STORY ON PAGE ONE, THE (director/writer: Clifford Odets; cinematographer: James Wong Howe; editor: Hugh S. Fowler; cast: Rita Hayworth (Jo Morris), Gig Young (Larry Ellis), Anthony Franciosa (Victor Santini), Robert Burton (D.A.), Mildred Dunnock (Mrs. Ellis), Hugh Griffith (Judge Neilson), Sanford Meisner (Phil Stanley), Raymond Greenleaf (Judge Carey), Jay Adler (Lauber) Alfred Ryder (Mike Morris), Leo Penn (Morrie Goetz), Katherine Squire (Mrs. Brown); Runtime: 123; 20th Century Fox; 1959)
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
An above-par courtroom drama, set in Los Angeles, elevated by director/screenwriter Clifford Odets' sharp script. He originally intended for this work to be a play. It was also elevated by an outstanding cast, with special kudos to Rita Hayworth's warm portrayal of a woman in an abusive marriage and by Sanford Meisner's forceful and expressive performance as the cross-examing prosecutor.
The bulk of the film takes place in the courtroom and since we immediately see the crime, we know that it was an accident and therefore the tension in the film comes about in finding out if the two lovebirds accused of murdering her husband will be given a death sentence, because the circumstances point to their guilt.
The opening shot is of the newspaper headline: "Mrs. Jo Morris (Rita) and Larry Ellis (Gig) held for murder." Jo's mother (Squire) is strapped for cash, but she visits the lawyer son of a mother who was under her nurse's care before she died. Victor Santini (Franciosa) is an angry young man, with a drinking problem, and acts surly toward Mrs. Brown, refusing to take the case because he's a small-time lawyer who will have to go against the D.A., who has an unlimited amount of money to spend to get his conviction. He is also dismayed that Mrs. Brown can't afford to pay the fair amount it would take to have her daughter be ably represented. But when Mrs. Brown cries and lets him know how highly his mother spoke of him and how smart he is, working his way through Harvard Law School, the hardened lawyer changes his mind.
As Santini investigates what happened, he becomes convinced the couple is telling the truth. That Larry was her accountant, a widower who is burdened with an overbearing and self-righteous mother (Dunnock) who tries to lead his life for him, and that the love had long-gone-out of Jo's marriage to her brutal and alcoholic husband (Ryder), whereby she has become indifferent to him. The two lovers were drawn together by their mutual problems and had been intimate only once.
Just before Larry went to do his friend Morrie's (Penn) account in Sacramento, he learned from his mother that she had a private detective follow the couple and is now meddling in the hopes that he give up this married woman whom he dearly loves. Mrs. Ellis also visited Jo and warned her that if she doesn't stay away from her son, she will tell her policeman husband. Worried about his mother's interference and wishing to throw the private detective off his trail, he uses Sacramento as an alibi to shake his mother's private detectives, as he rushes back at night and comes to Jo's house to secretly comfort her about what his mother did. Jo's husband hears them in the kitchen and still drunk from the wedding they just came back from, gets his gun and gets into a tussle with Larry. He gets killed as the gun accidently goes off when they were tussling.
The beauty in the film is in the long-drawn-out courtroom dramatics. Santini emotionally got to the bottom of the case, whereas Judge Carey, was basically ineffectual as Larry's lawyer, more interested in doing what the domineering Mrs. Ellis wants him to do then getting her son free of the murder charge. Santini had to virtually defend both of the lovers, whereas the dynamic prosecutor, Mr. Stanley (Meisner), spun a scenario of the lovers in cahoots to knock off the husband and get the insurance money. He uses Larry's bogus Sacramento alibi and her lie of a prowler around the house when she reported the murder, as proof that they can't be trusted to tell the truth.
The story itself wasn't too interesting, but the performances were energetic and the film had a good courtroom style, enough to make this chatty film well worth seeing.
REVIEWED ON 11/27/2000 GRADE: B-
Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews"
http://www.sover.net/~ozus
ozus@sover.net
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