LastingAware The greatest movie ever!

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Helloturia I have absolutely never seen anything like this movie before. You have to see this movie.

Tyreece Hulme One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

evanston_dad "The Breaking Point" is technically considered to be a remake of Ernest Hemingway's "To Have and Have Not," first brought to the screen with Bogie and Bacall. But it feels like a whole different story in just about every conceivable way. John Garfield excelled at playing prototypical noir heroes, desperate men doing desperate things when feeling trapped by an unfair fate. This is the role he has here, and watching his character dig himself deeper and deeper into shady doings that he knows are shady from the outset is like watching a slowly unfolding car accident. Patricia Neal is extremely fetching and knows how to deliver a sardonic one liner like no one's business, but the script doesn't do a whole lot with her other than have her appear here and there as window dressing. The stand out for me was Phyllis Thaxter as Garfield's plain Jane wife. It's refreshing in a film from 1950 to see a housewife portrayed as something other than a mindless cipher for her husband's thoughts and desires. Instead, she has a mind of her own and reserves of strength he might not give her credit for.The most quietly astonishing thing about "The Breaking Point" is its treatment of Garfield's friend and ship assistant, a black man played by Juano Hernandez. The fact that he's black is a complete non-issue in the film. He's treated as an equal by Garfield and his family, and none of the stereotypes about black people that were so prevalent in movies from this time period, even in movies with their hearts in the right places, are present here. The final scene of the film involves this character's son, and it's so striking, and so devastating, that in retrospect the entire film almost seems to be about that scene even though it has almost nothing to do with everything that's come before it.Michael Curtiz provides the no-frills direction.Grade: A

blanche-2 With the Depression, the so-called "upper class," the subject of so many plays and films, began to fade and be replaced by the work of playwrights such as Clifford Odets.John Garfield was the type of leading man who came out of that kind of working man play -- more rugged than romantic, more blue collar than white collar, more at home in a leather jacket than a tuxedo. That leading man type would peak post-war with the likes of Dean, Brando, Steiger, Newman, McQueen, and others. But their predecessor was John Garfield.Here he stars in his second-last film, as he would soon be blacklisted -- it's "The Breaking Point," based on the Hemingway novel "To Have and Have Not," but not really like the Bogart-Bacall film, which borrowed the title.In "The Breaking Point," Garfield plays Harry Morgan, who runs a charter boat in California. He has a wife, Lucy (Phyllis Thaxter) and two daughters (Sherry Jackson, Donna Jo Boyce). Times are tough (the original novel took place during the Depression) and Harry is having trouble making enough money to pay off his boat and raise his family. Lucy wishes her husband would work for his father on his lettuce farm in Salinas, but Harry says all he knows is boats. Because he needs money, Harry agrees to carry out a shady deal, transporting Chinese to the United States. But when he is cheated out of most of his money, he returns the men where he picked them up. However, someone rats on him and he nearly loses his boat.When the boat's owner threatens to take the boat for nonpayment, Harry agrees to another shady deal; this one proves more dangerous.Very intense film which also stars Juano Hernandez, who was wonderful in so many films until his death in 1970; Patricia Neal in her "babe" days, as a former boat passenger who is attracted to Harry; and Wallace Ford, as a foolish man involved in nefarious schemes. William Campbell, whose big claim to fame was that he was married to JFK's girlfriend Judith Exton, plays a low-level criminal.John Garfield gives a brilliant performance as a stubborn, intense, desperate man who doesn't know where to turn. His last movie, He Ran All the Way, was a B movie and a clear indication that, thanks to the Communist witch hunt, he was on his way out. He died two years later.Beautifully directed by Michael Curtiz, the end of the movie is especially poignant.

MartinHafer Harry (John Garfield) is a guy who is having a world of trouble. His fishing charter business is having nothing but bad luck and he's having a hard time supporting his family as well as keeping his boat. He's so desperate that he does something he never thought he'd do--work for mobsters to make some quick money. But these people are thugs and the deeper Harry gets, the harder it looks for him to survive. Can he possibly keep his boat, his family AND his head?This film is a more faithful adaptation of the story that was made several times. First, it was a Bogart/Bacall picture, "To Have and Have Not" and later it was remade two more times as well as was the inspiration, in part, for "Islands in the Stream". So, if this all seems familiar, this is probably why.While the Bogart version is very stylish, I think this later John Garfield film is superior. The dialog (like the original) is very snappy but the film seems more realistic and taut. It also features some nice supporting performances by Juano Hernandez and Wallace Ford. In many ways, the film plays like "To Have and Have Not" merged with "The Killing" as well as "Key Largo". Tough, very dark and very well made--one of Garfield's best because it was NOT formulaic and that final shot by Michael Curtiz was amazingly good.By the way, if you watch the film, you might (like me) think that Patricia Neal's character wasn't necessary for the movie. What do you think?

Sam Sloan I didn't think there existed such a movie, but I was wrong, though earlier versions of this same story, Key Largo and To Have and Have Not also were pretty good. Nothing else Hemingway wrote really translated well to the big screen, not The Snows of Kilamanjaro, not For Whom the Bell Tolls, not The Old Man and the Sea, not The Sun Also Rises nor A Farewell to Arms. All movies from those novels are terrible bores in my opinion and if you look them up here in the IMDb, the ratings these movies got bear me out. But this movie with John Garfield playing luckless boat captain Harry Morgan with the two female leads played by Patricia Neal as the likable, attractive, world wise, cynical whore and Phylis Thaxter as his loving but insecure plain wife who loves him more than as she says she could love any other man on this earth were both terrific. So you want to see a really good movie with a story written by Ernest Hemingway and like me, you think no such thing exists? See this movie!