Call Northside 777

Call Northside 777

By

  • Genre: Crime, Drama
  • Release Date: 1948-02-13
  • Runtime: 111 minutes
  • : 6.614
  • Production Company: 20th Century Fox
  • Production Country: United States of America
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6.614/10
6.614
From 154 Ratings

Description

In 1932, a cop is killed and Frank Wiecek sentenced to life. Eleven years later, a newspaper ad by Frank's mother leads Chicago reporter P.J. O'Neal to look into the case. For some time, O'Neal continues to believe Frank guilty. But when he starts to change his mind, he meets increased resistance from authorities unwilling to be proved wrong.

Trailer

Reviews

  • CinemaSerf

    7
    By CinemaSerf
    James Stewart and Lee J. Cobb are both on top form in this crime thriller. The latter, the boss who sends the former, one of his better reporters, to investigate the case of convicted murderer "Frank Wiecek" (Richard Conte) after his mother puts an ad in a newspaper offering $5000 for information that might cast doubt on the voracity of the verdict. Initially sceptical, "McNeal", soon begins to suspect that perhaps the conviction - based solely on the testament of a long lost witness "Wanda Skutnik" - might be flawed. Now, he has to deal with understandable hostility from the Chicago PD as well as manage the hopeful optimism of the man's mother as his search involves some risk to himself, the gut instinct innate to a good journalist and the innovative use of state of the art technology (for the 1940s) to try and get the evidence to enable a pardon board to reverse the sentence. Aside from a slightly over-bearing narrator, Henry Hathaway manages to build the tension and keep it going well for a strong last hour of the picture with a lovely, grittily jazzy score from Alfred Newman. Not seen very often nowadays, but if you get a chance - it's well worth two hours of anyone's time.

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