Critical Essay | Interview by Abraham Polonsky with William Pechter

SOURCE: "Abraham Polonsky and Force of Evil," in Film Quarterly, Vol. XV, No. 3, Spring, 1962, pp. 47-54.

In the following interview, which was conducted entirely through correspondence, Polonsky discusses the filming of Body and Soul, his adaptation and direction of Force of Evil, and his thoughts on the Blacklist and Hollywood's fear of Communists in the 1950s. In the essay that frames the interview, Pechter discusses Polonsky's career, focusing on Body and Soul and Force of Evil.

In 1949, a writer, whose experience, with the exception of two previous screenplays and two unmemorable novels, had been primarily in radio, made an adaptation of an unsuccessful, journalistic novel to the screen, and directed a film of it. The event would not seem to be a particularly auspicious one nor much of a novelty for Hollywood, where every other day finds one hack adapting the work of another hack. Nor would...
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