Call Northside 777 is a 1948 newspaper drama film directed by Henry Hathaway, starring James Stewart, Richard Conte, Lee J. Cobb and Helen Walker.
In 1932, during the height of Prohibition and gang violence in Chicago, two Polish American men, Frank Wiecek (Conte) and Tomek Zaleska (George Tyne), are convicted for the speakeasy murder of policeman John Bundy and are each sentenced to 99 years in prison.
Eleven years later, P.J. McNeal (Stewart) is an investigative journalist working for the Chicago Times. His editor, Brian Kelly (Cobb), finds a strange ad in the classifieds section offering a $5,000 reward to anyone with information about that 1932 murder.
When McNeal goes to follow the lead, he finds scrub woman Tillie Wiecek (Kasia Orzazewski), Frank’s mother, who is earnestly looking for help to clear her son’s name. McNeal, dubious of any cop killer’s professed innocence but touched by Tillie’s determination in helping her son, writes the human-interest story.
The article becomes so popular that Kelly asks McNeal to continue following the leads. McNeal, who still thinks he’s wasting his time when it’s clear that Wiecek was convicted fair and square, travels to Joliet Prison to visit Wiecek, who staunchly professes his innocence of the murder. A further dig into Wiecek's background, and a meeting with his ex-wife Helen (Joanne De Bergh), reveals that she too believes in his innocence.
Finding additional evidence – or the lack of it and its inconsistency – leads McNeal to investigate the case further. Soon enough, he uncovers corruption, deception, and injustice which gradually makes him determined to clear Wiecek’s name.
The film is based on the real-life story of Joseph Majczek and Theodore Marcinkiewicz
, who were convicted of the murder of a Chicago policeman in 1932 but exonerated in 1944 due in large part to the investigation of Times reporters John McPhaul and James McGuire.
Tropes:
- Authentication by Newspaper: To prove that the star witness was lying, MacNeal enhances a wire service photo to get the date of the newspaper.
- Blatant Lies: Wanda Skutnik (Betty Garde), the “Finger Woman” as McNeal dubs her, is telling lies. She says that she never saw Wiecek before December 23 (when she supposedly picked him out of a lineup). McNeal has a hunch she’s lying, and eventually finds out through photographic proof, that she had indeed seen Wiecek on December 22. This therefore makes her an unreliable witness who was probably coached by the arresting officer.
- Clear My Name: Wiecek and his family want help to exonerate him from a crime he didn’t commit.
- Cop Killer: Wiecek is labelled as such. This makes digging for information all that much harder for McNeal, as the police have no desire to help exonerate him.
- Da Editor: A Lighter and Softer version with Kelly. He pushes McNeal to follow the ad and then pushes him to continue the story even if McNeal is reluctant at first.
- The Determinator: Once McNeal is convinced of Wiecek’s innocence, he continues writing his articles and investigating. He spends a large amount of time in Chicago’s Polish area (Old Polonia) trying to find Skutnik.
- Desires Prison Life: When McNeal goes to visit Wiecek to continue the story, Wiecek is angry that he brought his ex-wife and son into the newspaper story and tells him he'd rather rot in prison than have them dragged into this.
- Enhance Button: The main piece of evidence showing that Skutnik was lying about seeing and knowing Wiecek during the interview process is enhancing a photograph that has a newspaper with the (then) current date. This is the very first instance of this trope in media.
- Going for the Big Scoop: McNeal once he starts to believe in Wiecek’s innocence.
- Intrepid Reporter: McNeal, obviously.
- Idiot Ball: The Chicago Times’s lawyer pokes holes in McNeal’s evidence fairly easily since it’s mostly circumstantial. It’s clear that McNeal hasn’t met the threshold for the burden of proof for the pardon board.
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Wiecek’s wife says she’ll wait for him, but he want her to have a better life, so he asks her to get a divorce and marry someone else that can provide for her.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: MacNeal is a bit of a jerk to Wiecek’s mother and Wiecek at first since he’s skeptical of Wiecek's story. He, however, soften ups considerably once he realizes Wiecek's innocence.
- Lie Detector: Shown in a realistic light, it’s stressed that this "evidence" is inadmissible. But when Wiecek passes it, McNeal begins to believe in his innocence.
- Luxury Prison Suite: Averted, as evidenced by the scenes shot on location at Joliet.
- Miscarriage of Justice: Wiecek and Zaleska were wrongly convicted of a murder.
- Narrator: Heard at the beginning and end of the film, voiced by radio personality Truman Bradley.
- Police Brutality: Both Wiecek and Zaleska are beaten up by police to get a "confession."
- Roman à Clef: The story is based on the real-life investigative work at the Chicago Times that eventually exonerated two Polish American men wrongly convicted for the murder of a Chicago police officer. The facts are mostly adhered to but names were changed for the film.
- Undying Loyalty: Although her son for all intents and purposes looks guilty, Mrs. Wiecek works and saves for 11 years to get enough money to raise interest in her son's case.
- Wham Shot: The enhanced photograph showing the date of the newspaper, proving that Skutnik was lying.
