The Phenix City Story (1955)

Directed by

Phil Karlson

Genre

drama film, film noir, crime film

Country

United States

Runtime

1h 40m

Rating

6.5 of 10 from 65 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A crusading lawyer in a corrupt Alabama town is murdered. His son takes up the fight against organized crime and political rot.

tensegrittyseriousurgentdarkinvestigativedeterminedbleak

What happens

The Phenix City Story is a 1955 American crime film noir directed by Phil Karlson for Allied Artists, written by Daniel Mainwaring and Crane Wilbur and starring John McIntire, Richard Kiley, and Kathryn Grant. It dramatizes the 1954 assassination of attorney and politician Albert Patterson in Phenix City, Alabama, and the subsequent declaration of martial law. Although the film presents Albert Patterson's son, John Patterson, as a reform figure opposing corruption, his later political career complicates this image; as governor of Alabama (1959–1963), Patterson was a staunch supporter of segregation and ran on a campaign heavily supported by the Ku Klux Klan. During his tenure as governor, John Patterson fought against desegregation, particularly in schools, and clashed with the John F. Kennedy administration over the handling of Freedom Riders. The film had a triple premiere held on July 19, 1955 in Phenix City, Alabama, Columbus, Georgia, and Chicago, Illinois. It was a critical and commercial success, and has come to be regarded as one of the classics of the film noir genre. In 2019, the film was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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