Rating: NR
Genre:
Drama
Release Date: 05/10/2005
SubTitles: English/French/Espanol
Dubbed: English
Sound: DD1
Run Time: 92 Minutes
Flags: Mild Violence, Questionable for Children
Distributor/Studio: Warner Home Video
Fritz Lang's first American film is a vigorous and perceptive indictment of mob law, starring
Spencer Tracy and
Sylvia Sidney.
Katherine (
Sidney) leaves her boyfriend,
Joe Wilson (
Tracy), behind in their Midwestern hometown when she takes a job in another city.
Joe is a decent, hard-working soul, who wants to save up to buy a gas station and looks forward to the future when he and
Katherine can get married. A year later,
Joe is traveling to meet
Katherine so that they can be married. Driving through a small town,
Joe is stopped by a deputy sheriff waving a shotgun. Apparently there has been a kidnapping, and the fact that
Joe has peanuts in his pocket circumstantially incriminates him in the crime.
Joe is arrested and jailed. As
Joe sits in his jail cell, the local townspeople begin to talk and whisper and spread rumors. Finally, a lynch mob forms and heads toward the jail. The mob tries to storm the jail and frustrated over their inability to penetrate the prison walls, they set the jail on fire.
Joe barely manages to escape ("I could smell myself burning"), but the mob thinks that
Joe has been burned to death. Behind the scenes, and with the help of his brothers,
Joe tries to rig the verdict in the impending trial of the 22 vigilantes.
~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
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