Call Northside 777

Can you believe, I couldn't find a single usable frame from this movie as illustration for this article? It has only happened with one other movie - The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp. And that one, I almost expected, because it's an old British movie that's remained somewhat obscure for Americans.

But Call Northside 777 is a classic film. It's an American noir from 20th Century Fox, starring James Stewart. Plus it's been released recently on DVD, along with Laura and Panic in the Streets, both of which I've reviewed already.

Anyway, Laura it ain't. While Call Northside moves along briskly and provides a solid amount of entertainment (along with some beautiful shots of old Chicago), it never really gathers sufficient momentum. The movie just didn't ever come alive for me - the ingredients of a good film are there, but it's too repetitive and dry.

Part of the problem arises from its genre. Though Call Northside clearly fits in the category of "film noir," it's also a "true crime" film done in the style of a re-enacted documentary. The action in the film is based on a real Chicago murder case, and Jimmy Stewart's character is based on a real reporter.

In the opening montage, we're given a brief history of Prohibition-Era Chicago, and how quick arrests protected the reputation of the police force. Then we meet Frank Wiecek (Richard Conte) and his friend Tomek Zaleska (George Tyne), two Polish immigrants arrested falsely for the murder of a police officer in a speakeasy. The police are desperate for a conviction, so they rush the case to trial, and the two friends are sentenced to 99 years in prison each.

10 years later, reporter McNeal (Stewart) stumbles on to the story while working on a fluff piece about Wiecek's mother, who scrubs floors every day hoping to earn enough money to win Frank and appeal. At first, he resists the idea that Wiecek might be innocent, but when Frank passes a lie detector test, he starts to change his mind.

And, of course, by the end he's not only become convinced of Wiecek's innocence, but enraged at a justice system that can allow a man to be railroaded in this way.

At the time, these sort of turnabouts may have seemed fresh and exciting, but today it plays like your average episode of "Law and Order." So many films and TV shows have borrowed this format that it has been run into the ground, and any more, I tend to feel that the best true crime films are actual documentaries. For example, often during Call Northside, I was reminded of Errol Morris' The Thin Blue Line, a better film about a similar case, in which an overzealous police department accused and incarcerated an innocent man. (Morris' film actually won wrongfully accused Texan Randall Adams his freedom. Adams then turned around and sued Morris for stealing his life story.)

Also, I was reminded of Clint Eastwood's underrated thriller True Crime, which is essentially a remake of the Call Northside 777 story. One interesting divergence between the films: Call Northside implies in a sidelong way that Wiecek's Polish background may have played into the police's decision to declare him the culprit, whereas Eastwood's film focused on racism much more explicitly.

You can't fault Call Northside 777 and films of its ilk for inspiration several generations of filmmakers. That's unfair. But I will say that the format kind of mutes any tension or excitement the movie's story may inspire. Take the scene featuring the lie detector. It's a suspenseful scene, and it's the first time Wiecek's claims of his innocence will be put to the test in any meaningful way.

But director Henry Hathaway obviously worried audiences wouldn't understand how the lie detector worked, so he includes an extended and very full sequence in which the operator explains to McNeal in detail how the machine worked and what it can do. Again, this film was made in 1948, when lie detector technology was not the old cliche it has become today. Now lie detectors figure into probably 40% of all movies, and we don't need any explanation for how they work.

But still, the scene just stops the film dead in its tracks. By the time Wiecek starts actually answering questions, we've had long enough to figure out what's going to happen, and the scene has become completely flat.

As well, Hathaway's unable to establish any interesting relationships. Wiecek at first distrusts McNeail, asking him at one point to stop writing any more articles about him or his family, and then comes around for no apparent reason. McNeal's given an attractive and supportive wife (Helen Walker) who doesn't have any role to play in the film whatsoever. Lee J. Cobb plays his editor, who at first seems like an interesting character before devolving into a placeholder at around the hour mark.

Even Wiecek's mother, the kindly old lady who scrubs floors for the benefit of her son, fails to make much of an impression. We meet her early on in the film and then don't see her again until the end.

One more complaint before I get to the good stuff; Stewart's character isn't really depicted as much of a reporter. For one thing, he writes several stories about Wiecek's case before ever meeting the man or even talking to him. He has to be convinced by his editor to go interview the man's ex-wife. It doesn't occur to him to speak to Wiecek's friend, the man who was arrested along with him, until nearly halfway through the movie.

Also, he's apparently a news writer, but often we see him typing opinionated column-type pieces. At one point, he refers to an old lady who refuses to testify on Wiecek's behalf, as an "evil, heartless woman." Oh, and before he interviews Wiecek or finds out any of the facts of the case, he's already decided about the man's guilt.

See what I mean? Woodward and Bernstein, this guy ain't.

Okay, now on to what's good about Call Northside. Obviously, there's Jimmy Stewart, who provides the film with a solid center without overshadowing the action. There's a lack of actors like Stewart these days. When he wanted to, he was capable of commanding an audience's attention, but he also knew how to hang back and invest himself in the story. There are many films like Call Northside where he doesn't stand out, but you realize only after the movie's over that he's been the backbone, his character's presence has been holding the entire enterprise together.

I'm reminded, as well, of a film like Rope. You think of it, or at least I do, as Hitchcock's film, a tour-de-force of directing. But you need to have Stewart in there to maintain the audience's interest. If Hitchcock is the film's raging id, Stewart is the always self-aware ego, keeping the narrative on an even keel.

Also, no review of Call Northside 777 would be complete without a mention of Joseph MacDonald's wonderful location photography. This was the first film ever to be filmed on location in Chicago. Seriously. And MacDonald managed to capture the city's variety and character brilliantly. There are many, many breathtaking black and white cityscapes, and it's a rare treat to see such expansive location photography in a movie from this era. Chicago itself is practically a star in this movie, and the cinematography was the highlight of my entire experience with the film.

I'm continuing to work my way through Laser Blazer's extensive noir collection, so I'll be featuring many more films like Call Northside 777, many of them likely better. This ranks along with Panic in the Streets as a noble effort with much to recommend, that nevertheless falls short of the genre's real benchmarks.