Popular reviews

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  Review by Peter Labuza ★★★½ 3

  There's a scene where John Garfield orders this kid to go get dinner for the family, and he brings back a bag full of Chinese take out boxes along with a giant turkey, but the boxes are stuffed with usual Thanksgiving foods. The boxes, originally known as oyster pails, were designed for fish markets to use as containers to give to customers who bought oysters (you can see the original 1908 patent here). The boxes were designed for the often dirty and smelly molluscs that could be easily thrown out after delivery. Chinese restaurant adapted these boxes as perfect for their often strong smelling and often heavy sauce foods.

  Chinese restaurants hit a boom in over the often more popular…

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  Review by theriverjordan ★★★★½ 16

  “He Ran All the Way” is a taut and tight noir, with one of the most painful personal unravellings in all of cinema. 

  The final film of John Garfield, “Ran” immediately preceded the death of its star, only to release dead on arrival. With two screenwriters; Dalton Trumbo and Hugo Butler, and its director, John Berry, on Hollywood’s communist black list, the film fell promptly into the shadows of obscurity. 

  “He Ran” uses the familiar noir setup of a fugitive taking an innocent family hostage, but turns the concept on its head by making the domestic structure, rather than the stolen dough, the ultimate score. 

  Garfield was between heart attacks at the time that he filmed “He Ran;” a stress…

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  Review by theironcupcake ★★★★½ 31

  "Everybody gets to the point where they draw a line. When that line is drawn, you can't force them any farther. Not even with a gun. Not even if you beat 'em to death. People are like that."
  "You read that in a book somewhere. I think you're dead wrong.'

  Okay, so I am skimming through my copy of Shelley Winters’ first memoir, Shelley: Also Known as Shirley (1980), and I forgot how absolutely wild it is. (I’ll get to reviewing the film too eventually, just hold on.) Her book only goes so far as approximately 1954 – I assume that the next volume begins with The Night of the Hunter – and let me tell you, that woman lived.…

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  Review by Jesse Snoddon ★★★★ 6

  "Get the dandruff outta your blood."

  After a robbery goes wrong, Nick Robey (John Garfield) needs a place to lay low. He picks up Peggy Dobbs (Shelley Winters) and sweet talks his way back to her place. As the manhunt intensifies and he gets increasingly desperate, he takes her and her family hostage in a vain attempt to wait things out until the heat dies down. 

  Garfield is fantastic in what is sadly his last role (he was blacklisted afterwards and didn't live much longer). He's sweaty before the inciting incident even occurs and only gets more manic and anxious as the situation gets more and more stressful. It's a two pronged role that gives him some room to range,…

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  Review by Anna Imhof 🌸 9

  After a robbery in which he might have killed a cop, crook John Garfield goes swimming and underwater he literally bumps into a young Shelley Winters who’s still learning how to swim. She’s excited, she’s delighted, you can tell this doesn’t happen to her everyday. And what’s even better—he seems to like her back! He walks her home, she’s nervous, possibly fantasizing about a little goodbye kiss, but what do you know, life has other plans. Before you know it, he’s holding her family hostage because he needs a place to hide from the police.

  The most interesting relationship here actually doesn’t even involve Garfield, but is the one between Winters and her father, played by one of my favorites,…

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  Review by pirateneckbeard ★★★★ 4

  This noir fires at all pistons from an amazing score by Franz Waxman to look by the great James Wong Howe co-written by Dalton Trumbo and such a great cast. It grabs so much tension and confluence of emotions that really looks sharp here. Sure it might be a little heavy handed at times but I still think it works for the greater good of the story. John Garfield really does put on a clinic here. Damn shame it was his last. Glad I caught up with this for noirvember. Side note can't believe the only other John Berry film I have seen is The Bad News Bears Go to Japan. Even though not that good I think I should check out some more of his earlier works.

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  Review by sarah ★★★½

  It’s hard to watch this film while knowing about John Garfield’s death, his health problems, and the way HUAC hounded him for not naming names. His sheer exhaustion is so evident on his face, and his character’s desperation takes on another meaning entirely. Two parallel stories, one real, the other fiction, both with the same fate.

  3.25/5

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  Review by covkate ★★★★½

  Ah, I've been trying to watch this film for ages! I make no secret of how much I love John Garfield and he doesn't disappoint here (does he ever?).

  A gritty, intense, and surprisingly moving film, Nick comes across as a violent, no-good loser, and yet of course I couldn't help feeling deeply sorry for him (I'm so easily manipulated!). It's a cruel twist of fate to place him in the one place that would torture him the most, in the heart of a loving family, the likes of which he has never experienced. He is cruel to them in turn, resenting them, lashing out against the very thing he barely understands he wants. His back story doesn't excuse his…

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  Review by Dizzle_Sizzle ★★★★ 4

  Ostensibly, this is something that shouldn't work on paper, yet it still tensely steamrolls toward something dire on account of Garfield's on-the-lam Nick's light switch demeanor as someone perpetually at odds with himself, struggling to procure something that can never be his (love) as it runs parallel to the peoples it should come from he'll never know, in this life or another. In his attempt to ingratiate him with Winters' Peggy's unshakable family unit out of necessity, blowouts with end with awkward attempts at equally awkward reconciliation, and tepid bids for togetherness are thwarted by noirish paranoia that accentuates just how mutable Garfield is as each second warrants it. His presence is always a threat, and despite physical evidence of…

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  Review by Bob McQueen ★★★½

  Honestly, there really wasn't much running like the title would have you thinking. He ran, then fast walked, then swam some, then took a taxi to Shelly Winters house where he proceeded to hold her family hostage as his paranoia ebbed and flowed. There's some really well done tense scenes as police sirens set him off to flashing the gun around or the defiance of the family to eat the turkey dinner bought with blood money. And really a great ending. Good noir!

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  Review by Abdulla Alsaleh ★★★★½ 2

  A few days ago, I came across He Ran All the Way on Letterboxd, and seeing the interesting title, twelve-word premise, and the fact that it was on the Criterion Channel made me want to see the film at some point this week, so I ended up doing just that. He Ran All the Way makes the absolute most out of its 77 minute runtime by packing the film with tension to spare, as the claustrophobic apartment, hard-boiled dialogue, and the looming threat of death above all the main characters makes every one of their decisions and confrontations feel more significant. After James Wong Howe's cinematography in Sweet Smell of Success blew me away, I was really glad to see…

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  Review by Brian Formo ★★★★ 3

  A Place in the Sun
  Night of the Hunter
  Lolita
  now He Ran All the Way...
  Shelley Winters sure knew how to pick the wrong men lol great ending!!