"Four Daughters," a sentimental story of a solid middle class family with four sisters, was notable in one respect: into this romantic, idealized milieu enters Mickey Borden
Carelessly dressed, with an uncompromising attitude to all bourgeois values, he really sets the hearts of the sisters aglow
His criticisms are not only directed towards those about him but also towards himself
One day Ann (Priscilla Lane) discovers him passionately playing the piano
"That's beautiful," she says
"It stinks," he replies
He falls in love with and marries Ann but eventually, realizing that their basic incompatibility is leading their marriage into disaster, he takes the equally uncompromising step of causing his fall
The role was superbly played by John Garfield, and it brought him not only stardom but also, and perhaps more important, won for him his place in cinema history as the screen's first rebel hero
Garfield was born in New York's East side of Russian immigrant parents, and spent his adolescence as a delinquent, a real life role that he only relinquished when he began to portray the rebel on screen
He continued, however, throughout his life to question and reject certain traditional values
He was occasionally suspended by the studio and maintained a cynical view of Hollywood
Finally he ended his career and his life as one of the victims of McCarthy's witchhunt
He was blacklisted by Hollywood because of his suspected left wing sympathies and friends claimed that being banned from working contributed to the heart attack' that killed him at the early age of 39