Customer Reviews

Call Northside 777 [VHS]

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Once in a while the writer gets to be the hero. In Henry Hathaway's classic film noir thriller Chicago Times editor Brian Kelly (Lee J. Cobb) sends investigative reporter P. J. McNeal (Jimmy Stewart) to investigates a 1933 murder when he comes across a classified ad offering a reward for info on the case. Although skeptical at first about the innocence of convicted cop killer Frank Wiecek (Richard Conte), all the mysterious dead ends McNeal encounters convinces him that the might be something to the story. Never garnering the critical acclaim or following of other directors, Henry Hathaway ("True Grit", "Nevada Smith", "Kiss of Death") created a series of worthwhile thrillers, westerns and action films. Sadly much of Hathaway's work has been overlooked because he was viewed as little more than a workman-like film director. Although Hathaway doesn't fit into the French auteur theory that made stars of film directors like Orson Welles, John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock and Michael Powell, his films always feature strong performances, well written and intelligent scripts. "Calling Northside 777" ranks as a strong film noir based on a true story (much like Hitchcock's well regarded thriller "The Wrong Man") and many of the exteriors were shot on location a rarity at the time. This unusual film straddles the line between docudrama, Italian neorealism and film noir much like Anthony Mann's minor classic film "T-Men" (1947). The crisp, intelligent script by Jay Dratler ("Laura") and Jerome Cady ("Wing and a Prayer" sadly Cady died shortly after the film premiered) rings true with dialogue that doesn't sound dated despite the passage of nearly 60 years.

A sharp, crisp looking transfer highlights "Calling Northside 777" making it another outstanding release in Fox's Film Noir Series of vintage classics. The cinematography of Joseph MacDonald with its rich use of shadows and unusual lighting schemes looks exceptionally rich with solid blacks. The mono sound doesn't suffer from hiss or any of the usual problems from a film made in the late 40's. Fox has expanded the sound a bit using an artificial stereo mix that sounds quite good.

Fox has generously provided a "Fox Movietone News" for the film's premiere. Although it runs a little less than a minute this vintage peak into Hollywood's past is much appreciated. It would have been nice to have one of the A&E Biography segments on the actors involved in the production whether it be about Stewart or Lee J. Cobb. We also get the original theatrical trailer which is a blast to have and compare to the overblown theatrical trailers we have today. Finally we get film trailers for other Fox Film Noir Classic titles "House of Bamboo", "Laura", "Panic in the Streets" and "The Street with No Name".

Featuring a trivia filled commentary track by film historians and authors James Ursini and Alain Silver, we learn quite a bit about the real case that inspired the film and also quite a bit about the shortcuts the producers took to dramatize the story. What's most fascinating is to note how Jimmy Stewart's performance here changes compared to the two previous films he made; "Magic Town" and "It's a Wonderful Life" weren't big hits and they were also the last two films where Stewart played on his boyish persona. Here Stewart plays a much more hard bitten cynical character with compassion at the core of his character. This persona would be put to excellent use in the films that Stewart made for Anthony Mann, Hitchcock and other directors. "Calling Northside 777" was really the first major change that Stewart made to his screen persona in some time. As the authors point out what motivated Stewart to make the change were these film failure but also the fact that Stewart was about to turn 40. This mid-life/mid-career crisis shifted Stewart into some of his most rewarding film roles of his career.

A terrific and overlooked movie, "Call Northside 777" finally gets its due on this DVD. Although the extras could be a bit more generous with biographies of the main actors/production staff, the commentary track makes up for this short fall with trivia about the production of the film and the year it was made. The sharp image quality of the DVD and solid mastering make this an essential purchase for noir fans.

A poor woman, Tillie Wiecek (Kasia Orzazewski), runs a newspaper ad offering $5000 for the capture and conviction of the men who killed a Chicago policeman over a decade ago (`Call Northside 777.) Her son Frank (Richard Conte) was tried, convicted and sentenced to 99 years for the murder, but she's convinced of his innocence. City Editor Brian Kelly (Lee J. Cobb) reads the article and assigns beat reporter P.J. McNeal (James Stewart) to investigate the story. There are angles to be played.

And played they are. They liked to rip `em from the headlines back then, too. CALL NORTHSIDE 777 (1948) is an old school docu-drama, one of a number to emerge in the immediate post-war era. Armed with lighter cameras and faster film stocks, steeled with a passion for location and a love of verisimilitude, these movies boldly left the dressed set for the dirty street. In this case it's the Polish ghettos and the grimy prisons of broad-shouldered Chicago that are surveyed. Stewart, in one of his first non-boy ingenue roles, is given a chance to play a skeptic, an ambitious assignment reporter with a deep well of cynicism and an eye for the angle. Films like CALL NORTHSIDE 777 not only open with a title card telling us "This is a true story," they emphasize that all important point by assuring us that `real locations were used whenever possible.' The movie opens with an extended montage of Chicago from the Great Fire (I think that one, at least, must have come from a reenactment in another movie) to the Prohibition era, replete with Chicago's finest smashing casks of bootleg hooch and brief newsreel footage of such real-life notorati as John Dillinger and Al Capone. All this preface material blends seemingly seamlessly into the movie proper.

Stewart was always a relaxed and easy-going actor. The understated, naturalistic approach this movie takes suits him well. In fact, the highlights of the film are the scenes he shares with Kasia Orzazewski, who seemed to have little more to offer than naive sincerity. Understatement is the key word here, though, and Orzazewski's lack of actress-y affectations adds, rather than detracts, from things. Lee J. Cobb and Richard Conte come off well, too. I should mention poor Helen Walker, who plays Stewart wife and gets maybe ten minutes of screen time. She's more or less a sounding board, a film contrivance who's there only to give Stewart someone to share his humanizing doubts with. As James Ursini and Alain Silver point out on the commentary track - a pretty good one, although Ursini has an annoying habit of dropping his voice to a hard-to-hear whisper at the end of sentences - the Production Code forced the McNeals to sleep in separate twin beds. What they don't mention, at least I didn't hear it, was the rather anti-Code exposé of police corruption the movie investigates.

Also, as Ursini points out, this movie loves technology. Photo transmitting gizmos, miniature cameras, and sophisticated telephone relay stations are all lingered over. Most glaringly there is a really, really long polygraph session scene that features the non-actor inventor of polygraph technology Leonarde Keeler. It probably came across as cutting edge back then, but it reads `quaint' today. In fact, it's yet another `new' technology that director Henry Hathaway spends a good thirty minutes building up to that provides the vital piece in the movie's resolution. I won't give it away, but the `evidence', the one that the movie is so proud of, is totally bogus! If I was one of the half-dozen or so attorneys crowding into the frame during that nearly final scene I'd have been sputtering outrage. Still, it didn't quite wreck things for me. In fact, I loved CALL NORTHSIDE 777 as much for its flaws as I did for its strengths. It's not perfect or even all that convincing, but it gets a strong recommendation nonetheless.

For my money this is the best film ever made about American journalism. James Stewart is a staff writer made cycnical over the years by the grubby sensationalism and shallow hackwork that fills most American newspapers. When he actually latches onto a case of genuine injustice it's an episode that transforms his life almost as much as that of the convict he's trying to free. This is certainly director Henry Hathaway's masterpiece and he has never been given sufficient credit for it. The straight-on realism he achieved filming on location in Chicago has rarely if ever been equalled in the American movies in my view, and no effort was made to clean up the untidy skeins of the story either as Hollywood was wont to do. For instance, nothing was done to free the man unjustly convicted along with Richard Conte's character, around whom the story revolves. If you were to make a list of Stewart's 4 or 5 greatest performances this would have to be on it. He uses methods both praiseworthy and ugly to get what he's after and no American movie actor ever brought home that kind of mixed morality better.

Jimmy Stewart plays a Chicago newspaper reporter. His editor is intrigued by a simple add in the paper. A reward of $5000 is offered for information on the murder of a policeman. The murder is over a decade old. A man has already been convicted of the murder and is serving a life sentence. What interest, the editor wants to know, would anybody have in an old murder? He assigns Jimmy Stewart to find out.

Stewart learns that the add was placed by the convicted man's mother. She is convinced that her son has been falsely accused. The skeptical reporter is touched by the mother's devotion but skeptical as to the innocence of the convict. As time goes on, however, things don't add up. In time, he becomes convinced that an innocent man is rotting in prison and sets out to fix things. He is opposed by just about all of the law and order types and by the political establishment.

This is an excellent film and an excellent story. It is well crafted and well acted. It is reputedly based upon a true story. It's billed as film noir but it does not seem to fit that description to me. It has its gritty moments but is in general much more optimistic about humanity. Its worth watching.

No one is going to the chair at midnight if the governor doesn't call, but you would swear it feels like that in this taunt 1940s crime reporting melodrama. Fox has included Call Northside 777 in its new Fox Film Noir Series. Stewart does plod down to the seedy streets of the stockyards and does find a few skid row types circa 1950, but all in all there are WAY to many virtuous types led by Stewart running out trying to do the good for this ever to qualify as Film Noir.

Stewart gives a stand up performance as investigative reporter PJ O'Neal and Lee J Cobb is almost bewildering to see as his editor in a role where he isn't 60 going on 80 as we've seen him so often.

Stand out performances by Richard Conte as the accused and convicted and an actress named Kasia Orzazewski as his mother give some sense of legitimacy to the plight of the poor in the juggernaut of the US Justice System.

At a discount, this is around a $11 disk and well worth it if your a Stewart or Conte fan. Also well recommended if you liked The FBI Story.

This review is for the 2005 Twentieth Century Fox DVD.

Jimmy Stewart stars as P.J. McNeal, a Chicago newspaper reporter who investigates Tillie Wiecek's (Kasia Orzazewski) personal ad, which offers a $5,000 reward for information regarding a police murder, which occurred eleven years earlier that she believes wrongly convicted her son Frank (Richard Conte). McNeal is clearly conflicted after meeting this poor, older woman since she is sacrificing all that she's earned the past eleven years in hoping to free her son. McNeal ends up writing an article about his story and it's received with overwhelming interest. McNeal's editor, Brian Kelly (Lee J. Cobb), believes this is a story that will keep selling newspapers so he tells McNeal to pursue this story further. McNeal visits Frank Wiecek in jail and finds out a lot more about Frank - a lot of it is good and some of it is initially bothersome. All of this sets up the remainder of the film where McNeal becomes in essence a private investigator, looking for clues that will break this case for Frank Wiecek.

There are a lot of things that I liked about this movie. First, it doesn't try to hide from the fact that the newspaper's motives for investigating this crime are as much financial (selling newspapers) as moral (finding out who really killed a policeman). Furthermore, because the reporter intentionally omits some damaging details in the earlier articles about Frank Wiecek, it exposes the reality of media bias. The film also reveals a dark side of the Chicago police, which has historically had a reputation for corruption. The outcome of the movie is of course predictable, but how it gets there is what makes this movie a winner. The movie also features a lot of fascinating scenes set in the ethnic neighborhoods of Chicago. Of course Jimmy Stewart does a great job, which is no surprise from this Hollywood legend. About the only noteworthy negative criticism of the movie is that Richard Conte doesn't sell his role very well as being ethnically Polish compared to all the other Polish characters in the film. He just sounded like he normally does - an Italian-American guy from Brooklyn.

The DVD quality is very mixed. It starts out impressively with pristine picture quality but it seemed like a lot of the scenes with Jimmy Stewart for some reason showed tiny specs of film deterioration. The sound is good and the bonuses include a trailer, a short clip about the movie's premier and commentary by James Ursini and Alain Silver.


Movie: B+

DVD Quality: B

Jimmy Stewart and Lee J. Cobb star in this noir-esque cold-case thriller. Stewart plays the hard-nosed big-city reporter in 1942 who is assigned to investigate a cop-killer case from 1932. Stewart becomes involved in the case when he reports on the sad story of the old lady who scrubs floors for a living and saves every dime to get her convict son out of prison. The story is very popular with the news-paper reading public, so Stewart is assigned to investigate the case. Stewart cynically follows the leads, believing that the convict is guilty but following the human interest angle. Ultimately he becomes convinced of his subject's innocence and Stewart is involved in race against the clock to get the falsely accused man out of prison.

This is a classic tale that has since been done many times. Northside 777 suffers from some problems with writing and pace. The solid and charismatic acting job of Jimmy Stewart carries the film, along with the stalwart masculinity of Lee J. Cobb. Stewart plays his patented mumbling, querulous yet emotionally vulnerable professional male with charm and an endearing sexiness. The documentary style of the film-making with the startlingly strident narrator is a little melodramatic but probably quite dramatic during the time period. The resolution to the case presages the forensic investigation style of modern films.

A really good film noir from Jimmy Stewart. It has a documentary style that may come off a little stilted today but is still a fine character piece. The film remains suspenseful until the end and has a "good" ending but not necessarily the "happy" ending. The climactic scene has a plot hole you can drive a truck through, but who cares? Jimmy Stewart is in great form as a cynical reporter. There is fine support coming from Lee J. Cobb and Richard Conte. Its a tale of guilt and innocence in gangland Chicago.

"Call Northside 777" is based on the true story of Joseph Machek and Theodore Marcinkovitz, who were wrongly convicted of the Prohibition-era murder of a police officer, and the "Chicago Times" newspapermen, reporter James P. McGuire and copywriter Jack McPhail, whose investigative reporting exposed the miscarriage of justice. The film was made in the documentary style that gained popularity in the late 1940s, with sparse, omniscient voiceover narration, non-professional actors in small roles, and even occasional documentary footage. It was filmed on location in Chicago and in the Illinois State Penitentiary. Names have been changed, and the "Chicago Times" journalists have been merged into one composite character. "Call Northside 777" is sometimes called documentary-noir or newspaper-noir, but it doesn't possess the cynicism or corrosive noir environment of the hard-hitting "T-Men", which was also based on a true story. "T-Men" is more noir, while "Call Northside 777" is more neo-realist. But this is top-notch docudrama and late-40s-style "social conscious" filmmaking that honors crusaders against injustice.

In the Polish district of Chicago, December 1932, a police officer is shot to death by two masked gunmen in the storefront of a speakeasy owned by Wanda Skutnik (Betty Garde). Police suspect a patron of the establishment named Tomek Zaleska (George Tyre). They arrest his friends, Helen and Frank Wiecek, at whose home he spent the night of the crime. Frank (Richard Conte) and Tomek protest their innocence, but both are convicted of the crime on the testimony of Wanda Skutnik and sentenced to 99 years behind bars. In 1944, eleven years after the conviction, Frank's mother, Tillie Wiecek (Kasia Orzazewski), advertises a reward of $5,000 for the identity of the real killers. "Chicago Times" city editor Brian Kelly (Lee J. Cobb) asks his reporter Jim McNeal (Jimmy Stewart) to investigate the unusual advertisement and pushes a skeptical McNeal to pursue the story of Frank's case and possible innocence.

"Call Northside 777" -which is the telephone number in Tillie Wiecek's ad, by the way- was Jimmy Stewart's first hardened or cynical role, as he began to get away from the boy-next-door charm of his earlier roles. Jim McNeal is a blunt, distrustful man, who is out for his own interests. He isn't always a nice guy, and he isn't sympathetic at first. Jimmy Stewart could play obsessive and intractable as well as anyone. And he could create a sense of downhome, common sense righteousness better than anyone. Much of "Call Northside 777"'s success rests on his ability to do both here. At 1 hour and 51 minutes, this was a long movie for its time, but it moves along at a nice clip. There is a bit of technophilia that is so often present in post-war films, as we anxiously await photostats that have been sent over a wire service. Photostats have rarely been so fascinating. "Call Northside 777" is terrific docudrama whose story, style, and performances hold up very well.

The DVD (20th Century Fox 2005): "Fox Movietone News" is a one-minute newsreel of the film's 1949 premiere. There are theatrical trailers for this film (2 minutes) and 4 other films. The audio commentary by film noir theorists and authors James Ursini and Alain Silver is very worthwhile. They provide scene-by-scene commentary on visual and narrative style, characters, actors, discuss the roots of the documentary style, and compare the film to the real case on which it is based. Subtitles available for the film in English and Spanish. Dubbing is available in French.

I love Jimmy Stewart and I consider this one of his best. A classic case of a man wrongfully imprisoned, who's freedom depends on the dogged investiagtion of one newspaper reporter. Based on actual case, it captures the essence of the how a system can railroad an innocent man. James Stewart gives an outstanding performance as a newspaper man who at first thinks the case is nothing more than a mother trying to free her son no matter how guilty he maybe, soon however Stewart finds himself doubting the man's guilt himself. Richard Conti is excellent as the man accused. I highly recommend this for fans of both great actors.