East of the River (1940)

Warner Bros-First National
Directed by Alfred E. Green
My rating: 1.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Turner Classic Movies)

This is perhaps John Garfield's worst movie. It's a predictable story of two kids growing up in New York, one bad and one good, who become stepbrothers to avoid reform school. Garfield's mother is a stereotyped Italian who owns, what else, an Italian restaurant, in a simply awful performance by Marjorie Rambeau in broken Italian-English. Garfield's brother is another stereotype, this time the angelic brother who can do no bad, in a stiff and shallow performance by William Lundigan. Perhaps the one bright spot in the film is Brenda Marshall, who makes a somewhat believable transition from gangster girlfriend to wholesome wife, although even that is a stretch.