SOURCE: "The Politics of Force of Evil: An Analysis of Abraham Polonsky's Preblacklist Film," in Prospects: The Annual of American Cultural Studies, Vol. 6, 1981, pp. 357-86.

In the following excerpt, Brinckmann discusses the ways in which Force of Evil deviates from the traditional gangster film, manipulating the genre's conventions to emphasize its political theme, namely the critique of capitalist society. She argues that while the film balances politics with emotional and spiritual intensity, its thematic and formal complexity accounts for its lack of popularity with mass audiences. She also suggests that the film's most serious flaw is its inconsistent depiction of the law as the mirror image of the criminal underworld.

Force of Evil was the first film Abraham Polonsky directed, and it is not without structural flaws. It is, however, a rare work of art in that it is poetical, popular, and political at the same time. Unlike...