DKosty123 Since this was made in 1937, I got a major surprise when I saw this film. It is a film that is second to few, and shocking in how it was made. Unlike many films with court trials of a murderer, this one will surprise anyone who has not seen it. The disclaimer at the beginning of the film is upfront that this film is fiction. Based on Ward Greenes novel -"Death In The Deep South" there are several things that make this film outstanding.Claude Rains as DA Andy Griffin is outstanding in pursuit of a murderer of a young woman in a town where the previous 2 murders remain unsolved. He realizes this murder as his opportunity to go on to bigger and better things. Before the trial begins he has the town in a ferment. The town founders plead with him to protect their interests in their small town."You should have thought of all this before your papers started splashing front page headlines about this." You started making this trial too big for you. Now it is out of control. You owners of all the media in town should have thought of that before. Then he turns them down saying he can not do anything about it, and admits that he will get a conviction regardless to get justice for Mary Clays Death. It also advances his career. (Recently, the Main Stream Media in the United States got an issue out of control to the point that this movie illustrates, so sadly this film does the same thing years earlier).What is truly different about this movie, is that it is left in the air at the end who really killed Mary Clay. All the evidence presented is circumstantial, but this film leaves it as a parlor game. Sure Griffin gets Professor Robert Hale (Edward Norris) convicted, but the film deliberately does not prove beyond any doubt whether or not he is really the killer. Otto Kruger plays Lawyer Gleason who is defending Hale, but he has little chance against the railroad the media and Andy Griffin have created. "Since when does evidence consist of here-say prove a Defendants guilt? Andy Griffin sums it up as "Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!"A lot of people weigh in on both sides. Mary Clays 3 brothers weigh in heavily and eventually get their justice. So watch this one with a fervor of playing the parlor game, did Professor Hale with no motive actually kill Mary Clay? Was it her supposed boy friend? Was it Redwine (Clinton Rosemond) the janitor guy in the building? Was it the jealous girlfriend who had a crush on the teacher Hale just like Mary? Or was it somebody else? Time to get Ellery Queen only he is not available for this one.

edwagreen Outstanding film really about that happened in Atlanta, Georgia, circa 1913, the killing of Mary Phagan by a Jewish factory worker or owner. Prejudice came into play here and the worker was ultimately lynched by a mob.The aspect of anti-Semitism is eliminated from this excellent film; instead, we focus on the biases of the south. The crime was even committed on Confederate Veterans Day.You will never recognize Lana Turner, the young college student, murdered in a college university building. While Turner's appearance is brief, she was somewhat memorable here.As always, Claude Rains steals the show as an ambitious attorney, who will use this case as the prosecutor, to further his political career. Allyn Joslyn is equally excellent as the reporter,anxious for a major news story. When he gets it, he stirs the feelings of the people by his writing and his actions.The acting by the entire cast is top-notch. Prejudice, stupidity and utter hatred was never depicted better here.We never know who the true killer was, but we are given a plethora of suspects. Too bad that the jury didn't see it that way. This is definitely a film of rare social conscience.

sol (There are Spoilers) Even though the film "They Won't Forget" claims it's not based on any true events and it's characters are completely fictitious it's undoubtedly bases on truth. The film is about the trial conviction pardon and later abduction, by a frenzied mob, and lynching of Leo Frank on August 17,1915 outside of Marietta Georgia. Frank was abducted from the local jail-house and taken out in the woods and hung for the murder of 12 year-old Atlanta girl Mary Phagan.The movie goes along the same lines as the real story that it's based on with Leo Frank portrayed as a business professor, not the owner of a pencil factory, from the north named Perry Hale, Edward Norris. The movie also replaces Hale's, or Leo Frank whom he's supposed to be, ethnicity of being Jewish to being a northerner which is the real reason, in the movie, that the people of the small southern town of Flodden have such a bitter hatred for him. Besides that small change in history the movie nevertheless is a strong incitement of how emotions can easily take over a community and lead to an innocent mans, even though it's never really proved if or not Hale was in fact innocent, unjust conviction and later murder.Hale was seen at the business school where he was a professor and where pretty 16 year-old Mary Clay, Lana Turner, attended and was in fact a bit infatuated with him. It was on that fateful day April 26, Confederate Memorial Day, that Hale was seen at the school after hours where Mary's body was later found brutally murdered. The police first grabbed the school's janitor a black man named Tump Redwine, Clinton Rosemond, as the prime suspect in Mary's murder. It was in fact Tump who found Mary's dead body at the bottom of an elevator shaft.Slowly all the evidence,circumstantial as it was, started to point to Parry Hale. Hale not only was there, besides Tump, at the school when Mary was murdered but had both a blood stain on his jacket and a telegram that he's leaving town as soon as possible for a new job up north! Seeing a chance to make a name for himself, and get elected senator, local D.A Andrew Griffin, Claude Raines, took charge of prosecuting Hale and with the town already strongly prejudice against him, in Hale being an outsider and Yankee to boot, the outcome of the trial was already a forgone conclusion.Hale's trial, and jury, was so prejudice against him that after being convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to the electric chair that Governor Mountford,Paul Everton,felt that he at least should have a new trial, with a change of venue, in order to positively prove his innocence not the angry lynch mob that he faced back in Flodden.Sacrificing his political career Gov. Mountford let his conscience replace his future in politics by commenting Hale's death sentence to life imprisonment. This act of courage on the governors part touched off a riot in Flodden that had the outraged townspeople lead by Mary's hot-headed bother Shack, Trevor Bardnett, grab Hale as he was being sneaked out of town by the state police and after beating him bloody strung the terrified man up.It was only after all the dust settled an tempers cooled that D.A Griffin and most of the people who had a hand in convicting Hale, including the manipulated star witness for the prosecution Tump Redwine,that a grain of doubt to Hale's guilt started to come to the surface. Hale's grieved wife Sybil, Gloria Dickson, was given a check by Griffin for all the trouble that she went though in her husbands trail convincing and lynching. Griffin even swore to Sybil that those who murdered her husband would be brought to justice which didn't move or impress her at all. Sybil threw the check that Griffin gave her back in his face wanting to have nothing more to do with him and the town of Floddon as she walked out of his office and his life as well as town forever.P.S the biggest tragedy besides the tragic lynching of Perry Hale is that the actual murdered, if Hale was in fact innocent, of young Mary Clay was never brought to justice. And that was by far the biggest injustice done to Mary her family and the people of Fodden in the movie.

dbdumonteil "They won't forget" is a tragedy.The first pictures show six old confederates veterans who play the part of the antique choir.They 'll come back when the drama is over."They won't forget" works as the mechanism of a clock.It's North versus South,Mother versus Mother, populace versus law ,integrity versus political career...It almost outshines Le Roy's previous masterpieces such as "I'm a fugitive from a chain gang" (both Paul Muni and Edward Norris portray men who cannot adapt themselves to the society they're part of:Muni because he 's just returned from war,Norris because he is one of those hateful Yankees for those southerners .The movie is absorbing from start to finish and contains unforgettable scenes: -The parade ,our memorial day (which has not the same meaning for Hale) -Hale caught up in the system when the cops come to question him.-The black janitor,crying "I didn't do it!I didn't do it!I'm afraid! I'm afraid! .The actor's performance is intense matching Claude Rains' and the rest of the uniformly good cast's .-Joe Turner (Elisha Cook jr) claiming his innocence to Mary's sister ;it's so realistic we can see him sputter! -the scene when Hale's wife (Gloria Dickson) gets his mother at the station where people are looking forward to watching a sensational trial.Everybody gathers for the feast as they will do in Billy Wilder's "Ace in the hole" (1951)-the beautiful scene between the governor and his wife;this is the only one which leaves some hope about the human race.-the train where we feel an impending threat,hellbound train indeed!-Sybil's final words ,when she curses those who killed her husband ;actually the D.A.was not the only one responsible for the tragedy.The whole town played a part,from a coward barber to a hateful school principal ,from the greedy for scoops journalists to anonymous avengers ."They won't forget" is a must.