Popular reviews

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  Review by sakana1 ★★★★ 4

  Thoughts, I have them.

  There’s a fascinating philosophy at work here, one that is deeply foreign to the mentality of the 21st century: it’s a celebration of being ordinary. In the world of Out of the Fog, trying to rise above ordinary is dangerous, and aspiring to do so is a hurtful, intentional rejection of what you come from, and the people who made you what you are. Ambition is deadly. In the world of Out of the Fog, a father calling his daughter “ordinary” is, ultimately, telling her that he loves her; today, that same emotion is conveyed by telling children they’re extraordinary, that they’re special, that they are meant for great things. The difference is profoundly jarring, and…

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  Review by Jesse Snoddon ★★★½

  "You'll never live to be an old man."

  Slimy gangster Harold Goff (John Garfield) pushes his extortion racket to the limit when he targets aging tailor Jonah Goodwin (Thomas Mitchell) and his friend Olaf (John Qualen). Jonah already feels the need to take a stand but is forced to do so faster when his daughter Stella (Ida Lupino) takes a romantic interest in the unsavoury scumbag. 

  There's an interesting parallel between father and daughter that's highlighted here. Jonah dreams of buying a boat and taking a dream vacation to fish with Olaf. Stella is young enough that her life feels like a boring trap she's desperate to escape, leading her to make typical dumb young person decisions. Though it likely didn't…

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  Review by josh lewis ★★★ 2

  decent little noir with john garfield as an extortionist tormenting two poor old fisherman into giving him their life savings. i think he hams up his criminal antics to a pretty cartoonish degree that doesn't exactly merge cleanly with the more gentle father/daughter class melodrama between ida lupino and thomas mitchell but still works.

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  Review by Fint ★★★★

  In the grand scheme of things, Out of the Fog is no masterpiece. It is, however, studio filmmaking of the early 1940s par excellence. It has two stars in sharply defined roles - good gal Ida Lupino falling for bad boy John Garfield. It has a tight running time filled with incident. It has a single dockside set, fabulously constructed in the Old Hollywood style, and shrouded in atmospheric Warner Bros fog. It has a half dozen excellent character actors giving life to roles that are in many ways as important as the nominal leads. Here Thomas Mitchell and John Qualen excel, while Aline McMahon and Leo Gorcey pump zest into their brief bits. (Whoever knew that Eddie Albert had…

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  Review by Esther Rosenfield ★★★ 3

  took me about half an hour to realize i wasn't watching Out of the Past :/

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  Review by Filipe Furtado ★★★½

  Very good docks melodrama. Strong mood and sense of place and James Wong Howe usual expressive cinematography. Litvak direction can try to hard on spots and one wishes this wasn't the code era and the film could avoid softing the main action in the end. Fine script and the cast (Lupino, Garfield, Mitchell) is great.

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  Review by trolleyfreak ★★★★ 18

  'The man that collects the money always comes..' (John Qualen as Olaf Johnson)

  Brief Synopsis: Two old guys who like to fish in their spare time (Qualen and Thomas Mitchell) are forced to pay protection money to the local hoodlum (John Garfield) who is having an affair with one of their daughters (Ida Lupino).

  Verdict: There's a whole lot to enjoy in this Warner Brothers drama, an adaptation of a play by Irwin Shaw called The Gentle People by the writing team of Richard Macaulay and Jerry Wald, assisted by future director Robert Rossen. For example, Garfield's tough guy act is always fun to watch. He's totally irredeemable in this one, as nasty and obnoxious at the end of the…

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  Review by RetroHound ★★★½ 7

  Thomas Mitchell plays neither an Irishman, nor a drunk, but rather a simple Swedish tailor living by the Brooklyn docks who loves fishing with his best friend John Qualen. John Garfield plays a "protections man" who extorts money from boat owners in exchange for not setting the boat on fire. Ida Lupino is Mitchell's daughter who falls for Garfield. Even after she finds out he's extorting money from her father, she still is crazy about him. Dumb broad. Then she tells Garfield about some money Mitchell and Qualen have saved. Dumb broad. Will the guys have to give up their life savings or can some other solution be found?

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  Review by J ★★★ 3

  Criterion Channel - Fox Noir #3

  Beautiful and bored Stella Goodwin has had enough of her ordinary life. A stable job is too much work. A sweet boyfriend is too unpleasant. She wants an adventure so bad she is immediately, thoughtlessly engulfed by the smouldering attraction with a horrible, dishonest man. Donning a slick coat and a fashionable hat, with a lighted cigarette between the fingers, and an ostrich leather wallet to complement, he rouses the sleeping recklessness out of her and extorts money out her father. Very soon the repercussions of such a relationship sail on the rough seas of conflict and crisis. But no amount of persuasion can pull her away from this affair; a romanticised Havana far…

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  Review by RanchoTuVu ★★★★

  Ida Lupino as phone company operator and the daughter of Thomas Mitchell and girlfriend of Eddie Albert is wishing and waiting for a more eventful existence when small time hood John Garfield starts hanging around the waterfront extorting fishermen by threatening to burn their boats. The police officer on patrol of the waterfront suspects him all along but Garfield is so fast on his feet he still works his way into the wallets of Thomas Mitchell and his fishing partner John Qualen, playing a Swedish tailor, while capturing the infatuation of Ida Lupino, who looks fantastiic. The two start dating, one night in a swanky night club in New York with a Rhumba line, but the story is one which…

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  Review by Neill Shaughness ★★★½

  The ending is a bit too tidy, but Garfield as Goff rivals Cagney in performances of street level thugs with delusions of grandeur and the photography is excellent.

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  Review by Robin MK ULTRA ★★★★½

  Bold yet delightful noir with a touch of gangster crime. Really enjoyed this film.