Trial (1955): the hownos/Allaby viewing session

big on the messaging.

Not sure they revealed it yet. But wiki says that

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Completed Extant Filmographies: Luis Buñuel, Federico Fellini, Satyajit Ray, Fritz Lang, Andrei Tarkovsky, Buster Keaton, Yasujirō Ozu, Carl Th. Dreyer - (for favorite directors who have passed or retired, 10 minimum)

I believe it was a rheumatic fever.

that's not murder

No but presumably people blamed the Mexican boy because he is Mexican, although I would think if it was an illness they would be able to determine that.

Those dirty communists and their money!

kathy juardo got a best actress nomination for broken lance and a golden globe win for high noon

They said something about his attempts at seduction is what killed her (got her heart excited?)

nice fbi reference, the joke back then was: if three commies were having a meeting, two of them were fbi informants.

So, it's shifting over to a red scare flick? Who knew the communists are the reason we're racists?

she was great in a tree grows in brooklyn

frank cady from green acres fame.

The judge allows a lot of yelling in the courtroom. I question how realistic this is.

Barney was total scum, grrrr. Nice performance though.

The mothers deluded. grrrr

Movies a button pusher, really manipulative - communists, grrr

It seems like a flimsy argument to convict the boy with.

I doubt they would allow applause in court.

yeah, that was weird.

This was an odd one. It's a strange blend of anti-racism, anti-communism and a courtroom drama. The communist subplot didn't really fit in with the movie and it would have been better if they left it out. It was underdeveloped and too far fetched. Some of the courtroom sequences weren't very believable either and the defence strategy, verdict and sentence don't really work. There were some holes in the plot and some of the writing was questionable. There were some good dramatic moments though. There is a good movie somewhere in here, if it had been better developed and not weighed down by the communist parts. I'll give it a 6/10 for the effective moments.

Well, that's another one I get to mark off the watchlist. Not a bad legal drama, but a real product of the McCarthyism era. Did have some progressive moments (having a black judge) but also seemed to be trying to deflect from the topic of racism within this country, by throwing in the communist angle.

My take


A bit of sloppy mess. Not sure what the message or messages were suppose to be. Starts out as a race and potential lynching movie (like Intruder In The Dust) and then transitions to a virulent anti-Communism movie. The race element is sort of forgotten even though the suspect is Mexican and not Black. The manner of the "murder" in this movie is also weak. I know they didn't have CSI back then but the death penalty for a teen on such flimsy evidence just didn't make sense. Imagine if the poor kid was Black.

The strong points were Arthur Kennedy's Oscar nominated performance and the long list of character actors in this movie everyone from Elisha Cook, Whit Bissell and Frank Cady.

I can see why this movie has been forgotten. A bit heavy on the messaging. Some subtlety could have been used. Not exactly one of the better courtroom dramas I have seen. 5.5/10

P.S. The ending was strange. We are led to believe that the town is racist as they have trouble sitting a jury. At the end when the kid was given a suspended sentence of some kind, everyone is cheering.