The Phenix City Story (1955)
Wow, this one came from nowhere and blew me away. It's a rough and tumble, unbelievably violent, true story of a block in a little town in Alabama where gambling and corruption ruled and where some local people were failing to fight back.
It begins with a very long (too long) series of interviews of real people involved in the very real story of Phenix City, on the border with Georgia. I would actually recommend skipping it--almost twenty minutes that was not in the original release of the movie--and start with the drama, which is dramatic above all. This is no film noir, but it's shot in that moody, graphic style, which is perfect. The bad guys--including both a ruthless mob leader with no class at all and a tough and reactionary henchman who gets away with murder--are a classic Southern good old boys network. The cops are in on the whole scheme, and this mini-Vegas runs with impunity, thriving mostly off the money of soldiers from a nearby army base. It's all extremely convincing, small time crookery.
The good guys--and women, one woman working at a gambling joint being a key insider witness--are equally convincing and small time. There is no Bogart or Mitchum or Lancaster in the leading role, though the father son lawyer pair who eventually lead the resistance are familiar faces: John McIntire and Richard Kiley (Kiley had been doing a lot of early t.v. but was also in "Pickup on South Street"). You might expect a familiar battle between the forces of good and evil, with tensions and violence and the eventual triumph of justice. And while the end of the gambling joints (after 80 years) is a matter of history, it takes so many really awful and gut wrenching turns it's riveting. I mean, this movie is like no other in terms of facing the facts--sometimes that person who would never get bumped off in a Hollywood script does actually die in real life.
And this is real life, scripted and filmed and acted and edited with the vigor of a great drama, but based on the ugly truth of it, and not looking the other way. Don't miss it.
Wow, this one came from nowhere and blew me away. It's a rough and tumble, unbelievably violent, true story of a block in a little town in Alabama where gambling and corruption ruled and where some local people were failing to fight back.
It begins with a very long (too long) series of interviews of real people involved in the very real story of Phenix City, on the border with Georgia. I would actually recommend skipping it--almost twenty minutes that was not in the original release of the movie--and start with the drama, which is dramatic above all. This is no film noir, but it's shot in that moody, graphic style, which is perfect. The bad guys--including both a ruthless mob leader with no class at all and a tough and reactionary henchman who gets away with murder--are a classic Southern good old boys network. The cops are in on the whole scheme, and this mini-Vegas runs with impunity, thriving mostly off the money of soldiers from a nearby army base. It's all extremely convincing, small time crookery.
The good guys--and women, one woman working at a gambling joint being a key insider witness--are equally convincing and small time. There is no Bogart or Mitchum or Lancaster in the leading role, though the father son lawyer pair who eventually lead the resistance are familiar faces: John McIntire and Richard Kiley (Kiley had been doing a lot of early t.v. but was also in "Pickup on South Street"). You might expect a familiar battle between the forces of good and evil, with tensions and violence and the eventual triumph of justice. And while the end of the gambling joints (after 80 years) is a matter of history, it takes so many really awful and gut wrenching turns it's riveting. I mean, this movie is like no other in terms of facing the facts--sometimes that person who would never get bumped off in a Hollywood script does actually die in real life.
And this is real life, scripted and filmed and acted and edited with the vigor of a great drama, but based on the ugly truth of it, and not looking the other way. Don't miss it.