Out of the Fog (film)

Plot

Two aging men, Goodwin and Johnson (Mitchell and Qualen), are fishermen in their spare time. They are trying to buy a new boat, but their Brooklyn pier is controlled by Goff, a gangster (Garfield), who extorts "protection" money of $5 a week from them.

Goodwin's daughter (Lupino) falls in love with Goff, who learns that Goodwin has tried to persuade her to holiday in Cuba. After he demands $190 from them, the sum Goodwin had promised his daughter, the fishermen plan to kill the gangster, but neither can go through with the act. The gangster attempts to strike one of them but falls into the sea and drowns. Goff turns out to have been a wanted man in five cities, and they recover the extorted money.

Reception

On release, the film was criticized due to changes from the play, and the box office gross was lower than expected. A contemporary review from Bosley Crowther of The New York Times described it as "a heavy and dreary recital of largely synthetic woes, laced with moderate suspense and spotted here and there with humor". Writing at Bright Lights Film Journal, Alan Kohn said, "As Goff, Garfield — the progressive, the true common man whose miserable fate it was to be destroyed through the Hollywood Blacklist travesty — reveals the depravity and fantasy of Depression-era capitalist society as he condemns all fascist forces at play in a world at war."