Films about returning veterans were big in the 1940’s. Anyone surprised? I thought not.

The films noir that fit into the returning vets category typically involved a criminal who went off to war and returns stateside a new-ish man. Nobody Lives Forever is among the best of those movies.

John Garfield plays a con man who fought Fascism and hopes to retire his grift when he returns to the Big Apple. His girlfriend was supposed to care for his ill-gotten gains. Instead, she invests it in another man’s nightclub. Not what you would expect from a character played by FDR’s daughter-in-law, Faye Emerson:

Instead of going straight, Garfield forces Faye’s friend to cough up his dough. Then he skedaddles via train to Los Angeles with his trusty sidekick played by my countryman, George Tobias:

Garfield has no plans to resume his con artistry until he runs into Walter Brennan who has heard about a juicy mark. His source is another one of my compatriots, George Coulouris. He’s a New Yorker in exile who is cordially loathed by our star. The feeling is mutual, but a scam is a scam.

Garfield takes over the grift and falls in love with the mark: a wealthy widow played by beautiful redhead Geraldine Fitzgerald in demure mode.

Coulouris eventually loses patience with Garfield and snatches the mark, taking her to a foggy pier in Long Beach:

That leads to a thrilling ending that I’m not going into since this feature is called pulp fiction, not pulp spoilers. Suffice it to say that Walter Brennan, George Tobias, and John Garfield save the day after waiting for a phone call in a bar for hours, one of those scenes our younger readers may find vexatious:

Cellphones really have changed the world.

The acting in Nobody Lives Forever is superb. Fitzgerald and Garfield give typically nuanced performances while Coulouris chews up the scenery like a Greek ham. George Tobias is part comic relief and part Greek chorus commenting on the action. The movie is lousy with Greeks named George neither of whom is bearing gifts.

George Tobias often played John Garfield’s sidekick. He was to Garfield what Frank McHugh was to Cagney. They even let George wear a fancy robe in one of his scenes with Garfield and Brennan:

As I watched the movie, I wondered if Garfield and Brennan ever talked politics. The star was an Actor’s Studio-type lefty and Brennan was to the right of John Wayne. At least they let Brennan wear his false teeth in this movie: Howard Hawks never did.

The movie was directed with verve by Jean Negulesco whose films were always atmospheric and well-staged. The movie was shot by Arthur Edeson, one of Warner’s top cinematographers. Edeson also shot Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon. Holy impressive resume, Batman.

WR Burnett wrote the novel on which the movie is based and adapted it for the screen:

Burnett wrote the script with Humphrey Bogart in mind, but he was otherwise engaged with filming The Big Sleep. Besides, Garfield was as hot as a just fired pistol in 1946. His previous movie was The Postman Always Rings Twice. Say no more.

Grading Time: I give Nobody Lives Forever 4 stars and an Adrastos Grade of A-. It’s currently streaming on the TCM web site and app. It’s listed as a romance, not a crime picture. Go figure.

It’s time to posterize your life. I have no idea what that means but it scans. Scanning is important to me.

We begin with a side-by-side image of the long sheet posters for the United States and Denmark:

Ready to join the quad squad?

That poster from Denmark has me craving a cheese Danish. Let’s go to the lobby and see if they have any:

No baked goods. I’ll have to settle for popcorn to go with the lobby cards.

We begin with a black and white lobby card depicting a scene from the film’s first act:

The rest are in color. Not a bad thing when Geraldine Fitzgerald and her ginger hair are in them.

Let’s dive into the Warner archive and watch the trailer:

The last word goes to Eddie Muller’s Noir Alley intro and outro: