollywood classic but The Breaking Point is the better, more accomplished suspense thriller. Source: www.dvdtalk.com

John Garfield and Shelley Winters as Nick Robey and Peggy Dobbs in "He Ran All the Way" (1951) directed by John Berry

Mrs. Robey (Gladys George): If you were a man, you'd be out looking for a job.

Nick Robey: If you were a man, I'd kick your teeth in.

"Just walk slow and stick with the crowd" (He Ran All the Way)

"John Garfield's smile holds a sadness for the human race". His wife Robbe, in an article of Modern Screen magazine "Little Orphan" (1939) calls it 'Julie's orphan look' (The Germans have a word for it called 'weltschmerz', meaning 'world hurt') and it dates back to his childhood and accounts for his sense of pathos."

Twilight Stars Cemented at the Grauman’s Chinese Theatre

Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner at the Grauman’s Chinese Theatre on 3rd November 2011



Surrounded by hundreds of their “Twilight Saga” fans, Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner are immortalized by placing their hands and feet in cement at the world famous Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. So, what do they think of the honor? Source: www.accesshollywood.com


Full Ceremony at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood.

John Garfield in "The Breaking Point", "The Sea Wolf", "The Postman Always Rings Twice"...

John Garfield and Patricia Lane as Harry Morgan and Leona in "The Breaking Point" (1950) directed by Michael Curtiz

Warner Brothers, which already has taken one feeble swing and a cut at Ernest Hemingway's memorable story of a tough guy, "To Have and Have Not," finally has got hold of that fable and socked it for a four-base hit in a film called "The Breaking Point," which came to the Strand theatre. All of the character, color and cynicism of Mr. Hemingway's lean and hungry tale are wrapped up in this realistic picture, and John Garfield is tops in the principal role.

Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall as Harry and Marie Slim in "To have and have not" (1944) directed by Howard Hawks

Marie asks Harry: 'Who's the best you ever did it with?'
Harry: 'You.'
Marie: 'You lie. . . .'
Harry: 'No. You're the best.'
Marie: 'I'm old.'
Harry: 'You'll never be old.'

If you saw that first swing the Warners took at this yarn six years ago, with no less than Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in the leading roles, you did not see the Hemingway story —not by a couple of thousand words and the opaque obstruction that a changed plot involving Vichy politics would intrude.

Marie Slim was described in Hemingway's novel as: "a heavy-set, big, blue-eyed woman, with bleached-blonde hair showing under her old man's felt hat, hurrying accross the road . . . a big ox . . . Like a battleship. Terrific".

In the novel, while Harry sleeps, Marie thinks: "I've been a lucky woman. There ain't no other men like that. . . . I've had plenty of them. I've been lucky to have him. . . . I could do that all night if a man was built that way. I'd like to do it and never sleep. Never, never, no, never. I can think about you any time and get excited".

Mr. MacDougall and the Warners –for convenience sake, no doubt– have changed the locale of the story from the Florida Keys to the California coast and they have written a part for a female who wasn't even suggested in the tale.

What we surprisingly have here is a good, taut adventure story with some sense of the ironies of life–a story of a hard-luck fellow who is trying to support a wife and kids and who finds himself in the situation of having "nothing to peddle but guts." Somehow, the faces of people and the real pinch of living are revealed.

Not only Mr. Garfield is a big help in this respect–although his playing of Harry Morgan is the shrewdest, hardest acting in the show. Phillys Thaxter is remarkably effective as his worn, but still stimulating wife, and Patricia Neal is surprisingly credible as a wised-up good-time girl. Wallace Ford exudes oiliness and evil as a water-front go-between and Juano Hernandez is quietly magnificent as Harry Morgan's helper and friend. Source: movies.nytimes.com

Walter Brennan & Dolores Moran on the set of "To Have and Have Not" (1944) by Howard Hawks. Dolores Moran played the temptress Helene who tries to seduce Bogart's character Harry Morgan in the film.

There was unconscious irony in the choice of Michael Curtiz, who had directed "Casablanca" (1942), to direct the remake of "To Have and Have Not": "The Breaking Point" (1950).

As the crowd at the dock clears, Leona sighs heavily and says: "I hate mornings, it's the worst part of the day", and walks away.

Patricia Neal as seductress Leona Charles in "The Breaking Point"

Patricia Neal won the role of Leona, who was much earthier in this version than in the 1944 "To Have and Have Not". Patricia jokingly told the press: "I play a girl with no inhibitions worth mentioning. I have plenty of inhibitions myself, but while the picture is shooting, I can lose them -and I get paid for doing it". But comments by others about her character weren't always so gentle.

In an episode that Patricia recalled as "tacky", John Garfield approached her at a party before shooting commenced and took her aside, telling her: "You know you are a whore. You know what I'm saying? In the picture, I mean, you know? You're all whore".

Patricia Neal recalled she didn't know how to take him. "He was a funny man, but I didn't quite understand him".

Phyllis Thaxter played Lucy Morgan, Harry's wife.

Thaxter got along better with Garfield, saying: "I did a brief screen testing custome, and that's when I met Garfield. He was a wonderful man, and I'm positive that he and Curtiz had a big hand in my getting the part. He was very kind to me, and we had a most pleasant and enjoyable relationship. I found him to be a verious serious person with an inner turmoil that I couldn't quite understand".

John Garfield and Ida Lupino as George and Ruth in "The Sea Wolf" (1941) directed by Michael Curtiz

Ida Lupino became friends with John Garfield when they costarred with Edward G. Robinson in The Sea Wolf (1941). She liked him immensely, but didn’t like director Michael Curtiz. At the wrap party, Ida and John took revenge on Curtiz by pushing him in the water tank that they had toiled in for the entire shoot.

John Garfield and Nancy Coleman between scenes of "Dangerously They Live" (1941) directed by Robert Florey

Dr. Michael Lewis (John Garfield) is an intern at a hospital where a woman named Jane (Nancy Coleman) is admitted. She claims that she is actually an espionage agent with top-secret information that could help the Allied war effort. Michael, who is supposed to keep an eye on Jane, thinks she must be delusional, and when psychiatrist Dr. Ingersol (Raymond Massey) arrives with Jane’s father, Mr. Goodwin (Moroni Olsen), he signs Jane out in their custody. "Dangerously They Live" was scripted by Marion Parsonnet from her novel, "Remember Tomorrow".

Nancy Coleman, like several of John Garfield's co-stars, said she never really got to know who John Garfield was. She rarely saw him on the lot unless they were shooting a scene from the film. And then, near the end of the filming, he called her up and asked her for a date, the sort of date that lasts all weekend and doesn't lead to anything more when it's over. "Of course I turned him down", Coleman said, "He had such a reputation".

Joan Crawford and John Garfield as Helen and Paul in "Humoresque" (1946) directed by Jean Negulesco

Garfield and Crawford liked each other. Bob Thomas, in his biography of Joan Crawford, states that when John Garfield first met Joan he playfully pinched her nipple. She was not amused, but she decided to use this antagonism to help build a relationship between her character and Garfield's. Both of them were sexaholics, but Vincent Sherman, who later had an affair with Crawford, is fairly certain that the two stars did not engage in a physical relationship, perhaps because Garfield's wife Robbe was paying more visits than was her norm to the studio, maybe because Crawford liked to be in control of such affairs.

Lana Turner and John Garfield in "The Postman Always Rings Twice" (1946) directed by Tay Garnett

"Their second awkwardly-executed attempt to kill Nick was successful, but ultimately led to their mutual destruction in unexpected ways. As the star-crossed lovers drove along the highway and neared their home after mutual recriminations, Frank asked for a long-awaited kiss as Cora said: 'When we get home, Frank, then there'll be kisses, kisses with dreams in them. Kisses that come from life, not death'.

Distracted during the 'kiss that comes from life' while he was driving, Frank ran off the road, killing Cora ('with a kiss that comes from death') in a fatal auto accident.

Subsequently, Frank was tried and falsely convicted of her murder, and in his last words to the priest, accepted his fate: "Father, would you send up a prayer for me and Cora, and if you could find it in your heart, make it that we're together, wherever it is?"

Additional Sources:
"He Ran All the Way: The Life of John Garfield" by Robert Nott (2004)
"Patricia Neal: An Unquiet Life" by Stephen Michael Shearer (2006)

Kristen Stewart in Glamour photoshoot, December 2011

Kristen Stewart in Glamour magazine photoshoot, December 2011