The Breaking Point (1950)

User Rating:

7.4/10   

Director:

Michael Curtiz

Writers:

Ernest Hemingway (novel)
Ranald MacDougall (writer)

Release Date:

6 October 1950 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Film-Noir

Tagline:

A guy who had nothing to sell but guts!

Plot:

Fishing boat captain Harry Morgan charters his boat. Due to strained finances, he is none too careful as to whom he does business with...

Plot Keywords:

Orchestral Music Score | Remake | Based On Novel

Cast

John Garfield	...	Harry Morgan
Patricia Neal	...	Leona Charles
Phyllis Thaxter	...	Lucy Morgan
Juano Hernandez	...	Wesley Park
Wallace Ford	...	F.R. Duncan
Edmon Ryan	...	Rogers
Ralph Dumke	...	Hannagan
Guy Thomajan	...	Danny
William Campbell	...	Concho
Sherry Jackson	...	Amelia Morgan
Donna Jo Boyce	...	Connie Morgan
Victor Sen Yung	...	Mr. Sing

Runtime:

97 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Certification:

West Germany:16 (nf) | Finland:K-15 (new rating: 2001) | Australia:PG | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15

Filming Locations:

Newport Beach, California, USA

Company:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Trivia:

Finnish certificate censorship # 33288 delivered on 6-3-1951 (K-16, 120m cut).

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Watching the Detectives (2007)

Well made and crisp version of often told tale

This is based on the same Hemingway novel that provided the source for the Bogart classic "To Have and Have Not" and that was remade some years later as The Gun Runners. While the credits mention the author they do not state the title of the book and it seems as if the studio was anxious to hide the fact that the movie is a remake.Leaving aside what strikes me as sharp practice the actual movie is pretty good. John Garfield plays the Bogart role -Harry Morgan an impecunious fishing hire proprietor whose business is on the skids and whose family is feeling the economic pinch .Accordingly he throws in his lot with a shady lawyer who persuades him to run illegal immigrants into California .When this goes wrong he comes even more under the influence of the lawyer who blackmails him into helping the escape of a gang of crooks who hold up a racecourse Garfield is fine as a stubborn and basically decent man striving to keep his business solvent and his family together and the other performance are solid and professional as is Michael Curtiz' brisk and tense direction

Not up to the original but worth 90 minutes of your time