Movie Review
Why yes, I am back. I had a lovely four days off, thank you, doing absolutely nothing. Now let us return to a sorely neglected feature of this blog: the gym movie review!
Let me recommend
They Won't Forget (1937), starring Claude Rains with Lana Turner and Elisha Cook, Jr. I caught this on TNT Tuesday morning; it's the story of a murder of a young girl in a small Southern town. Until I checked IMDb, I didn't realize that this is a fictionalized treatment of a real-life murder: the murder of
Mary Phagan. (The victim is named Mary Clay in the film.) From what I have read on-line, in the real-life case the defendant was basically railroaded because he was Jewish. In the film this is played down; the town is prejudiced against the defendant and his wife because they're "Northerners." I didn't pick up on this code while I was watching the film.
It's a good movie with an excellent perfomance from Claude Rains as the district attorney, firing up a cigar in almost every scene. His Southern accent isn't bad either. In the film, the victim is a student at a local business college and the defendant is one of the professors; in real life, she was a factory worker and the accused man was the manager of the factory. The acting was good all around, and Rains is better than good - you see his ambition to ride this case into a political career, but he also seems to be making an effort to arrest the right man.
Unfortunately I can't tell you how the film ended, as I had to hop off the Precor machine and go do something else - but I plan to catch it next time it's on TV to find out. Recommended.
posted by Dr. Alice at #
