Call Northside 777 Page #3

Synopsis: In 1932, a cop is killed and Frank Wiecek sentenced to life. Eleven years later, a newspaper ad by Frank's mother leads Chicago reporter P.J. McNeal to look into the case. For some time, McNeal continues to believe Frank guilty. But when he starts to change his mind, he meets increased resistance from authorities unwilling to be proved wrong.
Genre: Drama, Film-Noir
Director(s): Henry Hathaway
Production: 20th Century Fox Film Corporation
  1 win & 2 nominations.
 
IMDB:
7.4
Rotten Tomatoes:
73%
APPROVED
Year:
1948
112 min
125 Views


First, I try $3,000.

Nothing. Now I try $5,000.

Suppose nothing happens?

- Then I work 11 more years.

I get $10,000.

But my boy, someday he get out.

Well, I got to hand it to ya, Mrs. Wiecek.

You got a lot of courage.

You help me?

[ Chuckles ] No, I'm afraid I couldn't do that.

I'm only a reporter.

I just write the story.

Well, good luck to you.

Good-bye.

[ Typewriters Clacking ]...

Great job, Mac.

- Thanks, Johnny.

Mac.

Hey, this story on the scrub woman--

pretty good.

How'd you like to follow it up

by goin' out to Stateville...

...and interviewin' her son?

- Well, now, wait a minute.

I didn't write this story

to glorify the son. He's a cop-killer.

Well, you got any proof he's a cop-killer?

Well, they didn't give him

He had a record.

He was on probation when he shot the cop.

Yeah, I know.

I read the record too.

He's Public Enemy Number One.

He and a couple of other kids

broke into a grocery store.

He got two bucks and a record.

But in this case,

an eyewitness...

...identified him as one of the killers.

The Supreme Court reviewed the trial.

The conviction was upheld.

Well, so what? It wouldn't hurt anything to

hear what the guy has to say, would it?

Well, why-- If you go out there--

- Well, look, Mac.

Let's put it this way...

...maybe I'm interested

for personal reasons.

Maybe I'm interested

'cause my mother did the same thing.

She scrubbed floors on

her hands and knees for...

...more than 11 years to

send me through school.

Okay, I'll go out to the pen

tomorrow and see him.

How about expenses?

[ Machine Clicks ]

- Here's a voucher. Take it to the cashier.

Kelly?

- Hmm?

I happen to know

your mother had a small annuity.

She never scrubbed a floor in her life.

You never got past the fifth grade.

But I figure if you pull such a corny gag

as this, you must want me to go pretty bad.

So I'm going.

But l-- I want you to know that

you didn't get away with it.

Jim?

- Yeah..

You're early tonight.

What happened?

Oh, I got to get up 8:30 in the morning,

go out to Stateville...

...and see that scrub woman's boy.

Got something to eat for me?

- Mm-hmm, it's all ready.

Hey.

Hi.

- Hi.

Hey. Got a new one, huh?

Isn't a beauty?

Five hundred pieces.

Say, I can't see how a smart girl like you...

...can spend so much time on these things.

Oh, I noticed you worked on the last one.

- Mmm.

You know, that was a marvelous yarn

you wrote about that Polish woman.

Had a lot of feeling.

What a magnificent thing that old lady did.

Yeah. Everybody's touched.

Especially Kelly.

I was too. Makes you feel warm.

Well, I hit it pretty hard.

But don't start believin' it.

I read the files on the case.

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Jerome Cady

Jerome Cady (August 15, 1903 – November 7, 1948) was a Hollywood screenwriter. What promised to be a lucrative and successful career as a film writer - graduating up from Charlie Chan movies in the late 1930s to such well respected war films as Guadalcanal Diary (1943), a successful adaptation of Forever Amber (1947) and the police procedural Call Northside 777 (1948) - came to an abrupt end when he died of a sleeping pill overdose onboard his yacht off Catalina Island in 1948. At the time of his death, he was doing a treatment for a documentary on the Northwest Mounted Police. There was a Masonic funeral service for him. He received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay for Wing and a Prayer in 1944. A native of West Virginia, Cady started as a newspaper copy boy. He was later a reporter with the Los Angeles Record, before joining the continuity staff of KECA-KFI, Los Angeles in June 1932. He spent time in New York in the 1930s with Fletcher & Ellis Inc. as its director of radio, returning to Los Angeles in 1936. He joined 20th Century Fox in 1940, having previously been employed at RKO between radio jobs.. more…

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Submitted on August 05, 2018

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