MAKSQUIBS CINEMATHEQUE: THE PHENIX CITY STORY (1955)

LABELS

There are (currently) eight different LABELS to look for on MAKSQUIBS.

CONTEST - Win a review of any available DVD or 'Streamer' of your choice* if you're the first to answer a Q attached to one of the write-ups. Please refrain from either Googling or searching for an answer via IMdB or other web movie services! These contests are plenty easy to solve just be using your little grey cells.

RECOMMENDED - Meaning Strongly Recommended. A film that's good enough or historically important enough to demand viewing. WARNING: A few real stinkers are important enough to rate this label. And, on the other hand, lots of pretty good or pretty valuable films, don't quite measure up to our RECOMMENDED level. (See also UNIQUE, below.)

FAMILY FRIENDLY - CAREFUL!! Not necessarily a KIDDIE pic, but a film that school kids may get into if the subject interests. You'll find foreign & silent pics in here as the need to read the sub-titles & inter-titles to follow the narrative and get all the jokes does wonders for ADD types.

LINK - To quickly find any Write-Up that includes an InterNet Link of interest for that specific film.

UNIQUE - Films that may not fit into the usual critical categories of Good, Bad or Indifferent, (certainly not indifferent!), but are worth watching because there just ain't nothing like 'em. Sui generis pics. (Phooey generis if they don't work for you.)

READ ALL ABOUT IT - While there's a book or two (or ten dozen) closely related to just about any film you might think of, here's a specific book you might not have known about (or thought of) that opens a window on the chosen title.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY - A place to vent those out-of-left-field thoughts.

POSTER - Hmm, I bet you can figure this one out.

(Hint: most of the posters will enlarge if you click on them.)

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT - sort of like those EAT THIS, NOT THAT diet books only with film instead of food as the topic. Sometimes, the substitute pick isn't the obvious 'better' choice, but one of those 'flawed-but-interesting' films that often get left behind.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID - some easy to miss element worth noting.

SILENT FILM - hey, figure it out (LOL)

. . . and DOUBLE-BILL - a suggested second feature.

To bring up the complete list in any of these categories, simply click on one of the LABELS when you come across one and everything with that designation will come up when the page reloads. Just scroll down. There's also a LABELS list near the bottom of all the pages.

Please let me know if there are any other LABELS you'd like to see.

AND YOU'RE DOING ALL THIS BECAUSE . . . ?

Like just about everyone with an interest in the movies, I'm watching more films on DVD and going out to movie houses a lot less. Convenience trumps the better experience.
Of course, you lose audience interaction and the poor film now has to compete with all the comforts of home.
It's a bit like seeing Rembrandts & Titians in a book reproduction, or from posters with iffy color values, no texture or weight to the surface and the wrong dimensions . . . all while snacking on chips & soda. (Oops! You get that at your local cinema,too.)
The ease of instant movie gratification risks turning an art form (well, sometimes) into little more than low-grade eye-candy & mindfodder. So, maybe it's worthwhile to write a bit down on what we're all viewing, just to keep fully engaged.

DVDs: the latest opiate of the people meets the internet, where everyone's a critic.
God help us.

Now over 6000 Reviews and (near) Daily Updates!

WELCOME! Use the search engines on this site (or your own off-site engine of choice) to gain easy access to the complete MAKSQUIBS Archive; over 6000 posts and counting. (New posts added every day or so.)

You can check on all our titles by typing the Title, Director, Actor or 'Keyword' you're looking for in the Search Engine of your choice (include the phrase MAKSQUIBS) or just use the BLOGSPOT.com Search Box at the top left corner of the page.

Feel free to place comments directly on any of the film posts and to test your film knowledge with the CONTESTS scattered here & there. (Hey! No Googling allowed. They're pretty easy.)

Send E-mails to MAKSQUIBS@yahoo.com . (Let us know if the TRANSLATE WIDGET works!) Or use the Profile Page or Comments link for contact.

Thanks for stopping by.

Saturday, August 15, 2026

THE PHENIX CITY STORY (1955)

One of the great progressive muckraking films of the mid-‘50s, this B-pic by master of the form Phil Karlson (ironically, best known for his reactionary small town/vigilante-sheriff ‘70s hit WALKING TALL/’73*) looks better than ever. Not only for how it captures period details of the customs & inbred corruption in small-town segregated South, but because so much of the social/civic culture it uncovers continues today in more sophisticated/less brazen style. Shot to a considerable extent on the actual locations around Phenix City, AL, the true(ish) story is structured as a rabble-rousing thriller (note film noir scripter Daniel Mainwaring) as returning Army vet Richard Kiley (and family) goes to work in Dad’s law office. That’s John McIntire as the flinty former State D.A., keeping his nose out of non-legal affairs as the town succumbs to the vice mob in booze, gambling & prostitution. The whole city run as a Protection Racket by a small, vicious rabble. But once the old man is drawn back into the fight after his son stands up to them, and a little Black girl is murdered as a warning, the town’s good governance committee of honest businessmen needs a winning candidate to run for D.A. Far more violent than you imagine for a film of the period, Karlson gets the real flavor of the South (the Slow-Walk response by local police as infuriating as those missed calls by professional wrestling refs on tv), while the blanket racism of the town all the more effective for its casual acceptance on the side of the vice issues. Under Karlson, the film ain’t subtle, but neither is the story.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Even more ironic now after TALL’s ‘heroic’ Sheriff Buford Pusser was posthumously tagged with his wife’s ‘unsolved’ murder, the incident that started his violent clean-up.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY/LINK: Famously a big fan of PHENIX, what a pity Martin Scorsese didn’t re-watch it before starting KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON/’24. It might have helped. The films less dissimilar than you’d think. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2026/04/killers-of-flower-moon-2024.html

MAKSQUIBS CINEMATHEQUE

Translate

ERNST LUBITSCH

LABELS

Blog Archive

AND YOU'RE DOING ALL THIS BECAUSE . . . ?

. . . a brief note on abbreviations . . .

About Me

Now over 6000 Reviews and (near) Daily Updates!

Saturday, August 15, 2026

THE PHENIX CITY STORY (1955)

No comments:

Labels

A last thought before we go.

DROP ME A LINE