Call Northside 777

Jimmy Stewart invented the fax machine

Patrick Willems

There is hardly a shadow in noir that can be painted so dark as the one taken from the very real and very darkened corners of a corrupt system of ‘justice.’  Henry Hathaway’s “Call Northside 777” is a documentary style noir depicting the true story of a man falsely…

theriverjordan

Reporter PJ McNeal (James Stewart) tries to prove the innocence of Frank Wiecek (Richard Conte), jailed for murder 11 years before, in Henry Hathaway’s crime drama based on a true story and co-starring Helen Walker, Lee J Cobb and Joanne De Bergh. It’s made in a docudrama…

Josh Gillam

A painstakingly thorough, nearly OCD-ish take on a noirish "based on a true story" tale of a Jimmy Stewart character's efforts to free a man wrongly convicted of killing a police officer. The plot is one that Hollywood has done a hundred times before and since, so let's…

Michael Haneke Paneke

sure was wild to see actual angel jimmy stewart call a woman named wanda an ignorant, unreliable, arrogant, evil, heartless, and corrupt fingerwoman

eely

You know what my favorite parts of Call Northside 777 were?* The little, intimate scenes between McNeal (James Stewart) and his wife, Laura (Helen Walker). There are few too few of them, but both the passion the couple share and their deep regard for one another are almost…

sakana1

During the height of Prohibition, a Chicago police officer is murdered in a speakeasy. Frank Wiecek (Richard Conte) is arrested, convicted, and sentenced to 99 years in prison. Eleven years later, Wiecek’s impoverished mother places a classified ad in the Chicago Times.…

Cinema_Snobb

To celebrate Jimmy’s birthday, I randomly picked one of his films— and this one came up. What caught my attention right away was the opening: it claimed to be based on a true story. And yeah, it was truly compelling, especially watching Jimmy portray a journalist fighting…

Uusss 𔘓

"That's the trouble with being innocent. You don't know what really happened." After spending 11 years in prison for the wrong conviction of the murder of a police officer, Frank Wiecek's (Richard Conte) mother Tillie (Kasia Orzazewski) posts a $5000 reward for any…

Jesse Snoddon