When a character in Warner Brothers' oil rig drama Flowing Gold (1940) tells leading man John Garfield "You've got some chip on your shoulder," the response is pure Garfield: "Wanna try and knock it off?" An Academy Award nominee for his film debut in Four Daughters (1938) and a name-above-the-title star by the time of They Made Me a Criminal (1939), Garfield did not think much of this assignment and neither did his costar Frances Farmer, who had likewise honed her craft with New York's progressive Group Theatre. A remake of a 1924 Warners/First National silent, Flowing Gold was based on a novel by Rex Beach, whose 1906 bestseller The Spoilers was adapted for films five times between 1914 and 1955. As in They Made Me a Criminal, this films finds Garfield on the run from the law and earning a hardscrabble living as a roughneck, romancing Farmer, protecting oilman pal Pat O'Brien from unscrupulous rivals, and cheating death via a combination of pugnacity and raw courage. Vocal in his disdain for the film, Garfield reportedly went ballistic when he received a joke memo from studio head Jack Warner criticizing his "hammy acting" and threatening to replace him with Ronald Reagan. Though Farmer made little mention of the film in her in her memoirs, a scene from the 1983 biopic Frances (1982) starring Jessica Lange uses her dispiriting experiences on the set of Flowing Gold to illustrate the troubles the "Method" actress suffered during her brief time in Hollywood.

By Richard Harland Smith