Call Northside 777

1948
Approved
1h 52m

IMDb RATING

7.4/10

11K

YOUR RATING

James Stewart, Richard Conte, and Joanne De Bergh in Call Northside 777 (1948)

Trailer for this thriller starring James Stewart

Play trailer1:53

1 Video

18 Photos

Docudrama Film Noir Drama

Chicago reporter P.J. McNeal re-opens a decade-old murder case.Chicago reporter P.J. McNeal re-opens a decade-old murder case.Chicago reporter P.J. McNeal re-opens a decade-old murder case.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

7.4/10

11K

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Awards
- 1 win & 2 nominations total

Top cast74

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James Stewart

P.J. McNeal

Richard Conte

Frank Wiecek

Lee J. Cobb

Brian Kelly

Helen Walker

Laura McNeal

Betty Garde

Wanda Skutnik

Kasia Orzazewski

Tillie Wiecek

Joanne De Bergh

Helen Wiecek
(as Joanne de Bergh)

Howard Smith

K.L. Palmer

Moroni Olsen

Parole Board Chairman

John McIntire

Sam Faxon

Paul Harvey

Martin Burns

Robert Adler

Taxicab Driver
(uncredited)

Richard Bishop

Warden of Stateville Prison
(uncredited)

Larry J. Blake

Police Photographic Technician
(uncredited)

John Bleifer

Jan Gruska
(uncredited)

Truman Bradley

Narrator
(voice)
(uncredited)

Dollie Caillet

Secretary
(uncredited)

Al Capone

Capone
(archive footage)
(uncredited)

Storyline

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Did you know

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Trivia
The man administering the polygraph test to convict Richard Conte was the inventor of the polygraph or lie detector machine, Leonarde Keeler. He played himself in the movie.

Goofs
There was enough of the newspaper showing by the newspaper boy to identify the issue date without seeing the date due to the images shown below the headlines. They just needed to match the pictures in the newspaper held in the background to a newspaper from the same date and see if the photographs match.

Look at the example from the photographs for the film (slide 93 of 118). There is enough to compare newspapers.

Quotes
[McNeal is trying to get Zaleska to name his real partner in the crime and get a chance at parole]
P.J. McNeal: What have you got to lose? You're in for life now. C'mon, tell us the truth.
Tomek Zaleska: Sure, I could say I did it. Then maybe have a chance of getting out, like you say. But if I confessed, who would I name as my partner, Joe Doakes? I couldn't make it stick for one minute. That's the trouble with being innocent. You don't know what really happened. I didn't do it. Me and Frank had nothin' to do with it.

Crazy credits
Opening credits are printed on the pages of a book; it is also stated that this is a true story.

Connections
Edited from In Old Chicago (1938)

Soundtracks
Chicago (That Toddlin' Town)
(1922) (uncredited)
Music by Fred Fisher
Played during the Prohibition montage

Reliable Jimmy Stewart fighting for a cause

Call Northside 777 is a genuinely engaging film. It has reliable James Stewart as an investigative reporter on a story about an alleged cop killer in prison. At first he believes that the prisoner is guilty but then becomes convinced otherwise and is willing to risk his professional reputation on clearing him. The pace of the film is told like a gritty docudrama with no dramatic musical underscore for effect. But more importantly, this film is interesting to watch for a time capsule of post WWII Chicago. The Chicago Times, the police precincts, the ethnic neighborhoods that existed then and a whole sequence of a wireless photo copier. This is generations before the fax machine was ever conceived. This film is important as Stewart was beginning his maturing film roles in the postwar period and taking on good narrative stories and less goodguy next door roles which were going out of fashion.