On Tonight on TCM!!!

Yeah, schwap, that ending is unexpected and very affective. No matter how many times I see this film, when Hernandez is shot I gasp like I've seen it for the first time. (Talk about taking TBP over THaHN -- love Walter Brennan, but he's a cartoon in the latter, compared to the flesh and blood Hernandez plays in the former!) And so Joseph at the end is just heartbreaking. It's like the film is owning up to Joseph's -- and Wesley's -- isolation not only in the real world but in the very film itself.

Man, is this film supremely well-acted. One thing it confirms yet again for me is how much I love Wallace Ford, who I guess I first encountered in A Patch of Blue. Man, in this one, I spend most of his scenes wanted Garfield to beat the keee-rap out of him, he's so unctious... and then when he's freaking out at the heist he's been forced to attend, he's so helpless and pitiful, damned if he and the filmmakers don't make me feel bad for him!

And, maybe the single, identifiable element that most marks TBP superior to THaHN: Phyllis Thaxter as Lucy, a character who, of course, isn't even in the first film. Now, you gotta understand how insanely in love with John Garfield I am; for me he is, despite a fine critical reputation, just about the most underrated actor in the history of film, since I think very, very few were better than him -- and he's by far the sexiest, most beautiful man of the Hollywood studio era. And this is one of his very best performances. And I *LOVE* Patricia Neal. Then there's Hernandez and Ford, and others doing fine work in smaller parts. The KIDS are pretty damn incredible...

But, I gotta tell you, I think Phyllis Thaxter *almost* beats them all, including Garfield, in a kind of role that so often either provides barely commendable support or outright sucks. But the material for this character is good, and Thaxter runs with it, bringing such life to a "normal" type of person. Even when Lucy tries for glamour (with the hair-dyeing), she can't escape her lovely, down-to-earth ordinariness. Again, that *real* blood that courses thru the film, and Lucy -- as written, directed and especially acted by Thaxter -- as mother and wife, represents so much of the humanity of the film, its heart, if you will.

Speaking of which, a funny thing occurred to me watching TBP this time. Mr. Muller explained to Robert Osborne, in their talk after the film ended, why he felt TBP was a true Film Noir. But, at some point in the film, it hit me that it was also, kinda at heart... a Western.

So much of the Western is Man (and men) going out into the unknown and making their way separate from society -- part of the very point is to be FREE of society. But, the irony of this tennant of the Western is that much of the frontiering is done to BRING society to the unknown. The Man (and men) of many a Western destroy what they seek, if slowly in some cases. The conflict between 'rugged individualism' (men) and civilization (women) has long been integral to the Western.

Well, that's an awful lot of what TBP is about. Morgan is torn between his (arguably childish) individualist definition of himself on the one hand and the societal roles which he's accepted on the other, in the form of the three main females in his life. He is even given the opportunity to choose between those females and a fourth who herself has cast off the rules of society -- as Patricia Neal explained that Garfield emphasized to her before filming began (in that little interview bit TCM used to promo this showing of the film), she's a whore.

In a real important way, The Breaking Point is a Western!

Matthew

I too felt sad for little boy & get frustrated at times with TCM's lack of what I feel are: important comments. Like mentioning a star is in a new movie or such..
Anyways, glad for TCM's choices in film noir flicks!