Force of Evil (1948)
John Garfield: Joe Morse
Photos
Quotes
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[after Joe bails his brother, Doris and the others out of jail]
Doris Lowry : You know I've got my whole life to think about now and you won't be of any help.
Joe Morse : How do you know? You know everything I touch turns to gold. It's raining out and I promised my brother to take you home.
Doris Lowry : Well, that's a lie.
Joe Morse : Well, it's not true; but I would have had he asked. You know you can't tell about your life 'til you're all through living it. Come on, I'll give you a lift. You're tired, I'm tireder. What can happen to either one of us? You tell me the story of your life and maybe I can suggest a happy ending.
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Doris Lowry : You're a strange man... and a very evil one.
Joe Morse : And you're a sweet child, and you want me to be wicked to you.
Doris Lowry : Now what are you talking about?
Joe Morse : Because you're wicked. Really wicked.
Doris Lowry : What are talking so crazy for, Mr. Morse?
Joe Morse : Because you're squirming for me to do something wicked to you. Make a pass for you, bowl you over, sweep you up, take the childishness out of you, and give you money and sin. That's real wickedness.
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[last lines - voice over]
Joe Morse : I found my brother's body at the bottom there, where they had thrown it away on the rocks... by the river... like an old dirty rag nobody wants. He was dead - and I felt I had killed him. I turned back to give myself up to Hall; because if a man's life can be lived so long and come out this way - like rubbish - then something was horrible and had to be ended one way or another... and I decided to help.
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Edna Tucker : You're wide open, Joe. I can see into you without looking.
Joe Morse : Don't bother; besides it's not nice to do.
Edna Tucker : More interesting than when you have a rock for a husband like mine. He's a stone, that man. Whole world are rocks and stones to him.
Joe Morse : Why tell me? Tell him.
Edna Tucker : Never tell him anything. Makes me feel unnecessary.
Joe Morse : If I make you feel NECESSARY then I'm making a mistake.
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Joe Morse : Wouldn't you like to celebrate on a really large scale, Miss Lowry?
Doris Lowry : What are you celebrating, Mr. Morse?
Joe Morse : A clear conscience.
Doris Lowry : Oh, whose?
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Joe Morse : If you need a broken man to love, break your husband. I'm not a nickel, I don't spend my life in a telephone! If that's what you want for love, you can't use me.
Edna Tucker : You're not strong or weak enough.
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Joe Morse : I didn't have enough strength to resist corruption, but I was strong enough to fight for a piece of it.
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Joe Morse : I'm a lawyer - your clever little lawyer - and I've taken over the formation of this numbers monopoly to make it legal, respectable, and very profitable for you. And I've done it for two reasons.
Ben Tucker : What's the second reason?
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[opening lines - voice over]
Joe Morse : This is Wall Street... and today was important because tomorrow - July Fourth - I intended to make my first million dollars. An exciting day in any man's life. Temporarily, the enterprise was slightly illegal. You see I was the lawyer for the numbers racket.
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Joe Morse : The suckers bet in any combination of three numbers selected from the totals bet at some racetrack that day. Twenty million bettors a day in the United States; annual income to cheap crooks and racketeers: over one hundred million dollars. It seemed a shame for so much good money to go to waste... in other people's pockets.
