The Phenix City Story (1955, Phil Karlson)

Opens with convincingly real and unrehearsed news interviews, which they empasize are real and unrehearsed, but is the interview guy not aware that he’ll be in a movie? Why’s he gotta be so dry? From this drab beginning, the movie gets increasingly brutal, as the local casino runs a terror campaign against the voters, press, and church. Edwards stops John from killing a casino boss, too bad: John (Pickup on South Street) comes home to Phenix with his girl, has been there a half hour before running into gang violence and police corruption. He and some others who are sick of the casino’s shit team up, and mostly get killed. RIP John’s lawyer dad, their casino worker mole friend Kathryn Grant (Anatomy of a Murder’s star witness), some do-gooder named Fred, and the innocent daughter of The Steel Helmet‘s James Edwards. The girl is Black so doesn’t even warrant a trial, but Fred’s killer is acquitted, leading to further escalations, until John calls in the national guard to shut the whole…