Call Northside 777 (1948)

Directed by Henry Hathaway. Starring James Stewart, Lee J. Cobb, Richard Conte, Kasia Orzazewski, Betty Garde, John McIntire, Joanna De Bergh, Helen Walker, Moroni Olsen, Howard Smith, J. M. Kerrigan, Paul Harvey.

Ardent melodrama in the semi-documentary style (which sounds oxymoronic on the surface), spotlighting crusading news journalism with the anxious energy of a thriller, almost like an apolitical warm-up to All the President’s Men. Liberally inspired by the real-life case of a Chicago man convicted of murdering a policeman, getting the attention eleven years later by two determined reporters composited into one, played by Jimmy Stewart with stubbornness and integrity as a doubting Thomas who gradually becomes convinced the man is innocent. Just as the tide turns for the reporter’s faith, so, too, inch by inch, does the story become more absorbing. Minor lapses and the occasional unnecessary scene are forgiven by the compelling nature of the investigation, with extra attention to the details typically glossed over by similar breeds of potboiler, some of which are dated in a pleasant way, like waiting for a key piece of evidence to get transmitted in a method that’s far more time-consuming and physically complex than simply attaching a file to an email and clicking “send”. Another interesting detail: the person administering the polygraph test to the convicted man is the machine’s inventor, Leonard Keeler, playing himself. Look for uncredited appearances from E. G. Marshall, Lionel Stander, and, in a barely-visible bit part cut down in the editing room, Thelma Ritter.

76/100