The Family Secret

It's an honest well to do family, where the father is a retired lawyer and the only son is studying law with great future prospects. One night however he accidentally happens to cause the death of his best friend in a drunken brawl which totally shatters his self respect. He confides in his father who advises him to immediately make a clean breast of it to the police, but the mother has second thoughts and advises him to wait and sleep on it. Matters get more complicated when a married innocent man without children gets charged with the homicide, and he begs the retired lawyer to defend him at court. The father finds it a clear case for acqittal and accepts the case, but during the trial the charged innocent who has a heart condition has a heartstroke and dies. The case is dismissed, but the perpetrator feels very bad about it and is getting nervous. The film is remarkable for its excellent acting, especially by the father (Lee J. Cobb) playing his part with admirable restraint, and by the son (John Derek) adding another impersonation of a very sensitive and nervous young man, and by his sensible girl (Jody Lawrance) who adds a great deal of cold good sense to the film. It's a great family drama posing many questions of moral resposibility.

If you really want to expose a bad actor's badness then put him or her up against a great actor. Like Ava Gardner opposite Bogie in "Contessa". Or Natalie Trundy juxtaposed with Dean Stockwell in "Careless Years". Or John Derek, in this snorer, next to Juror #3.

When the film begins, David Clark (John Derek) drives home. Apparently, he killed his friend and instead of going to the police, he sneaks home and acts as if nothing had happened. Eventually, he tells his father (Lee J. Cobb) what happened...how it was an accident and how he was attacked first...and his father and mother agree to keep this a secret. Soon you learn that the father is an attorney...and that a man was just arrested for the killing! Instead of telling the truth, the parents continue to enable David to be a stinking weasel...and through the course of the film David shows himself to be a characterless jerk. What's next? Will he do the right thing? Watch the film to find out for yourself.

I really liked this film because it was so unusual and much more realistic than most movies of the day. In addition to this nice script, the acting is also very good and it's well worth seeing....especially because it offers some neat twists along the way.

John Derek was a terrible actor. The rest of the cast isn't any better and neither is the writing.

A spoiled young man kills his friend In the heat of anger. The family decides to say nothing and see how it plays out. The killer's mother is especially cold, "After a while we will forget all about this!" Never mind that the slain boy's mother is her best friend. An innocent man is accused and tried and drops dead from a heart attack.

Even the resolution at the end is boring. The movie just STUNK!

The beginning of The Family Secret immediately hooks you in: John Derek, the teenage son of Lee J. Cobb and Erin O'Brien-Moore, comes home early from a night on the town. He washes mud off his tires and changes his clothes before greeting his parents and their dinner guests. We find out soon why he's so morose and cryptic: he's just killed his childhood friend. It was self-defense and accidental, but he still fled from the scene and tampered with evidence. Lee, an upstanding citizen and prominent lawyer, knows his son will do the right thing and confess immediately. Erin wants to cover it up. John's entire life would be ruined, she argues, and it wouldn't bring the dead boy back. As you can tell from the title, John decides to take his mother's advice.

With exception to the jazz music played in some scenes, this feels like a noir from the 1940s. There's a lot of voice-over narration explaining things that don't need explaining, and the scene construction and direction feel very much a part of the silver screen rather than the golden age. Plus with solid character actors from that era like Whit Bissell (who will tug win your sympathy as he struggles with his weak heart), Henry O'Neill, Carl Benton Reid, and Harry Cheshire, it sets the mood of the late 1940s. I rented it to see a solid, fatherly performance from Lee (but I didn't mind the eye candy of John either) and it was nice to see him in a good-guy role, unlike On the Waterfront and The Trap. If you like this one, check out a similarly themed drama also starring John Derek, Knock on Any Door.