Boomerang!

Boy, this can be a frustrating story to watch, but the acting was great with a number of well-known people doing their usual excellent jobs. I'm speaking of actors like Lee J. Cobb, Arthur Kennedy, Dana Andrews, Ed Begley, Sam Lavene, Jane Wyatt, Robert Keith and more. The story shows how people go about doing things for the wrong reasons. It's tragic when it involves a man's life. Here, an Episcopal priest gets shot in broad daylight in a New England town (Hartford, Conn., I think.) Amazingly, he runs away and is not caught. Soon, with no clues and no suspects, the public is demanding action. A lot of this looks like a bunch of clichés, but it's based on a true story. It's an election year so you have one party which is desperate to hand over a killer and satisfy the public. You have the opposite party led by a defense team which doesn't care if their man's guilty or not; they just want the guy to go free and make the others look bad. The cops, meanwhile, don't want to keep looking bad so they're anxious to pin something on the first suspect that looks really guilty. This sort of thing goes back-and-forth throughout the film. You know the suspect "John Waldron" (Kennedy) is Innocent so it's frustrating watching him get in deeper and deeper. You see two extremes. In the "old days" like when this was filmed, a guy could be brought into the police station and has harassed to the point of making a false confession. Where's the lawyer? "Ah, you'll get one later," says a cop. It looks ridiculous to us today. Now, we are used to the opposite where the accused doesn't go anywhere or say anything without a lawyer present. It seems too many guilty men go free today but - in this movie's era and previous to that - too many innocent people were sentenced. Wouldn't it be nice to have a middle ground where justice always prevails? Even more ridiculous is somebody allowed to bring a gun into the courtroom but, once again, it's life 60 years ago. Also involved in the story is an overzealous press (what else is new?), promises of government posts, a scorned woman lying her butt off, a man who has put all his money into a business project and what happens in the case affects him, and the usual "good guy" who won't sell out his principles. Speaking of that, about at the one-hour remark, we see a quote from the "Lawyer's Code Of Ethics." I had to laugh; I don't know one lawyer who subscribes to that! From the above, you get the gist of the story. I won't say more for fear of spoilers. Suffice to say, it's a wonderfully-acted film with some good direction by some young director named Elia Kazan! If you watch, be prepared to have your blood pressure go up and down. It's a very manipulative movie, but that helps make it interesting.

The names are changed and updated, the story takes place post World War II instead of World War I. But Boomerang is the story of how the man who eventually became United States Attorney General, Homer Cummings, used his prosecutorial office to prove the INNOCENCE of an arrested murder suspect. How often do you see that happen? In fact Boomerang is a primer for those people who wonder how the Supreme Court under Earl Warren could render such decisions as Escobedo and Miranda which set a few ground rules about interrogating a suspect. Today poor Arthur Kennedy who plays the veteran accused of murdering a priest in cold blood might have lawyered up and never given the confession in the first place. Under a different name Cummings is played by Dana Andrews with Jane Wyatt as his wife. Lee J. Cobb and Karl Malden play the investigating police detectives who do a thorough job and apparently have gotten their man. What the crime consisted of was person unknown in the evening hours on one of the town's main streets firing a pistol into the back of the head of a popular clergyman in the town. Several witnesses do see it, but none are close enough to really be sure. One witness nearly sinks Kennedy, but when Andrews questions Kennedy before the trial and he tells her that waitress Cara Williams is mad because he dumped her, that sets Andrews thinking about his case. His examination of her on the stand is devastating. The film was directed by Elia Kazan who got the New York Film Critic's Award for this and his work on Gentleman's Agreement. This was a banner year obviously for Mr. Kazan. Boomerang got one Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay for Richard Murphy. After over 60 years Boomerang holds up very well and should be required viewing for those attorneys who wish to become prosecutors. It ain't all about another notch in the belt.

source: Boomerang!

Trailer—Boomerang!

Boomerang!

The young ARTHUR KENNEDY was one of our best dramatic actors and proves it in BOOMERANG! by giving a realistic punch to his performance as an innocent man caught in a murder trap. The only man who can save him is attorney DANA ANDREWS, who does a fine job of pointing out weaknesses in the case and destroying the false witnesses. One of the best of its kind, it's done in brisk, documentary style popular in the early forties. Well worth viewing, beautifully directed and acted by a fine cast. Jane Wyatt does a nice job, as does Ed Begley and Sam Levene. Based on a true incident, the murder of a popular parish priest in Connecticut, the film is powerful in its demonstration of our justice system and how it sometimes works, but sometimes fails because of behind the scenes dishonesty related to political shenanigans.