They Won't Forget

A young girl (Lana Turner in her first role) is killed in a small Southern town. A Northener, Robert Hale (Edward norris) is accused of it...but is he guilty? It doesn't seem to matter because everybody uses his accusation for their own gain. Fast moving, still relevant (sadly) look at prejudice, gossip, mob rule and media manipulation. Occasionally the characters give out unmotivated speeches (especially Hale's wife), but the movie is very well-written and acted with Claude Rain chewing the scenery again and again. A must see...don't miss this one!

A dark haired, southern drawled Claude Rains has an actor's field day as D.A Andy Griffin. Griffin needs to win one sensational court case to move his career foward. He gets it when a Yankee school teacher (Edward Norris) is accused of murdering a high school girl (Fetching Lana Turner in her film debut) Griffin turns the trial into a media circus and a kangaroo court. The ending is grim, and Griffin gets what he wants. Mervyn LeRoy (Warner Brothers' prize director in the 1930's) moves the story along at rocket pace. He gets fine performances out of Rains, Norris, Otto Kruger and a young Elisha Cook Jnr. LeRoy always cut the fat from his films, meaning very rarely will he show an unimportant aspect of the story. (Example: a scene begins with a sobbing janitor calling the police. We see the police leave. Cut to them at the crime scene. Cut to them grilling their first suspect- the janitor- cut to a newspaper headline about the murder. all of this in about 12 seconds) A film far above average.

This may well be the most depressing movie ever made. Based on a notorious murder case, the audience is spared nothing. I think it took guts for producer Mervyn Leroy to make this film. Many theaters refused to show it. The role of a lifetime for actor Claude Rains, I was impressed by the performance of the actress who plays the wife of the victim of a trial that never should have been. It takes a strong stomach to sit through until the end. The film did win awards, but the Academy of Arts and Sciences was afraid to touch it. In real life the victim of the miscarriage of justice was exonerated many years later, but the political career of the Governor who tried to commute his sentence was ruined.

"They Won't Forget" and neither will you if you've seen this chilling depression-era drama based on an actual murder case. Some of the scenes are so real, they're scary. One look at gimlet-eyed Trevor Bardette with a voice from the grave is like seeing death incarnate and enough to freeze a platoon of marines in their tracks. Then there's hapless Clinton Rosemon, his pleas for mercy so achingly real, they echo across generations of tormented black souls. Also not to be overlooked is the bereaved Gloria Dickson. Her righteous anger at movie's end is so heart-felt, I expect it probably was. Together with the wily District Attorney Claude Rains, there's an uncommon authority to this searing drama of justice gone wrong.

There's also an uncommon richness of detail. The script, for all its sprawl, remains tight and unrelenting, a genuine testament to writers Rossen and Kandel. Then too, producer Le Roy pulled out all the stops and the results show it. No one acts without apparent reason. Everyone has understandable motivations for doing what they do. That's why the upshot is so tragic. It's as though there's an on-rushing train nobody can stop because the momentum is carried by an infernal logic greater than the demands of justice. Despite appearances, it's not an anti-lynching film, though it is that. Rather, it's a down and dirty look at the cynical roots of injustice. From lowly pool hall to lofty city council, no one wants to convict an innocent man, but then no one much cares either. This movie stands as a fine example of why Warner Bros. was the studio of record during the stressed-out 1930's. Anyway, for guys who don't like the gloomy theme, there's always the chance to catch Lana Turner as she juggles two balloons while sashaying up the sidewalk in the film's most famous scene.

All in all-- a classic of 30's social realism, with Hollywood at its unapologetic best.

It begins with a disclaimer that all characters are entirely fictitious, etc. etc., and cites as source material a novel, but you can't fool us: It's the Leo Frank trial of 1915, updated to the then-present-day South and with Frank's Judaism carefully removed. Other than that, the details are surprisingly close to the actual trial, and the downbeat ending chillingly mirrors reality. Warner Brothers, known in the 1930s as the socially conscious studio, had a message to flog, and in this case it goes a bit overboard: No character has more than one dimension, and even that excellent actor Claude Rains, as the DA, snarls and rolls his eyes and gesticulates wildly, overdoing the blind ambition bit. But for its day it's a pretty brave and out-there indictment against mob violence, bigotry, and sensationalism, particularly the latter. Indeed, the message one takes from it today is that the media hasn't really grown worse in the intervening years -- there's just more of it.