Lovesusti The Worst Film Ever

VividSimon Simply Perfect

Beystiman It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Zandra The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

foggybottom4447 For a more accurate account, read the book. The movie leaves out the Shepard name. Hoyt Shepard was a huge character to the story.

nomoons11 I was a little shocked to say the least after I finished with this one. Wow it's hard to believe this kind of stuff went on for so long and not a soul did anything for such a long time.I grew up in the south and I never had to deal with this kinda stuff but seeing it doesn't make it any easier to swallow. This is a seriously brutal film on the sorta.."Southern Mafia". These weren't your typical New York typa guys by far. These were your regular local redneck guys who happened to be easily some of the worst thugs ever known. These guys were heartless to the umpteenth degree.Basic idea of this film is Phenix City Alabama was way more "Sin City" than Las Vegas was at this time. The term they use is "Vice" but the town is run by the city council and Sheriff's office with no regard for law and order. Murders are common place and go without justice. The town is basically a haven for gambling dens and prostitution rings and drug dealers and it's all geared towards the local military population right across the river at Ft. Benning in Columbus Georgia.Dozens of people get killed, including GI's, and nothing gets done. Enter a former state Senator who has been pushed to his limit and finally decides it's time to do something. He decides to run for Attorney General and promptly wins but before he can take office, he gets assassinated. His son then takes over and promptly gets Martial Law enacted on the city. The military comes in and totally takes down the entire system in the town. What's uncovered is an unbelievable system of corruption that boggles the mind.The film only covers the basics like, the gambling and Murders that occur..including the future Attorney General. You'll walk away from this film beyond stunned. I was speechless until I researched a little more about his online and to my surprise, this was all true. If you wanna see a film that you just can't believe...see this one. You won't believe the reality of this place. Totally shocking that this went on in a town in America. The evil in this film is just mesmerizing. Wow, what a surreal experience.

secondtake The Phenix City Story (1955)Wow, this one came from nowhere and blew me away. It's a rough and tumble, unbelievably violent, true story of a block in a little town in Alabama where gambling and corruption ruled and where some local people were failing to fight back.It begins with a very long (too long) series of interviews of real people involved in the very real story of Phenix City, on the border with Georgia. I would actually recommend skipping it--almost twenty minutes that was not in the original release of the movie--and start with the drama, which is dramatic above all. This is no film noir, but it's shot in that moody, graphic style, which is perfect. The bad guys--including both a ruthless mob leader with no class at all and a tough and reactionary henchman who gets away with murder--are a classic Southern good old boys network. The cops are in on the whole scheme, and this mini-Vegas runs with impunity, thriving mostly off the money of soldiers from a nearby army base. It's all extremely convincing, small time crookery.The good guys--and women, one woman working at a gambling joint being a key insider witness--are equally convincing and small time. There is no Bogart or Mitchum or Lancaster in the leading role, though the father son lawyer pair who eventually lead the resistance are familiar faces: John McIntire and Richard Kiley (Kiley had been doing a lot of early t.v. but was also in "Pickup on South Street"). You might expect a familiar battle between the forces of good and evil, with tensions and violence and the eventual triumph of justice. And while the end of the gambling joints (after 80 years) is a matter of history, it takes so many really awful and gut wrenching turns it's riveting. I mean, this movie is like no other in terms of facing the facts--sometimes that person who would never get bumped off in a Hollywood script does actually die in real life.And this is real life, scripted and filmed and acted and edited with the vigor of a great drama, but based on the ugly truth of it, and not looking the other way. Don't miss it.

ptb-8 Yikes! This terrific tabloid thriller from Allied Artists in 1955 filmed while corruption and prostitution trials were still happening is an extraordinary tough film. Possibly it is the most violent 50s film I have ever seen. Other comments on this site will tell you the story and it is well worth reading all you can about this startling and very frank docu drama about the crime and mob rule by unscrupulous men in this Alabama town. Directed by no nonsense Phil Karlson, a regular from Monogram-Allied Artists and packed with sleazy vice and fist pumping brutality, THE PHENIX CITY STORY is a revelation in 50s crime noir drama. The prologue for me added genuine creepiness to the reality with actual witnesses interviewed and their vocal twang and unrehearsed authenticity had me paying close attention. For a town riddled with vice and prostitution and all the realities of what bad men want, did anyone notice that the vice king's name was Tanner? Also, on actor's first name was Biff... put'em together and you get BIFF TANNER as in the bad guy from the BACK TO THE FUTURE trilogy who leads the town into vice and corruption in that Spielberg Series. THE PHENIX CITY STORY would have been a research issue for the 'town gone bad' storyline of BACK TO THE FUTURE PART 2 (as was IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE) and I can see how a composite name for the bad guy was easily joined to make BIFF TANNER. It is then altered slightly to make BIFF TANNEN in BTF. Various crime scenes and bloody fights in PHENIX CITY STORY are absolutely shocking and over all the film has an atmosphere of complete southern authenticity because of Karlson's able direction filming in actual location with the real people of the town. A film Student must-see and a crime drama of astonishing bluntness. Richard Kiley is excellent as the ordinary man forced to become tougher than he ever expected. There are terrific roles for a dignified Negro family whose daughter is central to one of the most horrifying scenes in any film ever. For an immersing experience into the vice riddled deep south of the 1950s THE PHENIX CITY STORY will do it.