Call Northside 777 (1947)
Posted: April 11th, 2008, 8:57 am
This week I've watched Call Northside 777, one of Twentieth Century Fox's late '40s documentary style thrillers. Directed by Henry Hathaway and based on a true story, it stars James Stewart as a crusading journalist investigating the wrongful arrest of a man for the murder of a policeman at the end of the Prohibition era. Oh, and of course, it comes complete with that familiar booming-voiced narrator.
Well, I have to say I wasn't blown away. It was a 'solid' film - that's the word that sprang to mind. I didn't think it was a patch on the fairly similar Boomerang. One of the problems I had with it was James Stewart - I just didn't find him plausible in the role. I think someone with a less obviously 'virtuous' persona would have worked much better - Dana Andrews, for example. I liked a lot of the other performances - Richard Conte, Betty Garde, and the various bit part players. Kasia Orzazewski as Conte's faithful mother was excellent. It was also interesting to see Leonarde Keeler, the inventor of the polygraph (lie detector), playing himself - and actually, even thought I'd never heard of or seen him before viewing this film, I knew he was a real person and not an actor - he just had a completely different quality to him that the actors didn't have; the quality of not trying so hard, perhaps. I also spotted Thelma Ritter in a blink and you'll miss her role as someone's secretary.
It was a long film, and the plot wasn't really satisfactorily resolved: Conte and another man were arrested; the film led you to believe that both were innocent; and yet Conte was the only who got to walk out of prison and into the sunshine at the end. Nor was his character allowed to mind that he'd spent ten years of his life locked up for something he didn't do - James Stewart clapped him on the back and said something like, 'The state admitted it was wrong. Not many countries in the world would do that.' So that's alright then...
Well, I have to say I wasn't blown away. It was a 'solid' film - that's the word that sprang to mind. I didn't think it was a patch on the fairly similar Boomerang. One of the problems I had with it was James Stewart - I just didn't find him plausible in the role. I think someone with a less obviously 'virtuous' persona would have worked much better - Dana Andrews, for example. I liked a lot of the other performances - Richard Conte, Betty Garde, and the various bit part players. Kasia Orzazewski as Conte's faithful mother was excellent. It was also interesting to see Leonarde Keeler, the inventor of the polygraph (lie detector), playing himself - and actually, even thought I'd never heard of or seen him before viewing this film, I knew he was a real person and not an actor - he just had a completely different quality to him that the actors didn't have; the quality of not trying so hard, perhaps. I also spotted Thelma Ritter in a blink and you'll miss her role as someone's secretary.
It was a long film, and the plot wasn't really satisfactorily resolved: Conte and another man were arrested; the film led you to believe that both were innocent; and yet Conte was the only who got to walk out of prison and into the sunshine at the end. Nor was his character allowed to mind that he'd spent ten years of his life locked up for something he didn't do - James Stewart clapped him on the back and said something like, 'The state admitted it was wrong. Not many countries in the world would do that.' So that's alright then...