NFR Project: 'The Phenix City Story' (1955)

 

NFR Project: “The Phenix City Story”

Dir: Phil Karlson

Scr: Daniel Mainwaring, Crane Wilbur

Pho: Harry Neumann

Ed: George White

Premiere: Aug. 14, 1955

100 min.

An interesting low-budget anomaly. This film is an awkward combination of would-be documentary and fictionalized potboiler. It purports to show the events surrounding the uncovering of systemic and pervasive corruption in Phenix City, Alabama in the early 1950s. (In fact, the Columbus, GA Ledger-Enquirer won the Pulitzer Prize in 1955 for its reporting on Phenix City.)

Phil Karlson (1908-1982) was a maestro of the mediocre. He made his living directing movies for off-brand studios such as Monogram. He was competent and professional, bringing in all his efforts on time and under budget. Name a genre, and he directed a film in it. He was one of a fraternity of lesser-known but steadily working Hollywood directors such as Allan Dwan, Joseph H. Lewis, Edward L. Cahn, Roger Corman, and Edgar Ulmer.

Phenix City is located across the river from Columbus, Georgia, which hosts Fort Benning. The presence of enlisted men led to the creation of a red-light district that gave the town the unofficial title of “Sin City, USA.” In the 1940s and ‘50s, gambling, prostitution, and drug usage there were rampant. The town was run by organized crime, with the full cooperation of the municipal authorities.

Attempts were made at reform that were rebuffed violently. On June 18, 1954, the Alabama attorney general pro tem Albert Patterson, who ran on reform, was shot to death outside his law office in downtown Phenix City. The situation was so out of hand that martial law was declared in the city on July 22.

So this film was made immediately after the fact. Interestingly, it opens with about 20 minutes of interviews between journalist Clete Roberts and some of the citizens who witnessed the actual carnage. It then kicks in to an overview of the sordid conditions in Phenix City. We are taken into the story of John Patterson (Richard Kiely), a lawyer and Korean War vet who goes into practice with his father Albert (John McIntire) in town.

An improvement committee is formed, but there is a spy in its midst. Its efforts are thwarted by the town’s criminals. The committee members are harassed and assaulted; one man’s daughter is murdered and tossed onto John’s lawn.

Albert, initially disinclined to get involved, eventually consents to run for attorney general. As in real life, the character is murdered. Son John flies into enraged action, finding the crime boss (Edward Andrews) responsible and beating him half to death. He is only restrained by Zeke (James Edwards), father of the slain girl, who exhorts, “Thou shalt not kill!”

The movie ends with armed soldiers taking over the district, and destroying its crooked gambling equipment. It is implied that the reign of terror is over. However, Karlson had a pessimistic outlook that runs like a thread through his films. The Phenix City Story is consonant with that perspective.

Those in charge are the bad guys, and violence is their stock in trade. Almost all the citizens have given up, resigning themselves to domination by society’s dark forces. Almost everyone is crooked; almost everyone can be bought. Crime is a major industry, a revenue source for a whole culture. It takes making it personal with a murder, for a man to avenge his father’s death, for anything positive to happen.

The tone is spare, shrouded in night on rain-slicked streets. The actors are a curious combination of polished pros, local amateur actors, and people seemingly drawn in off the street. The result is a documentary-like evocation of the underbelly of the American dream.

And, in real life, unlike the seemingly liberal character in the film, John Patterson went on to be one of the most anti-Black governors of all time.

The NFR Project is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Bad Day at Black Rock.