Call Northside 777 (1948) on Netflix
Approved19481h 52mDramaFilm-Noir
Chicago, 1932: a policeman is killed in a speakeasy. Frank Wiecek is convicted of the murder. Eleven years later, his mother's reward notice sends reporter P.J. McNeal into the case.
- Netflix3.9/5
- IMDb7.4/1011,609 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes80%
Trailer
Plot summary
A Chicago policeman is killed inside a speakeasy during Prohibition. Frank Wiecek and a second man are taken into custody; in November 1933 a court convicts both of the killing and hands each a 99-year term. Eleven years pass. Wiecek's mother, Tillie, buys a classified notice in the Chicago Times, offering $5,000 to anyone who can name the men who did it. City editor Brian Kelly hands the inquiry to P.J. McNeal, a reporter who thinks the conviction was sound. The work brings him up against a police department and a state's attorney's office with no wish to be shown mistaken, and against politicians in the state capital who would rather the story went away.
Cast
Show all 20 cast
- Ben Erwayas Photo Lab Technician (uncredited)
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Call Northside 777 (1948)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Fox named Henry Fonda to play the lead in Call Northside 777 in March 1947, with the film ahead of Chicken Every Sunday and Lone Star Preacher on his schedule. A month later Fonda took Daisy Kenyon instead, and two months after that the studio replaced him with James Stewart.
SPOILER
The film has Frank Wiecek cleared by enlarging a newspaper headline to catch a lying witness, but the real Joseph Majczek was cleared by locating the original arrest report, which showed the speakeasy proprietress failed to identify him in two lineups the day he was arrested and picked him out only in a third.- Lloyd Nolan was the original choice to play city editor Brian Kelly before Lee J. Cobb took the part, and Leopoldine Konstantin was considered for the wrongly convicted man's mother before Kasia Orzazewski was cast.
- Along with Chicago and Santa Monica, the film shot at the Illinois Stateville Prison Roundhouse annex, a panopticon cellblock built on ideas from the philosopher Jeremy Bentham; the annex closed in 2016 but was briefly reopened in 2020 for COVID-19 housing.
