Evengyny Thanks for the memories!

Listonixio Fresh and Exciting

Borserie it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

Derrick Gibbons An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

JohnHowardReid Call Northside 777 (1948), directed by Henry Hathaway, with James Stewart, Richard Conte and Lee J. Cobb as the stars (although all are outshone by Kasia Orzazweski in the first and most impressive of eight movie appearances), is an unusual film noir in that the lead character in this true-life reconstruction of crime and imprisonment is neither the alleged criminal nor the investigator but the killer's mother, who is handed the script's best lines and its most powerful scenes.The sequence in which out-for-a-story-and-nothing-else reporter James Stewart (who has previously raised her hopes) callously turns down the mother's pleas for help, is one of the most unforgettable moments in the whole history of world cinema.Brilliantly directed by Henry Hathaway, Call Northside 777 is one of those rare movies that really pack a punch.

Claudio Carvalho In 1932 December, in Chicago, the Polish Wanda Skutnik (Betty Garde) runs a speakeasy during the Prohibition. When the policeman Bundy is murdered inside the illegal bar, Frank W. Wiecek (Richard Conte) and his friend Tomek Zaleska are arrested and sentenced to serve 99 years each in the Illinois State Penitentiary. Eleven years later, the Chicago Times' editor Brian Kelly (Lee J. Cobb) is curious with an advertisement offering a US$ 5,000.00 reward for information about the identity of the killers of the policeman eleven years ago. He assigns the efficient reporter P.J. McNeal (James Stewart) to interview the person responsible for the ad. McNeal discovers that Frank's mother Tillie Wiecek (Kasia Orzazewski), who is a janitor, has saved her salary for eleven years to prove the innocence of her beloved son and now is offering the reward for additional information. McNeal is skeptical and believes that Frank is a cop killer, but his matter is successful and Kelly asks him to investigate further. Soon he changes his mind and realizes that Frank is a victim of the corrupt system."Call Northside 777" is an engaging movie about injustice and redemption based on a true story. The names were changed but most of the location is real. Movies of trial are usually attractive and James Stewart is one of the best actors of the cinema history. The result is a great movie directed by the also excellent Henry Hathaway. The only remark is the awful line of McNeal in the end of the movie: "Aw, look, Frank, it's a big thing when a sovereign state admits an error. But remember this: there aren't many governments in the world that would do it." Terrible way to admit an error that has cost eleven years of a man's life and made him lose his beloved wife and son. My vote is eight.Title (Brazil): "Sublime Devoção" ("Sublime Devotion")

James Hitchcock According to this film, there were 365 murders in Chicago in 1932, "one for every day of the year". (Actually, someone seems to have forgotten that 1932 was a leap year. Was nobody killed on 29th February?) Presumably people in 1948 were supposed to find that figure particularly appalling, a shocking reminder of just how high the crime rate was in the Bad Old Days of Prohibition, but today it would be a very low one. In 2013 there were 415 murders in Chicago, and this was the lowest figure since the mid-sixties. On several occasions during the seventies, eighties and nineties the annual figure rose to nearly a thousand. "Call Northside 777" tells the story of one of those killings, that of Police Officer William Lundy. Two young Polish-Americans named Joseph Majczek and Theodore Marcinkiewicz were convicted of the crime and sentenced to 99 years in prison, but doubts remained as to their guilt. The film is based on the facts of the case, but the names of the parties involved are changed. The dead officer becomes John Bundy and the two convicted men Frank Wiecek and Tomek Zaleska. In 1944, eleven years after the convictions of Wiecek and Zaleska, the city editor of the Chicago Times notices a classified advertisement in his newspaper offering a $5,000 reward for information about Bundy's killers. He assigns a reporter named Jim McNeal (based on a real journalist named Jim McGuire) to investigate. McNeal discovers that the ad has been placed by Wiecek's elderly mother who believes strongly in her son's innocence. (The ad asks people with information to "call Northside 777" which is her telephone number). McNeal is initially sceptical, believing Wiecek to be guilty, but as he uncovers more evidence he changes his mind, and the paper launches a campaign to prove the innocence of the two men. The police and the state attorney's office, however, are unwilling to admit that a miscarriage of justice has taken place, and try to cover up any evidence which might establish their innocence. The film ends with Wiecek (based on Majczek) triumphantly vindicated but Zaleska (based on Marcinkiewicz) remains in jail, seemingly forgotten. The reason was that by 1948, when the film was made, Majczek had been released from jail but Marcinkiewicz had not as the authorities were not yet satisfied that he had played no part in the murder. (He was eventually cleared of the crime and released in 1950). Although the real-life events upon which the film was based had occurred only a few years before it was made, meaning that most people would have been aware of Majczek's release, director Henry Hathaway nevertheless provides a tense, thriller-style ending in which McNeal, Wiecek's lawyer and the members of the parole board anxiously await the arrival of a key piece of evidence which might prove his innocence. The film is sometimes described as a film noir, but I am not sure that it really belongs in that category. I sometimes think that the genre might more accurately have been called "film gris". The great noirs may have been made using black-and-white photography- Hathaway was later to make "Niagara", one of the very few colour examples- but morally they tended to avoid black-and-white absolutes, painting everything in various shades of grey. In "Call Northside 777" there are plenty of black-and-white absolutes- more film noir-et-blanc than film noir. Wiecek is a noble character unjustly wronged by the system, McNeal is a tireless crusader for justice. Those who seek to impede McNeal's investigations for self-serving reasons are contemptible. Later in his career, particularly in some of the Westerns he made with Anthony Mann in the fifties, James Stewart showed that he was an actor who could deal very well with moral ambiguity and shades of grey, but in the forties he was more associated with straightforward "Mr Nice Guy" characters, and gives a fine performance as the determined and selfless McNeal. Another good contribution comes from Lee J. Cobb as his editor Brian Kelly. "Call Northside 777" is made in a semi-documentary style, closely following the facts of the Majczek and Marcinkiewicz case. It is an efficient mixture of documentary and crime thriller, paving the way for later films based upon real-life miscarriages (or alleged miscarriages) of justice such as "I Want to Live!" and the British-made "Yield to the Night". 7/10

gavin6942 Chicago reporter P.J. McNeal (James Stewart) re-opens a ten year old murder case.Although I am more familiar than the average person on Chicago's gangland in the 1930s, I had not heard the cases of Joseph Majczek and Theodore Marcinkiewicz. Perhaps because they were Polish and the histories tend to focus on Italians. This is a great tale, as all tales of wrongly-convicted men are.James Stewart never fails, and the film is even better that it features the real Leonard Keeler as himself, the inventor of the polygraph machine.