Neil Doyle JOHN GARFIELD was well used at Warner Bros. where he became a contract player in the late '30s, beginning with his much ballyhooed first film, FOUR DAUGHTERS ('38), sharing the screen with some of Warner's best contract players and stealing many a scene as the tough guy with a heart of gold.But to listen to this documentary, his Warner contract allowed him to do too many prison films. Actually, his street smart, chip-on-the-shoulder type of personality was what the public expected to see rather than having him stretch to be someone who could do a variety of other roles.After all, those tough guy prison films were what kept him so popular with the movie-going public during all those years at Warners. When he did "stretch," the accents proved too much for him to handle (as in TORTILLA FLAT and JUAREZ) and costume films were not his forte. The Brooklyn in his voice was always just beneath the surface, as was his tough guy attitude. It was the dangerous element in his personality that women loved. Aside from the prison dramas, he got to do a number of respectable war films (DESTINATION TOKYO, PRIDE OF THE MARINES) and films of social significance like GENTLEMAN'S AGREEMENT.Garfield's biggest disappointment was not getting a chance to do Clifford Odet's GOLDEN BOY on public and repeating that performance on film. However, he made up for it ten years later by starring in a B'way version, just a little too ripe for the role at that point. We get to see a glimpse of a TV scene from the play opposite Kim Stanley which at least gives an indication of how good his performance in that role probably was.As for the celebrities who talk about Garfield, that's the weakest part of the documentary. There's nothing particularly illuminating in any of the comments by Lee Grant, Joanne Woodward, Richard Dreyfuss, Norman Lloyd or any of the others who offer little insight into what made the man tick aside from his surface toughness as a result of a tough childhood in Brooklyn. Along the way he had help from someone at a school for troubled kids and developed an interest in the theater, soon a favorite with the Group Theater.Garfield deserves a better bio than this, but it does offer some generous film clips from a few of his best films and should please fans who want to know more about his emergence as a star.

TBJCSKCNRRQTreviews This is the feature-length documentary on the DVD of The Postman Always Rings Twice, with a running time of 58 minutes. It consists of interviews, many clips from his(and those of others) films(note that those contain spoilers for several of them), some "real" footage, stills and such, and the whole thing is narrated by his daughter. I did not actually know anything about the man before watching this(so I can neither confirm nor deny anything in it, but I'd imagine it's the truth), and now I want to get more movies that he's in. Did you know that he and the rest of The Group *invented* method acting? That he became one of the victims of the shrill communist scare? Or how about that the reason he was so good at being vulnerable is because they used to call him Julie? ...ok, granted, that last one is my theory on it. In addition to giving us his life story, this goes into his personality, his choices of roles, etc. Hearing the likes of Danny Glover and Harvey Keitel talk about his influence is really amazing. Everyone has something to say, and this keeps to a nice pace. It is well-edited, and the form(that of a virtual script to open and close it) is well-chosen and unobtrusive. The ending is very sweet without being corny or sappy. There is a bit of disturbing content in this. I recommend this to fans of the subject and his pictures. 8/10

Jem Odewahn This is a very well-made documentary focusing on the life and career of popular 40's actor John Garfield. Garfield was way ahead of his time- a very natural actor who paved the way for Method actors like Newman and Brando in acting style and presence.Lots of great footage here and discussion of Garfield's films- this is a very detailed documentary that really gives the viewer insight into the man himself. It's tragic that Garfield died of a heartache when he was only 40- this was a terrible blow to the American cinema. Before his death, he was being earmarked for the role of Stanley Kolwalski in 'A Streetcar Named Desire'. We'll never know now how he would have went compared to Brando, but it's fair to say he would have turned in a darn good performance in his own right.His daughter Julie narrates this doco that tells of the primary reason why Garfield died so young- he was basically hounded into an early grave by the HUAC commission through blacklisting and continual pressure.He left our world far, far too young.

gvb0907 Narrated by his daughter Julie, this film offers the standard take on John Garfield: great actor, social activist, victim of HUAC. Clips from many of his performances are shown, including some we don't see every day on TCM. Pretty much an adoring portrait, although there are a few references to Garfield's darker side. Was he a great actor? He was always quite good, but he had his limitations. He was generally better in film noir than the great outdoors and often stronger in supporting roles than in leads. The film makes an argument that Warner's frequently misused him, but he was hardly unique in this regard. In any case, he did some of his best work there (e.g.,"Pride of the Marines") before free lancing in the late 40s. Was he an activist? Yes, though not any more so than a number of people and probably less than some. His roots may have been in the Group Theater, but even there the real emphasis was on acting, not activism. The film doesn't spend too much time on this side of his life, which is just as well, though the leftist actors who are interviewed clearly warm to this theme and to the concept of his martyrdom. For all the talk about HUAC and blacklisting (Joe Bernard states flatly "the Committee killed him"), Garfield's acting career was at most only half dead when he died at 39. He'd just been on Broadway in "Golden Boy" and surely could have made a good living on the stage, which was always his first love. As for his film career, that was probably on the skids anyway by 1952. Noir and social realism were played out. Hollywood was entering a white bread era and Garfield's urban/ethnic grittiness didn't fit into a landscape dominated by Westerns, Biblical epics, Technicolor musicals, and romantic comedies. Had he lived he surely would have made a big comeback in the 60s and 70s. It's not hard to imagine him as Sol Nazerman or Hyman Roth, but it wasn't in the cards. In his last film, titled ironically "He Ran All the Way", he was allowed very little running. Rheumatic fever in the early 30s had damaged his heart and there may have been congenital problems as well (his son died of a heart attack at 41). Very likely he had been dying for years. Recommended primarily for Garfield's fans or for those completely unacquainted with his work. Others will find it little more than routine.