The Family Secret

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.

This movie was horrible. I couldn't even get through it. It's about a young man that supposedly kills his best friend in self defense. He claims the friend was drunk and starting attacking him so he had to defend himself and accidentally kills him. John Derek plays the man who commits the murder. And his dad, played by Lee J. Cobb, just happens to be an attorney.

This is cookie-cutter soap opera drama. The acting is horrible, except for the gal that plays John Derek's secretary, played by Jody Lawrence. At one point, she is relaying phone messages "from your harem", to Derek's character. But she does it by taking on the accents and mannerisms of each of the callers. It's hilarious! But there's nothing else here worth watching.

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!

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.

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.