MARIO GAUCI To begin with, I had first attempted to watch this while in Hollywood in 2005-6 but had had to abort the late-night TCM screening on account of poor TV reception at my place of residence! The Warner Bros. studio made a reputation for themselves in the 1930s for socially-conscious movies – from glorified gangster thrillers (beginning with LITTLE CAESAR {1931}) to tabloid journalism exposes (for instance, FIVE STAR FINAL {1931}) and prison reform dramas (most notably, I AM A FUGITIVE FROM A CHAIN GANG {1932}). I expressly mentioned these three classic titles because all were made by the same director as the film under review; that said, he would largely eschew this vein once he switched to MGM towards the end of the decade! It deals with a miscarriage of justice inspired by a real-life case that was later also treated in the 1988 TV-movie THE MURDER OF MARY PHAGAN (starring Jack Lemmon), which I foolishly never watched despite once owning a copy of! Anyway, what we have here is a man convicted of murder solely on the strength of circumstantial evidence: he just happens to be a Northerner employed in the South, and the events kick off on the former Confederacy's Memorial Day – when the sentiments for the old life and resentment towards the 'enemy' are most apt to be rekindled! To make matters worse for the hero (a stiff Edward Norris), the opportunistic D.A. (an occasionally overripe Claude Rains) prosecuting him sees this trial – which creates nationwide interest and concern, so much so that a crack Northern lawyer (Otto Kruger) is sent out to act for the defense – as his stepping-stone for the Governor's seat! While well enough regarded (despite receiving no Oscar recognition at the time) by mainstream critics – Leslie Halliwell awards this a, for him, very respectable *** and Leonard Maltin even gives it full marks – the film seems pretty much neglected at this juncture (being made available digitally only by way of a manufactured-on-demand DVD-R as part of the "Warner Archives" label): the reasons for this, to my mind, are two. The fact that it is undercast (nominal star Rains was hardly a big box-office draw, already middle-aged when this emerged, and playing a nasty character into the bargain!) – whether it was done to achieve greater realism or to counter the intrinsic hysteria at its core is debatable (still, a debuting Allyn Joslyn is effective as an unscrupulous reporter, a dark-haired Lana Turner landed her first important role here as the murder victim and Elisha Cook Jr. appears as the latter's unlikely beau) – and also because it came hot on the heels of another superb 'mob justice'-themed effort, namely Fritz Lang's FURY (1936; ironically, an MGM picture); apparently, Lang was even approached to helm this one but declined! Though hardly complimentary to its people, the Southern atmosphere is vividly captured throughout – and the film as a whole is generously filled with splendid sequences, reaching a nice pitch of frenzy when the convicted tutor has his sentence converted to one of life imprisonment by the elderly and sympathetic outgoing Governor...but the girl's brothers determine to exact their own kind of justice regardless. This is followed by a coda in which the accused party's wife gives Rains (already with his eye on the Senate!) and Joslyn a piece of her mind, a scene which is very similar in intent and execution to the memorable tirade concluding the afore-mentioned FIVE STAR FINAL.

nomoons11 To start off with, If you think "To Kill a Mockingbird" was the first "you better not get in trouble in the South" films, think again. They won't Forget was 25 years before Mockingbird and just as controversial back in its day I'm willin' to bet.I went into this thinking' it would just be a 1937 murder mystery but what I got was an Anti-South melodrama. I think it hooks you in from the beginning because a very young Lana Turner appears and to say she's beautiful is an absolute understatement. She is just stunning for the little time she appears in this film. The basic premise of the film is that her character gets murdered off early on and they try and railroad one character after another into the electric chair until they find one that fits the best.You know how you know that this is just an Anti-South lesson? Sadly, you don't even know at the end who did do it. They just leave that part out. Most of the film concentrates on 1 character they think did it and go from there. The bad/fake southern accents and the lynching of the character who gets found guilty and gets his sentenced commuted to life at the end. Nowhere throughout the entire film does it point to anyone else. I mean not 1 character gets any light shed unto them on how they may be the actual killer. The character who gets convicted may have done it but you really have no clue. But that's the real point of the film. Your not suppose to know. It's all about how bad the southern judicial system is. This film concentrates solely on the "southern" angle. Kind of a North vs. South typa thing. It was just sad and way over stereotyped.The worst part is that the first person to come upon the body of the girl is a black night watchman and of course they throw him in jail and scare him to tears by tellin him he's gonna be executed if he doesn't tell a load of lies on the stand because if he doesn't, the other accused man's lawyer is gonna point the murder on him. Of course you know back then that blacks rarely got a fair shake so they play that angle up real well.I'm guessin you might be able to tell that I'm from the south..and I am...but there are much better films on the south that aren't so over the top on the subject matter. Go for To Kill a Mockingbird first. The ending is sad but you know that you'll walk away from it with a sense of not ever wanting to be like any of those characters that got him convicted. This film doesn't give you that at the end. All it says to you is.."better be glad you didn't live in the South way back when."

sdave7596 "They Won't Forget" released in 1937, is a hard-hitting look at prejudice and North versus South politics. A young student in a business school (Lana Turner, in her first role) is killed. Fingers soon point to her school teacher from up North (Edward Norris). Whether or not he is guilty seems not to matter to the residents of this small southern town. Claude Rains has a stellar role here as the prosecutor you love to hate, a man who has high political ambitions and wants to bring a conviction no matter who has to to hang for it. Clearly there is nothing but circumstantial evidence against the teacher, something a lawyer (Otto Kruger) from New York points out. He comes to the southern town to defend the teacher, as the case has received national attention. A sleazy newspaper guy who is in league with the prosecutor makes certain the case stays in the headlines, leading to massive rumors and speculation about the man's guilt. This is not an uplifting movie, and I found myself getting outraged while watching it. But this is what Warner Brothers often did in the 1930's -- while MGM was focused on glitz and glamour, Warner's was down in the streets and bringing us great social commentary films like this one. And I think it is quite daring by 1937 standards. The performances are good ones. Rains has a tough time hiding his British accent, but he fascinates anyway. Norris is adequate as the school teacher, although he never had much of a career. Lana Turner was probably all of 16 or 17 here, and a real beauty, and we can already see glimpses of why she became the star she did.

dougdoepke "They Won't Forget" and neither will you if you've seen this chilling depression-era drama based on an actual murder case. Some of the scenes are so real, they're scary. One look at gimlet-eyed Trevor Bardette with a voice from the grave is like seeing death incarnate and enough to freeze a platoon of marines in their tracks. Then there's hapless Clinton Rosemon, his pleas for mercy so achingly real, they echo across generations of tormented black souls. Also not to be overlooked is the bereaved Gloria Dickson. Her righteous anger at movie's end is so heart-felt, I expect it probably was. Together with the wily District Attorney Claude Rains, there's an uncommon authority to this searing drama of justice gone wrong. There's also an uncommon richness of detail. The script, for all its sprawl, remains tight and unrelenting, a genuine testament to writers Rossen and Kandel. Then too, producer Le Roy pulled out all the stops and the results show it. No one acts without apparent reason. Everyone has understandable motivations for doing what they do. That's why the upshot is so tragic. It's as though there's an on-rushing train nobody can stop because the momentum is carried by an infernal logic greater than the demands of justice. Despite appearances, it's not an anti-lynching film, though it is that. Rather, it's a down and dirty look at the cynical roots of injustice. From lowly pool hall to lofty city council, no one wants to convict an innocent man, but then no one much cares either. This movie stands as a fine example of why Warner Bros. was the studio of record during the stressed-out 1930's. Anyway, for guys who don't like the gloomy theme, there's always the chance to catch Lana Turner as she juggles two balloons while sashaying up the sidewalk in the film's most famous scene. All in all-- a classic of 30's social realism, with Hollywood at its unapologetic best.