Nobody Lives Forever

So I sits myself down in my favorite Morris chair, takes off my two-toned stompers so as to give my dogs a rest, fixes myself a Spam sangwich and a nice cold Moxie, and I watches this Warner Brothers classic from 1946: Nobody Lives Forever, starring John Garfield, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Walter Brennan, and George Tobias. Boy, this looks to be a real killer-diller, a humdinger, what with that cast, and it also being penned by W. R. Burnett, a literary mug who can really make with the participles.

John Garfield plays this soldier who's sent stateside when his mitt is smooshed by a German Firefly. To you cats who ain't so hep, his hand was shot. He recoups, you bet, and comes out fine as frog's  hair. With the help of his pal (George Tobias), who's a Likeable Larry, but something of a gamook, he goes to retrieve fifty thou in greenbacks he left with his doll, who's a rather nifty, laquered-up dish, if you asks me. But this doll is tempted to hang on to the dough, because fifty big ones is a lot of lettuce, and this much scratch could keep her in nylons and open-toed shoes for a long time to come.

But John Garfield ain't having none of this, see? So he has to make with the fisticuffs and serve up the knuckle sangwiches to retrive his moolah, and retrieve it he does. Then it's off to California, with his pal along for the ride, to take it easy with a little relaxation in the sun and surf in Los angeles and its various confines.

But John Garfield has something of a past, see, and but natch this past has to catch up to him. 'Cause before the war, Johnny was a top-drawer con man. Not one of those two-bit chiselers with frayed cuffs and no pocket kerchiefs, but a real Swell Sam, the best in the biz. So sweet and smooth, Hoover's boys could never lay a pinky on him, much less a glove. But Johnny just wants to lay low and lie on the beach, drinking only the best hooch and soaking up the sun's healthful vitamins.

Word gets to him that there's this rich dame in town, just rolling in currency and ripe for the pickin's, if only he'll give her a tickle so's she'll let loose with the bankroll. Against  the magilla at first, John reverses field and agrees to the con, as long as there's no back-sass, see? because two million in greenbacks is a heap of verdancy.

Turns out this wealthy widow (Geraldine Fitzgerald) is something of a dreamboat, with sparkling peepers, not the kind of hairy tugboat that John Garfield envisaged.

Does John Garfield have a change of heart and actually fall for this delicious dish? Watch the movie to find out. Ya get me?

                                      "I'm just a mug, see? No good for a high-class tomato like you." Or something like that.