Nobody Lives Forever (1946)

Directed by Jean Negulesco. Starring John Garfield, George Coulouris, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Walter Brennan, Faye Emerson, George Tobias, Robert Shayne, Richard Gaines.

Nothing new here when Garfield’s war veteran tries to con a rich widow (Fitzgerald) through an investment scheme but ends up falling in love with her. Director Jean Negulesco provides only yeoman-level craft, atmosphere, and acting discipline, although Brennan (as a wily grifter mentor) sheds most of his more wheezy tendencies for an interesting figure. There’s just barely enough gutter-level punch to W. R. Burnett’s dialogue to keep it from feeling like a handsome redress of old romantic-noir clichés, but the movie as a whole contains too many labored passages and never quite takes hold. Filmed in 1944. Credits state that Burnett adapted his own novel, but the novel was based on an original script he wrote several years earlier but was never produced.

52/100