Favorite Films (lists up to participating site members)

[Robert]

Can anyone tell me the name of the film where an anti-capital punishment guy, with the help of a friend, deliberately frames himself for a murder? The plan is for the friend to prove him innocent just before he goes to the chair. Unfortunately, the friend dies....

[Joshua Rogan]

Beyond a Reasonable Doubt?

[Robert]

Thanks Joshua. I'm sure that's it.

I had completely forgotten the twist at the end, which I won't go into in case I spoil it for others.

[Mayerling]

Can anyone tell me the name of the film where an anti-capital punishment guy, with the help of a friend, deliberately frames himself for a murder? The plan is for the friend to prove him innocent just before he goes to the chair. Unfortunately, the friend dies....

Hi Robert,

If I'm not mistaken the film is from the 1950s and starred Dana Andrews.

There is also another Andrews film from that period (I think it's "Where the Sidewalk Ends") about a crooked cop who accidentally kills someone and tries to cover it up.

I thought of a few other interesting Robinson titles to consider.

1) Five Star Final - one of Eddie's personal favorites, because it gave him a terrific script (about "yellow journalism") and he is not a gangster but the newspaper editor. Eddie is hired by a sanctimonious hypocrite who owns a rag that prints tabloid stories to boost circulation. They don't care who is run over to get the good story for the rag. Robinson does his best but as time passes he really sickens at what damage the paper does - especially when it dredges up a 20 year old violent death story and ruins a small family as a result. Interesting once-in-a-while casting of two Hollywood "golden age" legends together: one of the creatures used to get stories by worming into the good graces of the victims of the stories is a defrocked religious student played by Boris Karloff - the only time Karloff and Robinson were sharing celluloid scenes.

2) Unholy Partners - Eddie again in a newspaper role, only this time sharing the story and screen time with one of the few actors in Hollywood who is as fascinating to watch all the time as he was, Edward Arnold. Based on the story of the creation (by Philip Payne) of the "New York Daily Mirror" in the 1920s, this time Eddie is the driving force in making a tabloid as it's owner and editor, but he needs financing. He makes a devil's deal with Arnold, whose role is patterned on that of the 1920s New York gangster kingpin, Arnold Rothstein. As the newspaper circulation grows, so does Arnold's increased interest in how to properly use this feat (i.e., influence local, state, and Federal elections perhaps). Here Robinson begins balking, and the trouble starts. Like Robinson's one time appearance with Karloff in "Five Star Final", this was Robinson's only appearance with Arnold.

3) The Sea Wolf - Eddie as "Captain Wolf Larsen", in the 1943 riff on Jack London's novel about a brutal sea captain with a brain and the people he terrorizes (Ida Lupino, John Garfield, Alexander Knox, Gene Lockhart - in a really memorable suicide scene, Barry Fitzgerald) on board. It is a first rate sea film, but just misses London's dissection, in the actual novel, of Larsen's belief in Herbert Spencer's once overly popular theory of "social Darwinism".

Jeff

[Robert]

Thanks Jeff. Yes, that's the one.

[RockySullivan]

Mayer do erg n Karloff have any scenes together in smart money? I forget. Karloff is so good in scarface in the scene after valentines day massacre

[Mayerling]

Mayer do erg n Karloff have any scenes together in smart money? I forget. Karloff is so good in scarface in the scene after valentines day massacre

I never saw "Smart Money" (better known as Robinson's only film with Jimmy Cagney), but I checked the IMDb site and discovered I was wrong - apparently both Robinson and Karloff appeared in this film too. But I don't know if they were in any scenes together (Karloff was not listed in the movie credits in the movie itself).

"Scarface" starred Paul Muni and George Raft and Osgood Perkins (the real life father of the better remembered Tony Perkins). The scene of Karloff's death in the bowling alley was based on an actual killing of a Chicago gangster in such a locale in 1930 or so.

Jeff

[RockySullivan]

Mayer, you gotta see smart money...the best EGR movie after little caesar by far. nick the barber!

[RockySullivan]

By the way i think you can buy smart money for like 3 bucks online. You should get it if your interested mayer. Cagney & Robinson together in 1931...how could that not be one of the greatest movies ever made?

[DJA]

Films set in Scotland in whole or part:

Jeff

We forgot "Cottage to Let", George Cole's first movie.

RIP Flash Harry,Arthur Daley,et al.....

[Robert]

RIP Flash Harry. If you have any trouble getting past St Peter, take out a wad of notes and fix him.

[Mayerling]

I did not do a list of films set in Ireland, and specifically southern Ireland.

The Fighting Prince of Donegal
Darby O'Gill and the Little People
The Fighting O'Flynn
Captain Boycott
Parnell (sorry, nobody seems to have done a better film on this figure)
The Plough and the Stars
Ryan's Daughter
Young Cassidy
The Quiet Man
Michael Collins
Beloved Enemy (I think this is the title - a fictionalized account of the legend that Collins and an English aristocrat met while he was negotiating the 1922 agreement in London, and it may have influenced him. Brian Ahern, Merle Oberon, and Jerome Cowan were in the film.)
The Rising of the Moon

Jeff

[Rosella]

Irish films-- There's 'My Left Foot' of course, 1989, with Daniel Day-Lewis, and 'Angela's Ashes' 1999, which I found depressing. 'Circle of Friends,' with Minnie Driveris a bit of a chick flick but good, nevertheless. 2006's 'The Wind that Shakes the Barley' was good also.

[Robert]

The Field - Richard Harris
Rooney - John Gregson

[Mayerling]

The Field - Richard Harris
Rooney - John Gregson

There are also "Hear My Song" and Anjelica Huston's film, "The Dead" based on a James Joyce story.