Customer Reviews

Call It Murder

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3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

If you are looking at the Image Entertainment DVD, ignor any other reviews that refer to Madacy or other inferior cheapie DVD companies. This DVD has been RESTORED from a very nice print!

VERY MELODRAMATIC & over acted like a silent movie! It is the movie itself that I rate 3 stars. This is for devoted Bogart fans who want to experience his early work. He is only a supporting player who appears in less than half the movie, yet his character steals the show. His acting style stands out from the others and you can for-see the potential for his future.

Don't expect Casablanca or even They Drive By Night, expect to see Bogie learning his trade. And try not to laugh at the melodramatic stars of the show.

This movie is hyped as "Starring Humphrey Bogart," however, when you sit down to watch it, Bogie's camera time last all but 3 1/2 minutes. The premise is interesting though--as it provides a moral dilemma that's still got an edge. Maybe a good candidate for a remake...

My primary complaint about this DVD is that the sound track is 8 to 10 seconds behind the video track. I found it very difficult to follow and gave up after 5 minutes. I hope I can return it!

Just like most other titles from Madacy Entertainment, this digital copy is unwatchable. Sound out of sync from video, hiss, scratch and pop sounds continuously, image jumps around and is unsteady. No disclosure of any faults on the dust jacket. Puke in a box!

I have been on something of a Humphrey Bogart tear of late. And when I get on the occasional tear I tend to grab everything of an author, singer, artist, or actor in sight. And hence this review of very much lesser known Humphrey Bogart film, Call It Murder. If you are looking for the Humphrey Bogart of To Have or To Have Not, Casablanca, The Big Sleep or even The Petrified Forest then you will be disappointed. Bogart plays a relatively minor role as, well what else, a second- rate cheap hoodlum whose heading out of town fast, or so that is his plan. So no one should be offended if you pass this one by.

Pass by is what I originally intended to do as well except when I thought about it this film is actually a very good example of the kind of social film critique that was popular and produced during the turbulent and trying 1930s. The subject here is the death penalty, its application, and its basic appropriateness in an evolving progressive society (or that has pretensions to civilization). The plot line centers on a woman who has killed her abusive husband when he was going to run out on her leaving her high and dry. At trial the foreman of the jury, a self-righteous and upright citizen, persuades his fellow jurors that she is guilty of murder one, and hence headed for the electric chair. Since there was no "battered person" defense then she was convicted and sentenced to die.

The dramatic tension of the film comes when that self-righteous juror is bombarded with pleas from all kinds of sources to call for sparing her life. He maintains his stance and she is executed. And here is where Bogie comes in. He has been seeing the juror's daughter, she has fallen in love with him, and as mentioned before, he is ready to fly to the coop. Naturally she is ready to move might and main to keep him in the coop. Well one thing leads to another as they do with thugs and he is shot to death. She thinks that she has done it in a rage at his leaving. She runs home to dear old dad and tells her story. Hey, she is up for murder one and the chair too, right? No way in the end of course but the old man has to confront, or rather we have to confront, that little moral dilemma when thing hit just a little to close to home.

Good thoughtful social critique on the death, agreed? Yes, although I should note that this film is one of those 1930s Theater Guild productions which tended, as this film, does to be rather heavy-handed and didactic in making its important point. Thus the dialogue, the staging, and the acting are rather stilted for today's audiences. Still it mad that nice social commentary. Just don't see for the Bogie part, okay.

will be executed tonight. This much seems certain. The movie is billed as a Psycho-drama. Is there such a genre'?
The foreman of the jury that convicts the women is a tortured soul. So is his daughter. She seems to have internalized the condemned woman's plight. The foreman also seems to be very chummy with the prosecuting DA. The daughter is in love with a shady character. That where Bogart comes in. At this point it's really no spoiler to discover he has been murdered. That very night he decides to dump her. She doesn't take it well. She confesses the whole thing to her family. Her father the foreman calls the DA. Still that night he comes right over. They begin to spin her confession. To have a women murder her lover the same way on the same night another women is being executed is very dicey for the foreman as well as the DA. Especially if it is the foreman's daughter. That's it in a nutshell. Good late night fare.

Looks as if it was written and directed by a couple of kids still at school. I can remember being in amateur theatricals like this when I was about 16 or 17. The director has a few visual ideas; eg, the wooden bars of a staircase banister turn into the iron bars of the condemned cell. Not that there's a lot of point to that one. The upshot of the story is that it's right to pursue the letter of the law, no matter how unpopular it makes you, or how strong your psychological empathy with the accused --- even if she's your own daughter. Quaint, in a way. Yes, Bogart is in it, just about. Was this his first turn as a baddie, after playing matinee idols?