Dust Be My Destiny

source: Dust Be My Destiny

This was another chance for John Garfield and Priscilla to team up. They had previously been paired to great success in FOUR DAUGHTERS (1938) and DAUGHTERS COURAGEOUS (1939), both tearjerkers with similar themes and nearly identical casts. The public liked seeing these two perform together on screen, so it was a no-brainer for the studio to cast them in another production. This time we have the usual romantic melodrama, but the circumstances their characters face are a bit more grim. Probably inspired by Fritz Lang's YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE (1937), about a young couple on the lam, DUST BE MY DESTINY is a tale about the hard knocks of life getting in the way of our lovers' happiness. Garfield's character begins the movie just released from prison, and we see him roam from place to place hopping freight trains with a few dead end kids (Bobby Jordan & Billy Halop). He winds up in trouble again and is sent to a work farm, where he meets Miss Lane, who is the stepdaughter of the foreman. They have a memorable first encounter while he's milking a cow in the barn. To the audience's udder delight, they quickly become smitten with each other even if Garfield is reluctant to be so vulnerable with her. He soon is allowed to take her on errands into town. But the "idyllic" courtship soon hits a snag. When an argument leads to the foreman's death from a weak heart, Garfield fears he'll be blamed. He decides to go on the run again, and this time Lane will hit the open road with him. They are soon married and take a job working at an Italian diner owned by Henry Armetta. Armetta's role resembles the type of comic relief that would be handed to S. Z. Sakall in subsequent pictures at Warner Brothers. When police catch up with them and Lane is arrested, things begin to seem hopeless. A short time later, Armetta helps Garfield break Lane out of a local jail. Again they hit the road, determined to start over somewhere else. But around every corner, they face recapture. As you can see, the film's dramatic episodes are somewhat repetitive, but of course, these are variations on the story's overall theme of homelessness and injustice. Some of Robert Rossen's script lays it all on a bit too thick, but the heavier aspects of the picture are balanced out by the sincere work of the two lead stars. Originally the script was meant for the duo to meet a deadly demise. But this milder version of Bonnie and Clyde would be given a reprieve, when the studio decided the film needed a happy ending to ensure favorable returns at the box office. So it all culminates in Garfield going on trial, Lane testifying on his behalf, and his being pardoned. Now they are able to start fresh without anything hanging over them.

John Garfield stars in "Dust Be My Destiny" from 1939, also starring Priscilla Lane, Alan Hale, Billy Halop, Frank McHugh, Henry Armetta, and John Litel. Garfield is Joe Bell, who is released from prison when someone else finally confesses to the robbery he was accused of engineering. Riding the rails, he's arrested again and sentenced to a prison farm for 90 days. There he meets 19-year-old Mabel (Lane), and they fall in love. Mabel's stepfather is a drunk with a bad heart. He catches Joe and Mabel in a clinch; they run. He chases them, has a heart attack, and collapses, dead. Joe is sure it's no use telling the truth - he's going to be accused anyway. He has to go on the run again, this time with a determined Mabel. Along the way, Joe and Mabel marry. They meet some decent people, and they actually start to settle down. However, another incident makes Joe want to run again, and this time, Mabel has had it with the authorities looking for them. Good movie, with Garfield and Lane an attractive couple. This was not an unusual role for Garfield, as he often played tough, bitter guys in need of a break. He is very effective. Good performances along the way by Alan Hale and Henry Armetta.

John Garfield took his Mickey Borden character from Four Daughters and used it again for Dust Be My Destiny. Teamed again with Priscilla Lane, Garfield is cast once again as a character seemingly cursed by the fates and by people who just won't give him a break. When we first meet Garfield he's in familiar prison garb and being brought into the warden's office where warden John Hamilton informs him he's now free. It seems as though the robbery he was charged with was committed by another who confessed it on his deathbed. Serving almost two years for something he didn't do is bound to give anyone a bad attitude. It's that which carries him throughout this film. Picked up for vagrancy even though he helped capture a pair of fleeing criminals he gets sentenced to a work farm where he meets Priscilla Lane who is the stepdaughter of a drunken sadistic foreman. The two run after Garfield accidentally kills the stepfather who had a heart condition and was drunk and aggressive. After that the film is a series of vignettes where Garfield and Lane marry and hit the road as fugitives. Along the way they meet all kinds of folks who actually do give him breaks though Garfield is blind to see it. Warner Brothers put a whole lot of familiar faces from their stock company in the cast. At times Garfield does get a bit over the top and melodramatic with his anguish, but no more so than this occasionally over the top and melodramatic film calls for. Dust Be My Destiny is a film set firmly in Depression Era America and it's truly dated. Still fans of Garfield will be satisfied.

. . . DUST BE MY DESTINY muttering, "Why is the Warner Bros. movie title writer such a 'Gloomy Gus'?" After all, they'd just watched a "happy ending," as implausible and discordant from their own observations of Real Life America it no doubt appeared. In hindsight, it's easy Today to point out that these early viewers were totally in the dark about ALL the key details behind DUST BE MY DESTINY. Back then, the movie censors secretly outlawed any film revealing the fact that the American "Legal System" was (and still is) 99% devoted to "working" for the benefit of Fat Cat One Per Center Wealth Hoarders, with "the Law" laughing off the Rights of We True Blue Loyal Patriotic Normal Average 99 Per Center Silent Majority Progressive Union Label Citizens as so much "Dust in the Wind." Perhaps more to the point, how could 1930s film buffs know that the always eponymous Warner Bros. were using DUST BE MY DESTINY to warn courageous movie hero "Joe Bell" that government "Black Ops" thugs soon would slay him during a Real Life ACTUAL Witch Hunt as he is about to bring down the entire perfidious Pachyderm Party with his Congressional Testimony? The government's "Free Press" may have told the public that this Good Joe suffered a fatal "heart attack" (a similar claim would soon be made about another Progressive youngster, "Robin Hood Flynn"), a demise eerily similar to that of the character "Charlie Garnett" at the center of DUST BE MY DESTINY. Oh, the bitter irony of it all!!

The first 15-minutes is good gritty Depression era drama, as Joe (Garfield) and other footloose unemployed try to hitch a train ride to nowhere. Caught by county cops, they're sent to a harsh work camp where there's at least work, a bed, and something to eat, but nothing else. Garfield and company make this segment tough and realistic, a real taste of life at Depression's bottom. But then the romantic side takes over as Joe and Mabel (Lane) get into an off-and-on again relationship, complicated by Joe's accidental killing of Mabel's cruel stepfather. Thus the storyline swings over to the familiar young-lovers-on-the-run narrative. That might be okay, except Lane plays her part like she's swallowed a load of sweet-faced sugar, while making soft and nice is not Garfield's special appeal. There's also a ton of likable common folk that demonstrate America's fundamental decency; while, writer Rossen makes a timely populist appeal in the courtroom for the value of every person. Given the nastiness of the times, the idea, at least, was a good one. I just wish Warner's had assigned one of their top directors to the project. A Walsh or Curtiz might have blended the disparate elements more effectively than the workman-like Seiler. As things stand, it's a second-rate Garfield flick.

Optimism and hope versus cynicism and despair. Depression era tale of a wrongly accused ex-con taking on a society that never seems to give a guy an even break. Although he is given quite a few, fate intervenes and knocks him off his feet. Broke and running (once again) from a crime he did not commit, this time he has a companion (guardian angel) that understands him and guides, then forces, the troubled soul on a path of belonging to a world that can offer peace and a place to hang their hats. A very good, if typical, movie that during the depression was a fitting try at uplifting the downtrodden. An idealistic, progressive endeavor from a studio that could deliver a message and a Star that epitomized method acting before there was method acting. Although at times a bit over written and assuming it is a time capsule that stands the test.

It's difficult to believe that this collection of tired clichés and cardboard characters was written by Robert Rossen but there you go. Having signed Julie Garfield from the Group Theatre Warners thrust him into one tough-guy-who-never-had-a-chance vehicle after another after it paid off handsomely in his debut Four Daughters. Not one to balk at hedging their bets the freres Warner teamed him once again with Priscilla Lane in this slice of hokum rather than slice of life opus. If Howard Hawks had a knack for coming in at the tail-end of a genre and making the definitive example (see: Only Angels Have Wings) Lewis Seiler just came in at the tail-end of a genre and added nothing. Garfield gets out of stir at the beginning only to be informed by the warden that he had been wrongfully convicted; he then gets a series of bad breaks punctuated by false hopes until it all ends in smiles. Along the way he is helped by several people who behave unrealistically, somehow acquires a camera whilst not having change of a match and ... well that's about as credible as it gets. Always nice to see Garfield and Lane but don't raise your hopes.

Down on his luck John Garfield finally sees his fortunes improve, and I do mean improve, when he teams up with Priscilla Lane. But the bad luck returns and the two end up on the lam for what turns out to be a pretty good movie. A few scenes shot on location spice things up a bit and there are some very nice supporting performances as well. The lead actors, John Garfield and the beautiful Priscilla Lane, work well together, as evidenced in their previous work on Four Daughters and Daughters Courageous.

Garfield is excellent as falsely-accused Joe Bell escaping to try to prove his innocence. Priscilla Lane is excellent in a character type she repeated three years later, virtually word-for-word, in Saboteur with Robert Cummings. But, this film stands on its own merits, even without the Hitchcockian camera angles or the Statue of Liberty. It is soulful, well-scripted, and tense. I highly recommend it.