Force of Evil is a 1948 film starring John Garfield. The film is a thinly veiled attack on the spiritually corruptive power of capitalism.

Written by Ira Wolfert and Abraham Polonsky. Directed by Abraham Polonsky.

Joe Morse

• This is Wall Street... and today was important because tomorrow - July Fourth - I intended to make my first million dollars. An exciting day in any man's life. Temporarily, the enterprise was slightly illegal.
• A man could spend the rest of his life trying to remember what he shouldn't have said.

Leo Morse

• I am sensible. I am calm. I'll give you my answer calmly and sensibly, my final answer. My final answer is finally no. The answer is no! Absolutely and finally no! Finally and positively no! No! No! No! N - O!
• All that Cain did to Abel was murder him.

Dialog

Doris: What are you celebrating, Mr. Morse?

Joe: A clear conscience.

Doris: Oh, whose?

Leo: 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: The money has no moral opinions.

Leo: I find I have, Joe. I find I have.

Cast

• John Garfield - Joe Morse
• Thomas Gomez - Leo Morse
• Marie Windsor - Edna Tucker
• Howland Chamberlain - Freddie Bauer
• Roy Roberts - Ben Tucker
• Paul Fix - Bill Ficco
• Stanley Prager - Wally
• Barry Kelley - Detective Egan
• Paul McVey - Hobe Wheelock
• Beatrice Pearson - Doris Lowry

About

• Force of Evil stands up under repeated viewings as one of the great films of the modern American cinema...
  • Andrew Sarris, The American Cinema: Directors and Directions 1929-1968, E.P. Dutton & Co., 1968, ISBN 0-525-47227-4