The Phenix City Story (1955) on Netflix
Passed19551h 40mCrimeDramaFilm-Noir
Crime boss Rhett Tanner runs Phenix City's gambling and prostitution. Attorney Albert "Pat" Patterson wants no part of a cleanup; his son John, home from the Korean War, joins the reformers.
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- Netflix4.3/5
- IMDb7.2/103,707 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes100%
Trailer
Plot summary
In Phenix City, Alabama, near the Army's Fort Benning, the Poppy Club draws soldiers to drink and gamble, and the surrounding red-light district trades in prostitution and crooked games. The club answers to crime boss Rhett Tanner, who appears respectable in public, and most of the police stay on his payroll. Local attorney Albert "Pat" Patterson is asked to run for state attorney general, but he wants no part of the job. His son John returns from military service and joins the effort to challenge the city's corruption.
Cast
- Truman Smithas Ed Gage
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Phenix City Story (1955)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The film shows John Patterson as a reformer fighting corruption, but the real Patterson, Alabama's governor from 1959 to 1963, backed segregation, ran with heavy Ku Klux Klan support, and clashed with the Kennedy administration over the Freedom Riders.
- The film dramatizes the real 1954 murder of Albert Patterson, who had just been nominated as the Democratic candidate for Alabama attorney general on a platform of cleaning up Phenix City; the outcry led the state to impose martial law.
- Some prints of the film include a 13-minute newsreel-style preface in which newsman Clete Roberts interviews many of the actual participants in the Phenix City events.
