gavin6942 An unethical lawyer, with an older brother he wants to help, becomes a partner with a client in the numbers racket.The plot which unfolds is a terse, melodramatic thriller notable for realist location photography, almost poetic dialogue and frequent biblical allusions (Cain and Abel, Judas's betrayal, stigmata).What I really liked about this film is how it portrays the numbers racket. Whoever wrote this clearly knew what he was talking about. As someone who has studied the Mafia and its activities, I have a pretty good idea of how the numbers business works and how it can (or cannot) be rigged. These concerns are addressed in a very knowledgeable way.

Dalbert Pringle For starters, I found Force Of Evil (that's FOE, for short) to be something of a novelty, in that (being a story about racketeering/gangsterism. circa 1949), it contained almost no violence to speak of. Yep. That was certainly an unexpected and unusual twist to this particular tale.FOE starred one of my favourite actors of that era, John Garfield, who convincingly played Joe Morse, the ambitious and very greedy Wall Street lawyer.Morse eagerly joins forces with NYC mob boss, Ben Tucker, who's got big plans to completely bankrupt the city's small-time numbers racket and grab all of the profits and business for himself, and his pals.As fate would have it, Joe's older brother, Leo (one of the many small-time racketeers) is certain to take a big fall once Tucker's merger goes into action.Complete with your standard double-crosses (and a cornball romance, thrown in for good measure), FOE is a fairly solid 78 minutes of prime movie-making from post-WW2 Hollywood.Even though I have no real complaints about Garfield's no-nonsense portrayal of Joe Morse, the crooked lawyer with a heart of gold, I honestly think that this role would've been better played by Humphrey Bogart.This film abounds with plenty of impressive, b&w camera-work, all, of course, set within the hubbub of New York City.

BILLYBOY-10 What is going on here? Something about numbers racket and collection points. Garfield wants to protect his brother who is a collector who thinks he is honest and for whatever reason hates his brother. Then we meet the obvious romantic interest (played by a first time nobody) with whom Garfield gets to impart snappy dialog while she whispers goody goody in response...of course she falls for him and they kiss and then they're all in court and she never wants to see or hear of or from him again except for two scenes later when she is sitting in a night club telling him to be good and go straight. Then there is the organizations enemy who wants in so Garfields brother ends up on the rocks at the rivers edge. Oh, and Marie Windsor is thrown in to wear slinky gowns and try's to get Garfield to smooch, but he ain't interested. Then a shoot out in darkened room and Garfield climbing down to see his brother on the rocks. He climbs down and down and down. I never knew the river(s) in N.Y. were so far down from the streets...at least two miles down....well, he see's his brother and then voices over how he's gonna help the cops make the world right and the movie ends. Obviously, I thought this was lousy. It is. Really clumsy direction with sloppy editing to boot. Extremely disappointing.

kayaker36 If Dutch Schultz was not the top Jewish racketeer of the 1930's he certainly was the most infamous. A sort of John Gotti of his day, "the Dutchman" loved the limelight and portrayed himself as a public benefactor instead of the sadistic skinflint he really was.Yet with all his eccentricities, Schultz was the first to see that the dimes and nickels poor people bet on the Numbers could add up to millions a year if properly organized. When several of the Harlem Numbers bankers couldn't pay off the winners and turned to Schultz for a bailout, Schultz provided the financing but took over the banks, and most of the profits, wisely leaving the street-level organizations with their controllers and runners intact, just as in the movie.And just as in the movie, Schultz employed an accountant, one Otto Berman, said to be a mathematical genius, to fix the winning Number by placing a bet at the racetrack just as betting closed so as to throw the "handle" off a heavily bet number.In 1943, long after Schultz had been killed in a mob rubout, sports writer and war correspondent Ira Wolfert wrote a novel loosely based on the crime career of Dutch Schultz. Wolfert also collaborated on the screenplay of "Force of Evil" which was based on a part of that book. Wolfert undoubtedly is responsible for the strikingly clever tone of the narration and much of the dialog's eloquent yet realistic style."Are you telling me, a corporation lawyer, that you're running a legitimate business here?" demands the protagonist of his numbers banker brother, in exasperation at his stubborn refusal to accept a mob takeover.This picture is 63 years old. An issue arises early on of remarkable relevance today: how close a mob lawyer can get to his clients before the law treats him not as legal counsel but as a participant in the criminal enterprise. "Lawyers are nor protected from the law," as one character succinctly puts it.When attorney Bruce Cutler was disqualified from representing John Gotti on just those grounds, Gotti's lucky charm deserted him and the former "Teflon Don" died in a Federal prison.John Garfield was a fast talker and he never lost nor tried to hide his Lower East Side accent. Yet because he had stage experience every word of every line is understood. He did not mumble or swallow his words--so different from some of the so-called movie stars of today. Accordingly the former slum kid and inmate in reform school John Garfield is believable in perhaps the only role of his short film career where he wears a finely tailored suit, compete with vest and watch chain in the style of the time.