A city goes through hell
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | A city goes through hell |
| Original title | The Phenix City Story |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1955 |
| length | 99 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Phil Karlson |
| script |
Daniel Mainwaring Crane Wilbur |
| production |
Samuel Bischoff , David Diamond for Allied Artist Pictures |
| music | Harry Sukman |
| camera | Harry Neumann |
| cut | George White |
| occupation | |
| |
A city goes through hell (original title The Phenix City Story ) is an American film noir directed by Phil Karlson . The detective film is based on true events in the city of Phenix City in the 1950s. In 2019 she was accepted into the National Film Registry .
action
To the outside world, Phenix City , Alabama, with a population of 25,000, might look like any other city in the United States, but it has been the crime of gambling, prostitution and even murder for over 50 years. The city's non-criminal citizens make up the majority of the population, but either look the other way or are afraid to speak openly about crime. The police act sleepily and may also be corrupt. The respected attorney Albert Patterson actually does not want to interfere and rejects both offers to join a group of citizens who want to stop crime with vigilante justice, and a job offer from the seedy nightclub owner Rhett Tanner.
Albert's retired son John returns to Phenix City with his wife and two children. When John experiences how friendly citizens are beaten up and he himself is involved in a fight by the gangster Clem Wilson, John decides to declare war on crime. The gangsters respond with extreme brutality and kill the young daughter of their African American friend, Zeke, and the villager Fred, who was in pursuit of the girl's murderers. Finally, Albert, who had previously appeared resigned, decides to do something against the illegal machinations in the city himself. He is running for the office of Attorney General of Alabama, because in that office he can clear up the criminals in Phenix City.
The gangsters, led by Rhett Tanner, are trying to use force in Phenix City to prevent citizens from voting - but the rest of Alabama has narrowly voted Albert L. Patterson as Attorney General. Before his inauguration, Albert Patterson was shot dead in front of his office by a gangster's henchman. John Patterson soothes the mob of angry villagers who want to take the law into their own hands. Meanwhile, Ellie Rhodes, who works for Tanner but works as a spy for the Pattersons and who can testify as an eyewitness against the murderers of Albert Patterson, is killed. John Patterson tracks down Rhett Tanner and wants to drown him - the co-murderer of his father and Ellie - after a brawl in the river, but is stopped at the last moment by Zeke, who reminds him that his father Albert was always against vigilante justice and you are yourself so go to the level of criminals.
John succeeds in imposing martial law on Phenix City, whereupon armed soldiers appear in the city and smash the casinos. That wasn't the idea of justice his father fought for, John said, but it was the only language the gangsters would understand. John himself is elected Attorney General and promises to finally do away with the gangsters who are still hoping for a comeback and the murderers of his father.
background
Much of the film was shot on location in Phenix City in just ten days or so. Many of the citizens who lived in the village and who were partly involved in putting an end to crime, play themselves in the smaller supporting roles. Even in the larger roles, the film did without the casting of glamorous film stars and instead continued Character actor.
As the real John Patterson remembered, screenwriter Crane Wilbur was the first Hollywood person to do research on location and then wrote the script. The Phenix City Story stayed relatively close to the real-life events in many parts of the film, but one of the inventions was the scene in which a black girl is thrown out of a car dead in front of the Patterson house. John Patterson did not care much about these cinematic freedoms as he was cracking down on the Phenix City gangsters at the time and the film was welcomed publicity. According to Patterson, the producer Diamond was threatened with a lawsuit by a lawyer for the gangsters during the shooting, but the producer was unimpressed.
Reviews
Bosley Crowther wrote for the New York Times in 1955 that the film "in the style of a dramatized documentary" was reminiscent of The Fist in the Neck and The Man Who Wished to Rule in its sober and decisive narrative . A number of actors are "excellent", especially John McIntire as a murdered lawyer. The film shows credibly both the gangsters and the committed citizens, whose courage and backbone become clear.
The film The Phenix City Story has built up a good reputation over the decades and is considered by some critics as a “ cult film ” as well as a “classic of the B-movie ”. It's also one of the favorite films of director Martin Scorsese , who called the film an influence on his own gangster films. Scorsese praised the complete lack of sentimentality of Phil Karlson, who stayed close to the real events in Phenix City and showed fear, brutality and racism. As a conclusion he writes: "Fast, furious, unshakable!"
The film service writes that The Phenix City Story is a "hard, concentrated gangster film in a semi-documentary style".
The film critic Bruce Eder from the All Movie Guide called the film one of the "most brutal and realistic crime films of the 1950s". Director Phil Karlson had cleverly managed to combine lively and documentary-looking descriptions of the small southern town with exciting action sequences.
Web links
- A city goes through hell in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ In the Wake of the Assassins. Retrieved August 30, 2019 .
- ^ Bosley Crowther: Sin in the South; 'The Phenix City Story' Has Debut at State . In: The New York Times . September 3, 1955, ISSN 0362-4331 ( nytimes.com [accessed August 30, 2019]).
- ↑ In the Wake of the Assassins. Retrieved August 30, 2019 .
- ^ Andy Duncan: Alabama Curiosities: Quirky Characters, Roadside Oddities & Other Offbeat Stuff . Rowman & Littlefield, 2009, ISBN 978-1-4617-4728-4 ( google.de [accessed August 30, 2019]).
- ↑ Martin Scorsese names his top 15 gangster movies. In: Evan E. Richards. September 12, 2010. Retrieved August 30, 2019 (American English).
- ↑ A city goes through hell. Retrieved August 7, 2019 .
- ^ The Phenix City Story (1955) - Phil Karlson | Synopsis, Characteristics, Moods, Themes and Related. Retrieved August 30, 2019 (American English).