As I said yesterday, John Garfield is one of my favorite actors. He Ran All The Way is his final film. Garfield died at age 39. The featured image depicts his death at the end of the movie: It’s as if Jimmy Cagney had died after his death scene in The Roaring Twenties. I hope y’all don’t mind the spoiler. I used it because it’s such a powerful image.
The movie has something else in common with that Cagney classic, Gladys George who plays Garfield’s harridan mother:
I seem to be drawn to films made by players, directors, and writers who ran afoul of the Hollywood blacklist. He Ran All The Way is full of them: producer/star Garfield; actor Norman Lloyd; director John Berry; writers Hugo Butler and Dalton Trumbo. Credited writer Guy Endore was another of Trumbo’s fronts, so I’m sure Trumbo at least rewrote the script.
He Ran All The Way tells the story of a small time crook, Nick Robey played by Garfield. He’s recruited by Norman Lloyd who provides him with a plan and, more lethally, a gun. The robbery goes awry, leaving both Lloyd and Garfield wounded. Garfield shot a cop who pursued him. He’s now a cop killer. Nobody likes a cop killer.
Garfield’s first hide out is a public pool. The chemistry crackles when Garfield meets Shelley Winters there.
It’s the wettest meet cute I’ve ever seen.
Garfield follows Winters home, deciding to hole up there, at gunpoint. He sends mixed messages to Shelley’s parents played by veteran character actors, Wallace Ford and Selena Royle. He allows them to move around as long as the stay at home mom, stays home with him.
In a film full of great performances, Wallace Ford nearly steals the movie. He’s *that* good as Winters’ dad. He’s appalled by what’s happened to his family, which is made worse by the obvious attraction between Garfield and Winters.
There’s a pesky kid brother in the mix who nearly causes the desperate desperado to crack like this window.
He Ran All The Way is a tense, claustrophobic movie set largely in Wallace Ford’s crib. A happy ending is not possible, but the film is full of images like this by the great cinematographer, James Wong Howe:
I’ve already given away the ending but not how our star dies or at whose hands. This feature is called pulp fiction, not pulp spoilers, after all.
Grading Time: I give He Ran All The Way 4 stars and an Adrastos Grade of A-. It landed at #5 on my John Garfield Dozen. It was a fine way for a great star to conclude his brief career. It’s a pity that Garfield and Winters only made one movie together. They’re that good.
He Ran All The Way is based on a novel by San Ross:
Let’s peruse some posters.
We begin with the US and Japanese poster side-by-side:
It’s quad time:
Garfield tried to feed the family a fancy takeout turkey dinner. They refused until he waved his gat around. The scene made me hungry, so let’s all go to the lobby and see what’s on offer.
No turkey, not even stuffing or canned cranberry sauce. What can ya do?
In lieu of feasting let’s check out the lobby cards:
Note that Garfield’s jacket is yellow above and blue below. I don’t recall him changing coats.
The pesky kid brother was played by Bobby Hyatt who appeared in two of our past movie posts: High Wall and Tomorrow Is Another Day.
Now that we’ve checked into Hyatt’s past, let’s watch the trailer:
The last word goes to Eddie Muller with his Noir Alley intro and outro:
After Garfield absolutely burned up the screen in his first film, “Four Daughters,” the producers realized they’d made a mistake killing off his character and had to attempt a resurrection with a not-quite sequel called, “Daughters Courageous.” I’m also partial to his performance in “The Fallen Sparrow,” as a returning soldier haunted by torture. Definitely a gifted actor, gone way too soon.
It’s a great film.
Thanx for singling out Wallace Ford – he had many fine performances including his small, but important part in “Harvey” and his final role – Ole Pa – as Shelley Winter’s father in “A Patch of Blue.”
Another of his small but important roles was as Malachi Stack in 1958’s “The Matchmaker” where he has this great quote:
[Stack finds a purse full of money – the one lost by Mr. Vandergelder, but Stack thinks it was lost by Cornelius]
Malachi Stack: You surprised that I want to get rid of this money so quickly? Well, I’ll explain it to you: There was a time in my life that my chief interest was picking up money that didn’t belong to me. Now, stealin’s a weakness. There’s some people who say you shouldn’t have no weaknesses at all… no vices. But, if a man has no vices he’s in great danger of making vices out of his virtues. That’s a spectacle. We’ve all seen ’em. No… no… Nurse one vice to your bosom. Give it the attention that it deserves and let your virtues spring up modestly around it. I took to whiskey – whiskey took to me. Then I discovered one important rule that I’m going to pass on to you…”Never support two weaknesses at the same time.” It’s your ‘combination sinners’ that dishonor the vices and bring them into bad repute. There’s nothing worse than for a man to be a drunkard AND a thief. So, now you know why I want to get rid of this money. I want to keep my mind free to do credit to the whiskey that it deserves. And my last word to you is this: One vice at a time.
The only other movie I remember Shelly Winters being in is The Poseidon Adventure, where she also did a bit of swimming. I took a look at her Wikipedia page thinking she might have had some competitive swimming experience, but no. I guess people just liked her in a bathing suit