They Won't Forget (1937)
This movie has been designated a Critic's Pick by the film reviewers of The Times.
July 15, 1937
THEY WON'T FORGET
By Frank S. Nugent
Published: July 15, 1937They Won't Forget, which the Warners presented at the Strand yesterday and which wears the fictional cloak of Ward Greene's novel, Death in the Deep South, reopens the Leo M. Frank case, holds it up for review, and, with courage, objectivity, and simple eloquence, creates a brilliant sociological drama and a trenchant film editorial against intolerance and hatred.
In many ways it is superior to Fury and Black Legion, which have been milled from the same dramatic mine. Not so spectacular, or melodramatic, or strident perhaps, yet it is stronger, more vibrant than they through the quiet intensity of its narrative, the simplicity of Mervyn LeRoy's direction, its integrity of purpose, the even perfection of its cast. From Claude Rains and Allyn Joslyn and Gloria Dickson right on down the list of players heading this review, you will not find one whose performance does not deserve commendation. And, as one of the greatest factors in its favor, They Won't Forget cannot be dismissed as a Hollywood exaggeration of a state of affairs which once might have existed but exists no longer. Between the Frank trial at Atlanta and the more recent ones at Scottsboro is a bond closer than chronology indicates.
The picture's scene is Flodden, a small Southern city where Prosecutor Andy Griffin waits for his main chance and a spotlight that may dazzle the voters into sending him to the Senate. That chance comes when Mary Clay is murdered in the Buxton Business College on the afternoon of Confederate Memorial Day. Griffin scans his suspects. There is old Colonel Buxton, whose family, suh, has been untouched by the breath of scandal for three generations. There is Tump Redwine, the terrified Negro janitor who discovered the body in the elevator shaft and only could sob, "I didn't do it." There is millhand Joe Turner, Mary's boyfriend. There is Robert Hale, an instructor in the school, married, from up North, who stayed at the school that day—to correct examination papers, he said.
"I won't indict until I'm convinced the man is guilty," promises Prosecutor Griffin, but he knows there will be no political profit in convicting the Negro, little hope of weaving a circumstantial chain around Buxton, and—Hale was a stranger! Besides, there was evidence: he had been in the building, he had a blood spot on his coat (the barber had cut him, he insisted), Mary Clay's chum said the girl had been "crazy about him," he was thinking of leaving town (there had been that application for a new position). It added up and, to Griffin, it spelled opportunity.
The pace becomes staccato after that, with scene following scene in a mounting crescendo of hysteria, with the web spun ever more implacably, drawing ever more tightly the cords created by hatred and a fixed conviction of guilt. "We know how it'll end," the Clay boys say quietly, and Flodden nods its collective head. Headlines beat the drums. The North charges prejudice; the South interference. The New York detective is beaten; the New York attorney is stoned. Witnesses recant or enlarge. The "trial of the century" is conducted with due respect for the legal forms, but—like the Clay boys—we know how it'll end. There is a whiplash in the conclusion.
"Now that it's over, Andy, I wonder if Hale really did it," muses the reporter. And the prosecutor looks out the window and replies, almost absently, "I wonder."
That is all, and it is all the picture possibly could have done or said. For its perfection, chief credit must go to Mr. LeRoy for his remarkably skillful direction—there are a few touches as fine as anything the screen has done; to Aben Kandel and Robert Rossen for their excellent script; and to all the cast, but notably to Mr. Rains, for his savage characterization of the ambitious prosecutor; to Gloria Dickson (a newcomer) for her moving portrayal of Hale's wife; to Allyn Joslyn (late of Broadway's Boy Meets Girl) for his natural and sensible representation of a reporter.
A round-robin of appreciation must include mention of Edward Norris as Hale, Otto Kruger as his attorney, Elisha Cook, Jr. as Joe Turner, Trevor Bardette as Shattuck Clay, Paul Everton and Ann Shoemaker as the governor and his lady, and Clinton Rosemond as the Negro, Redwine.
THEY WON'T FORGET (MOVIE)
Produced and directed by Mervyn LeRoy; written by Aben Kandel and Robert Rossen, based on the novel Death in the Deep South by Ward Greene; cinematographer, Arthur Edeson; edited by Thomas Richards; music by Adolph Deutsch; art designer, Robert Haas; released by Warner Brothers. Black and white. Running time: 95 minutes.
With: Claude Rains (Andy Griffin), Edward Norris (Robert Hale), Allyn Joslyn (Bill Brook), Linda Perry (Imogene Mayfield), Cy Kendall (Detective Laneart), E. Alyn Warren (Carlisle P. Buxton), and Clifford Soubier (Jim Timberlake).
