326 - The Breaking Point, United States, 1950. Dir. Michael Curtiz.

Wednesday, November 22, 2017

326 - The Breaking Point, United States, 1950.  Dir. Michael Curtiz.

Harry owns a fishing boat.  He has worked ten years to buy it.  He charters it out to take vacationers fishing.  He uses his fees to pay his mate--his best friend Wesley Park--cover expenses, make payments on the boat, and provide for his family, a wife and two daughters who live on the water in Newport Beach, California.

The water is all Harry has ever known.  He calls himself a "boat jockey."  He served in the Navy, saw combat, and earned a Purple Heart.  His wife needles him occasionally about going to work for her family in the lettuce groves in the Salinas Valley, but he refuses to quit his life.  He says he can spot a marlin a mile away, and that is his one talent.

Of course we know if he were to move from Newport to Salinas, he would be leaving the world of Hemingway for the world of Steinbeck, and that cannot happen.  But he does not know that.  He is a character in the world of Hemingway.  He has tests ahead of him.  Grace under pressure.

This season has been lean.  His credit has dried up.  He has to spend his entire deposit from his new customer to get gas and give his wife Lucy grocery money.  His new customer is a man named Hannagan.  He is about to run up an $830 tab fishing off the coast of Mexico.  That is good news for Harry.  Harry can use that money to make a couple boat payments and pay down his creditors.

But the good news turns to bad news rather quickly.  Hannagan brings a girl aboard.  Leona Charles.  She looks as though she has not come for fishing.  She also looks as though she has not come for Hannagan.  Harry is not too keen about that.  He runs a clean outfit.  He does not want trouble.  But sure enough, over the course of the trip she immediately begins working on him, flirting with him, trying to get his attention, trying to find his cracks.  He ignores her.

But the real news is yet to come.  In Mexico Hannagan goes gambling.  Cockfighting.  He spends his money.  He catches a plane back.  He stiffs Harry.  He abandons Leona.  Now she expects a ride back.  And Harry has forty cents to his name.

Enter Duncan.  Attorney by trade.  Dealmaker by design.  He has never met a hand under the table that he would not shake.  An underhanded undertabler.  An undertabled underhand.  He has been leaning on Harry for months.  Harry runs a clean boat.  Harry himself is clean.  Therefore, he is the perfect person to do things dirty.  Everyone respects him.  No one will suspect him.  Last night at the cockfight Harry turned him down.  But this afternoon with Hannagan gone, his girlfriend hanging on, and no money, what else is he to do?  Duncan knows.

Sixteen minutes into the movie Leona calls Harry by name.  Harry Morgan.  Harry Morgan!  Ding ding ding ding ding.  (That is the sound of the bell going off in your head.)  Aside from Nick Adams, Harry Morgan is the most famous character name out of Hemingway.  Not Harry Morgan the prolific character actor who became a household name as Col. Sherman T. Potter on M*A*S*H, and not Harry Morgan from the Showtime series Dexter, whose name the novelist Jeff Lindsay shamelessly stole from Hemingway (his wife is after all Hemingway's niece), but the Harry Morgan Hemingway made famous in his 1937 novel To Have and Have Not.

At this point, if you are a reader, you realize that you are watching an adaptation of To Have and Have Not.  Then you forget it.  It is not important to compare it to either the book or the Howard Hawks film.  This film is better enjoyed watching it on its own.

Duncan will set up Harry with a job, though he is really setting him up with a set up.  And Harry's challenges will continue to build up to the breaking point.

Michael Curtiz is a phenomenal director.  We talked about him yesterday.  We are now five years and ten films after Mildred Pierce, and he continues to fire on all cylinders.  One thing that stands out in this film is his stage-like framing.  He angles the set in perspective, with a single vanishing point to the right or left, often to the right, offscreen.  Then he places pairs of actors upstage and downstage of one another along that access to create depth.  He sets the camera, allows the actors to enter the space, and then adjusts the camera to follow the actors, by dollying down, pushing in, and dollying left or right in one subtle motion, and then ending by stopping again on the new framing, with each similar take beginning and ending in a static shot with a smooth movement in the middle.

Meanwhile, John Garfield's American Laboratory and Group Theater training are apparent from the beginning.  From the moment he steps onto the boat it seems as though he is a boatman and not an actor, as though he has lived and worked on this boat his entire life.  He is so familiar with every square inch of it, and where to go, what to do, and how to do it, that it is a delight to watch him.  He stays alive in behavior throughout the film, working deftly with his hands, at ease, relaxed, and natural.  He is an actor's actor.

Victor Sen Yung appears as Mr. Sing.  He was a brilliant contract player who worked steadily for a quarter century, including both the Mr. Moto and Charlie Chan series, several Bogart thrillers, and most deliciously in William Wylers proto-noir starring Bette Davis, The Letter (1940).

Patricia Neal plays Leona, and she plays her with abandon.

Juano Hernandez plays Harry's best friend and shipmate Wesley Park in a beautifully modern role.  Juano Hernandez's entire career appears to have been beautifully modern.  He was born in 1896 and started working very early--in the circus, on radio, in Vaudeville, and in choirs.  He made his first film in 1914 and was nominated for a Golden Globe in 1949's William Faulkner adaptation Intruder in the Dust.  His son, Juan Hernandez, plays his son, Joseph Park.  Harry's daughters, Amelia and Connie, played respectively by Sherry Jackson and Donna Jo Boyce, are friends with Joseph.

The film ends--and this is not a spoiler--with Joseph standing alone as the forgotten boy, the son of the forgotten man.  In fact--and this may be why this is a not a spoiler--this may be the forgotten ending.  The viewer's attention is on Harry and his family.  The director's attention is on Wesley and his family, in this case his son.

The novel To Have and Have Not is one thing.
The film To Have and Have Not is another thing.
This film, The Breaking Point, is yet another thing.

Allow them to stand on their own.  It is not necessary to compare them to one another and discuss which is more like the source material.  They are different stories told by different storytellers in different mediums over different years.  And they are all outstanding.

This film is exceptional.

It is a good film for actors to study.

As well as filmmakers.

It is also a good film to watch and enjoy.

In the good and capable hands of one of the great directors.

At one of the great studios.

At the height of the Golden Age of Hollywood.