Film Review
Arguably the highpoint of director Henry Hathaway's career,
Call Northside 777 is a compelling
noir thriller that relates a real-life incident using an extremely
effective near-documentary approach, as he had previously done on
The House on 92nd Street (1945).
James Stewart is exceptionally well-cast as the driven journalist who unravels the
mystery, motivated less by personal gain than by a simple honest desire
to see a terrible miscarriage of injustice put right.
Stewart's laconic everyman persona makes his character easy to engage
with and he resembles a beacon of light in a murky and corrupt world in
which the boundary between the lawmakers and the lawbreakers is far
from apparent.
Northside 777
is a sublime example of what may be termed
realist film noir - it lacks the
obvious motifs and heavy stylisation of classic film noir, but it
retains its essential elements, notably a lone hero fighting against a
seemingly insuperable adversary, only to end up enmeshed in a dangerous
web of intrigue.
Hathaway avoids the kind of tawdry sensationalism that American
thrillers of this era were prone to but still delivers a film that is
thoroughly riveting. The concluding twenty or so minutes are
especially nail-biting and Hathaway keeps us on tenterhooks as the last
piece of jigsaw is slowly slotted into place. One of the things
that sets this film apart from other crime dramas of this era is the
quality of the acting. Without exception, the performances are
true to life and compelling, the scenes with Stewart and Kasia
Orzazewski being particularly moving. Whilst the film
avoids an all-out assault on the police and judiciary
(who are obviously the villains of the piece), it still makes a
very effective argument against capital punishment.
Northside 777 is ahead of its time in other ways - with its almost
forensic attention to the details of crime investigation, it is an
obvious forerunner of the modern police procedural.
© James Travers 2011
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Next Henry Hathaway film:
Niagara (1953)
Film Synopsis
In 1932, in the era of prohibition, the police of Chicago are fighting
a losing battle against the mobsters and the bootleggers. When a
policeman is shot dead on entering a speakeasy, two Polish men - Frank Wiecek
and Tomek Zaleska - are soon arrested on the flimsiest of
evidence. Although both men protest their innocence, they are
found guilty and sentenced to 99 years' imprisonment, on the testimony
of the speakeasy's owner. Eleven years later, Wiecek's mother
places an ad in a newspaper, offering a reward of 5000 dollars to
anyone who can provide evidence that will clear her son's name and get
him released from prison. Hard-nosed reporter P.J. McNeal is
assigned by his editor to interview Wiecek's mother and is surprised to
learn that she had raised the 5000 dollars by working hard as a
cleaning lady since her son was imprisoned. Moved by the old
woman's faith in her son's innocence, McNeal begins to investigate the
case and is soon persuaded that Wiecek has been wrongly
convicted. Unfortunately, most of the evidence that supports
Wiecek's version of events turns out to be inadmissible in a court of
law and his case appears hopeless - until McNeal makes a surprising
discovery...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.