- Director: Phil Karlson
- AMG Rating:
- Genre: Crime
- Movie Type: Docudrama, Crime Drama
- Themes: Fighting the System, Political Corruption
- Main Cast: John McIntire, Richard Kiley, Kathryn Grant, Edward Andrews, Lenka Peterson
- Release Year: 1955
- Country: US
- Run Time: 100 minutes
Plot
Based on actual events, The Phenix City Story tells the tale of a wide-open "Sin City" in Alabama (across a bridge from Columbus, GA, and just a stone's throw from the Ft. Benning Army base) where gambling, prostitution, and any number of other vices were tolerated openly by the law, most of it centered on the main downtown drag, 14th Street, thanks to the 50-year influence of organized crime on the local government. Reform groups, mostly in the form of vigilantes, had tried to clean up "the wickedest city in the United States" before, even taking the law into their own hands and wrecking some of the establishments, only to be stymied by the courts (which were otherwise indifferent to activities on 14th Street). At the outset of the movie, set in 1954 -- when the actual events took place -- a new reform group is trying to organize and attempting to get the city's most prominent attorney, Albert Patterson (John McIntire) on their side; so are the club owners on 14th Street, led by Rhett Tanner (Edward Andrews), a cheerful, affable sort with a mean streak not far from the surface. But Patterson wants no part of either side's activities -- he's been a reformer, even a successful candidate, only to see his efforts come to little, and has also successfully defended Tanner and the others on 14th Street in an investigation of a murder of which they weren't guilty. Now he's old, and he wants to sit back with his wife and enjoy the return of his army office/lawyer son, John (Richard Kiley), and his family from Germany. But when the 14th Street boys, led by Clem Wilson (John Larch), go too far beating up Patterson's friends, and involve his son John, and then turn to murder and intimidation, it forces the elder Patterson and his son to join the reformers.The Phenix City Story runs 87 minutes, but most prints also include a 13-minute preface, compiled from newsreel footage and interviews with the original participants, that provides background on the events that inspired the film (and also spoils a few plot points). Ironically, given the negative image that it portrays of Alabama, the movie was surprisingly well-received in the state at the time; residents were simply fascinated by and taken with the notion of a feature film set in their home state and even including a couple of actual local residents in its cast. Director Phil Karlson was to enjoy even greater success 18 years later with a similar story about one man fighting a city turned bad, Walking Tall, which included many similarly staged action scenes amid its somewhat wider plot-canvas. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
Review
One of the most violent and realistic crime films of the 1950s, The Phenix City Story pulses with the bracing energy of actual life captured on the screen in its establishing shots and key scenes, and punctuates that background with explosively filmed action scenes. Director Phil Karlson showed just how good he was at merging well-told screen drama with vivid verisimilitude, and leaving no seams to show where they joined. Filmed on location in Alabama with a documentary-like look, the movie captured the ambiance and tenor of its Deep South setting better than almost any other fact-based movie of its era. Richard Kiley and John McIntire are excellent in their respective roles, as John and Albert Patterson, and get superb assistance from an array of fine actors, the best among them Edward Andrews as the slimy crime boss, James Edwards as a victim of the brutality around him, and John Larch as a brutal strongarm man.(Note: As fine a film as The Phenix City Story is, it doesn't tell you all that happened with the real-life figure at its center -- the real John Patterson [who did, indeed, somewhat resemble Richard Kiley physically], the hero of this story, who was in many ways a reform-minded attorney general. However, he was also a dedicated segregationist, a fact never even hinted at in the movie; indeed, as attorney general, he was best known not so much for battling organized crime as for blocking black citizen boycotts in Tuskegee and Montgomery, and successfully banning the NAACP from organizing in the state of Alabama. In 1958, he became the youngest man ever to win the governorship, succeeding the progressive Big Jim Folsom by running a virulently racist campaign against Folsom protégé George Wallace, who, in those days, was a much more liberal figure on racial issues, very much in the mold of his mentor; Wallace vowed after that race that he would "never be 'outniggered' [sic] again," and turned sharply to the right, coining the defiant phrase "Segregation Forever" in a later campaign. Patterson did pass some reforms as governor, in connection with controlling such criminal enterprises as loan-sharking, and boosted the state's woefully low spending on schools and highways; but he was best known during his four years for opposing all efforts at integration, tolerating and even encouraging violence against the Freedom Riders coming into the state to help register black citizens to vote, and for his clashes with U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy on those and related issues. Patterson was succeeded, ironically enough, by George Wallace in 1962, running on a racially inflammatory platform of his own, and lost his 1966 bid to regain the governorship to Wallace's wife, running as her husband's stand-in so that he could get around the state's term-limit law. Patterson later served as an appeals court judge.)
Also, ironically enough, the events in Phenix City are mentioned in an even more well-known movie about organized crime in the South, Arthur Ripley's Thunder Road (1958), Trevor Bardette's Vernon Doolin citing the trouble they had in Phenix City to Robert Mitchum's Lucas Doolin as a good reason for staying away from an offer from a Memphis crime boss to come into his cartel. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
Cast
- John McIntire - Albert Patterson
- Richard Kiley - John Patterson
- Kathryn Grant - Ellie Rhodes
- Edward Andrews - Rhett Tanner
Lenka Peterson - Mary Jo Patterson
