Editing John Garfield (section)

==Warner Bros.==
[[File:John Garfield WB publicity still.jpg|thumb|180px|right|Warner Bros. publicity photo, c. 1938]]

Garfield had been approached by Hollywood studios before—both [[Paramount Pictures|Paramount]] and Warners offering screen tests—but talks had always stalled over a clause he wanted inserted in his contract, one that would allow him time off for stage work. Now Warner Bros. acceded to his demand, and Garfield signed a standard feature-player agreement—seven years with options—in Warners' New York office.<ref>The "option" gave the studio the right to drop the performer after every six-month period.</ref> Many in the Group were livid over what they considered his betrayal. [[Elia Kazan]]'s reaction was different, suggesting that the Group did not so much fear that Garfield would fail, but that he would succeed.<ref name=Swindell/> [[Jack L. Warner|Jack Warner]]'s first order of business was a change of name to John Garfield.

<!-- Deleted image removed: [[File:John Garfield - Lost Men - 1940.jpg|thumb|left|240px|in ''Blackwell's Island'' (1940)]] -->
After many false starts, he was finally cast in a supporting, yet crucial role as a tragic young composer in a [[Michael Curtiz]] film titled ''[[Four Daughters (1938 film)|Four Daughters]]'' (1938). After the picture's release, he received very positive notices and a nomination for the [[Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor]]. The studio quickly revised Garfield's contract—designating him a star player rather than a featured one—for seven years without options. They also created a name-above-the-title vehicle for him titled ''[[They Made Me a Criminal]]'' (1939). Before the success of ''Daughters'', Garfield had made a [[B movie]] feature called ''[[Blackwell's Island (film)|Blackwell's Island]]'' (also 1939). Not wanting their new star to appear in a low-budget film, Warners ordered an A movie upgrade by adding $100,000 to its budget and recalling director Michael Curtiz to shoot newly scripted scenes.

Garfield's debut had a cinematic impact difficult to conceive in retrospect. As biographer Lawrence Swindell put it: {{blockquote|Garfield's work was spontaneous, non-actory; it had abandon. He didn't recite dialogue, he attacked it until it lost the quality of talk and took on the nature of speech ... Like [[James Cagney|Cagney]], he was an exceptionally mobile performer from the start of his screen career. These traits were orchestrated with his physical appearance to create a screen ''persona'' innately powerful in the sexual sense. What Warners saw immediately was that Garfield's impact was felt by both sexes. This was almost unique.<ref name=Swindell/>}}

His "honeymoon" with Warners over, Garfield entered a protracted period of conflict with the studio, with Warners attempting to cast him in crowd-pleasing melodramas such as ''[[Dust Be My Destiny]]'' (also 1939) and Garfield insisting on quality scripts that would offer challenges and highlight his versatility. The result was often a series of suspensions, with Garfield refusing an assigned role and Warners refusing to pay him. Garfield's problem was shared by any actor working in the studio system of the 1930s: by contract, the studio had the right to cast him in any project they wanted to. But, as Robert Nott explains: 
{{blockquote|To be fair, most of the studios had a team of producers, directors, and writers who could pinpoint a particular star's strengths and worked to capitalize on those strengths in terms of finding vehicles that would appeal to the public—and hence make the studio money. The forces that prevented him from getting high quality roles were really the result of the combined willpower of the Warner Bros., the studio system in general, and the general public, which also had its own perception of how Garfield (or Cagney or Bogart for that matter) should appear on screen.<ref name=Gould>{{cite web| last=Gould| first=Mark R.| title=John Garfield, Film Noir and the Hollywood Blacklist| url=http://atyourlibrary.org/john-garfield-film-noir-and-hollywood-blacklist| work=He Ran All The Way: The Life of John Garfield| publisher=@yourlibrary| access-date=September 13, 2011| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120402111521/http://atyourlibrary.org/john-garfield-film-noir-and-hollywood-blacklist| archive-date=April 2, 2012| url-status=dead}}</ref>}}

A notable exception to this trend was ''[[Daughters Courageous]]'' (also 1939), a not-quite-sequel (same cast, different story and characters) to his debut film. The film did well critically, but failed to find an audience, the public being dissatisfied that it was not a true sequel (hard to pull off, since the original character Mickey Borden died in the first picture). The director, Curtiz, called the film "my obscure masterpiece".<ref name=Swindell/>

At the onset of [[World War II]], Garfield immediately attempted to enlist in the armed forces, but was turned down because of his heart condition.<ref name=Nott/> Frustrated, he turned his energies to supporting the war effort. He and actress [[Bette Davis]] were the driving forces behind the opening of the [[Hollywood Canteen]], a club offering food and entertainment for American [[United States military|servicemen]]. He traveled overseas to help entertain the troops, made several [[War bond#World War II|bond selling tours]] and starred in a string of patriotic box-office successes including ''[[Air Force (film)|Air Force]]'', ''[[Destination Tokyo]]'' (both 1943) and ''[[Pride of the Marines]]'' (1945). He was particularly proud of the last film, based on the life of [[Al Schmid]], a war hero blinded in combat. In preparing for the role, Garfield lived for several weeks with Schmid and his wife in Philadelphia and would blindfold himself for hours at a time.

[[File:John Garfield in Gentleman's Agreement trailer.jpg|thumb|210px|right|''[[Gentleman's Agreement]]'' (1947)]]

After the war, Garfield starred in a series of successful films such as ''[[The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946 film)|The Postman Always Rings Twice]]'' (1946) with [[Lana Turner]], ''[[Humoresque (1946 film)|Humoresque]]'' (also 1946) with [[Joan Crawford]], and ''[[Gentleman's Agreement]]'' (1947), which won the Oscar for Best Picture. In ''Gentleman's Agreement'', Garfield took a featured, but supporting, part because he believed deeply in the film's exposé of [[antisemitism]] in America. He was nominated for the [[Academy Award for Best Actor]] for his starring role in ''[[Body and Soul (1947 film)|Body and Soul]]'' (1947). That same year, Garfield returned to Broadway in the play ''Skipper Next to God''. Strong-willed and often verbally combative, Garfield did not hesitate to venture out on his own when the opportunity arose. In 1946, when his contract with [[Warner Bros.]] expired, Garfield decided not to renew it and opted to start his own independent production company.

In 1949, he would again star in a [[Clifford Odets]] play, ''[[The Big Knife (play)|The Big Knife]]''.