Call Northside 777 (1948) – DVD
**½/**** Image A- Sound A- Extras B+
starring James Stewart, Richard Conte, Lee J. Cobb, Helen Walker
screenplay by Jerome Cady and Joy Dratler
directed by Henry Hathaway
by Travis Mackenzie Hoover Call Northside 777 is far less virtuous than it wants to be, but we can overlook its delusions and enjoy it anyway. Its uneasy combination of working-man drama and noir cynicism does less for the former than it does for the latter, but that manages to give it its unique punch: into the crime-movie soup goes chunks of would-be reality, and if the film is less real than it advertises, it expands the self-contained genre universe to make it more vivid. Call Northside 777 is otherwise unremarkable as a piece of writing and only marginally exciting as picture-making, but its interesting clash of sensibilities makes it highly watchable as a curio–as well as a suggestion of what happens on the recombinant road less travelled.