New York on Film: "Force of Evil" with Imogen Sara Smith & Geoffrey O’Brien

Celebrate Noirvember with LM Live’s latest New York on Film screening: “Force of Evil” (1948), Abraham Polonsky’s searing portrait of corruption and conscience in postwar New York. John Garfield stars as a Wall Street lawyer ensnared in the city’s numbers racket, torn between moral reckoning and ruthless ambition. 

Shot on location in Lower Manhattan and the Bronx, “Force of Evil” portrays New York as both a glittering cathedral of commerce and a shadowed landscape of decay. Blacklisted soon after the film’s release, Polonsky infused the story with a political urgency and human complexity that feel startlingly contemporary. Paired with George Barnes’s evocative cinematography and the film’s lyrical, hard-edged dialogue, it is a modern tragedy of greed, betrayal and the corrupted promise of the American dream.

Following the screening, film critics Imogen Sara Smith (“In Lonely Places: Film Noir Beyond the City”) and Geoffrey O’Brien (“Hardboiled America: Lurid Paperbacks and the Masters of Noir”) will discuss the film’s artistry and enduring relevance — from its politically charged origins to its influence on later generations of filmmakers who saw noir not only as style, but as social commentary.

Tickets are $5 and include popcorn and a beverage. All proceeds will be donated to an organization of our speakers’ choice.

Please note that seating is not assigned and seats will be chosen on a first come, first served basis.

Geoffrey O'Brien's books include “Hardboiled America: Lurid Paperbacks and the Masters of Noir”; “Dream Time: Chapters from the Sixties”; “The Phantom Empire”; “Castaways of the Image Planet”; “Sonata for Jukebox”; “Stolen Glimpses, Captive Shadows”; and “Arabian Nights of 1934”. His writings on film have appeared in The New York Review of Books, Film Comment, Artforum, The Village Voice, and many other publications.

Imogen Sara Smith is a film critic and historian based in New York City. She is the author of two books, “In Lonely Places: Film Noir Beyond the City” and “Buster Keaton: The Persistence of Comedy,” and her work has appeared in Film Comment, Sight & Sound, Cineaste, Reverse Shot, The Criterion Collection, and many other venues. She is a regular speaker on the Criterion Channel, on disc releases from Criterion, Kino Lorber and other distributors, and at national and international film festivals. She has taught courses on film noir at the School of Visual Arts in New York.