NR | 1h 28min | Drama | 1947
The film dramatizes the real-life 1920s’ murder case of Fr. Hubert Dahme. Attorney Homer L. Cummings, charged with prosecuting the lone suspect, Harold Israel, ended up acquitting him. The case was never solved, so the film has no spoilers. Kazan isn’t as interested in the case as he is in what people are prepared to do to mete out their brand of justice, even if it’s clearly injustice.
The film set in Connecticut opens with a man shooting a priest, Fr. Lambert. It happens at night, in public, at point blank range. The murderer flees. Despite the darkness, seven witnesses claim they saw “the whole thing:” They claim to see the killer in a “dark coat, light hat” and of “medium build.” A narrator tells of how the kind, humble Fr. Lambert was not only respected and loved, but probably feared and hated, too, for being a “stern and uncompromising judge of character.” No one imagined that anyone could bear him a grudge. Now it’s obvious that someone did.
Public anger swells when police, led by the earnest Chief Harold Robinson (Lee J. Cobb), have no clues or suspects. There is nothing except the certainty that the bullet is from a .32 caliber weapon. City Hall officials, led by “Mac” McCreery (Robert Keith), with their pulse on a fickle public opinion, fear they’ll lose the next election if they can’t show that the justice they deliver is decisive. Meanwhile, influential owner-publisher of The Morning Record, T. M. Wade (Taylor Holmes), who fancies getting elected himself, has his crime reporters and cartoonists lampoon the police and city administration.
Soon, the well-oiled justice system kicks in. McCreery & Co. pressure State Attorney Henry Harvey (Dana Andrews) by dangling a likely gubernatorial appointment before him if he shows rapid results. McCreery doesn’t need to hint at what Harvey stands to lose if he doesn’t play ball. Harvey duly pressures Robinson.
Innocent Until Proven Guilty
This Oscar-nominated screenplay pits the courts of public opinion against the courts of justice. It argues that if slanderous editorials, outraged activists, and conspiratorial wags were all it took to secure justice, there’d be no need for a lawyer, judge, or jury. Suspects merely have to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and say the wrong things to be tried, convicted, and sentenced. Anyone in a dark coat, light hat, and of medium build will do.Of course, impunity enables crime, but only if the system targets actual criminals. A wrongful conviction spurred by public fury, a desperate administration, concocted evidence, and vested interests is hardly justice.
Screenwriter Richard Murphy shows humans as fallible because they have only fallible access to the truth. The measured rhythm and pace of the justice system acknowledges this, allowing several layers of legality: Coroner’s Inquest, then District Court, then Superior Court. They all have a go at illuminating the truth, because others will try to pervert that very truth. It acknowledges that innocence must take precedence until guilt is demonstrated, not the other way around. Harvey captures that insight when reassuring a dithering witness who’s under oath, “We’re all human.”
Harvey’s epiphany comes not in a police station, jail cell, or judge’s chambers, but at home, when he’s with his devoted wife Madge (Jane Wyatt). This is a tender scene and a turning point.
Once, a frantic McCreery appeals to what he figures is Harvey’s better judgment. Does Harvey really want to throw his career away? Even if Waldron were innocent, McCreery asks, “Is one man’s life worth more than the community?” Harvey replies, “Yes, it is.” McCreery warns that in that case Harvey will have to fight “the whole town.” Privately, Harvey knows that’s not quite true. It is Waldron who’ll have to fight the town alone if Harvey doesn’t stand by his innocence.
Kazan hints at a biblical reference that asserts that it’s better for one man to die than for a whole nation to perish. He challenges that with his cinematic rejoinder: If a nation condemns even one man wrongfully, the nation has already perished.
