The Breaking Point

Based on a novel by Ernest Hemingway, The Breaking Point follows Harry Morgan, a boat captain in a Florida coastal town who charters his vessel to tourists and fishermen. Money is tight, and with a wife and children to support, he cannot afford to be too careful about whom he takes out on the water. When a charter job goes wrong and leaves him stranded far from home, he takes on a more dangerous arrangement, ferrying people who turn out to be criminals on the run. The decision puts him and those close to him at risk.

Michael Curtiz directed the film, the nineteenth of twenty-five features listed in his filmography in chronological order, arriving between Flamingo Road and White Christmas. Ranald MacDougall wrote the screenplay, and Jerry Wald produced it for Warner Bros. Pictures. John Garfield plays Harry Morgan, with Patricia Neal as Leona Charles, Phyllis Thaxter as Lucy Morgan, Juano Hernández as Wesley Park, Wallace Ford as F.R. Duncan, and Edmon Ryan as Rogers heading a credited cast of forty-five.

The film runs ninety-seven minutes. On IMDb it holds a rating of 7.5 from about 5,100 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 7.1 from a much smaller base of ninety-three votes. A critics' rating of 8.3 from fifteen reviews places it above both audience scores.