CALL NORTHSIDE 777 (1948)

Two men are wrong accused of a murder and sentenced to 99 years in prison even though the only evidence was a bunch of bullshit handled by crooked cops.  Imagine that.  Eleven years later the mother of one of the men has saved up $5,000 scrubbing floors and she places an ad in the paper offering the 5 g's as a reward for any information about the real killer(s).  The editor of the paper sees the ad so he assigns reporter Jimmy Stewart to look into it.  Once he starts looking into the story it's pretty clear that the evidence doesn't line up at all.

Based on a true story CALL NORTHSIDE 777 hasn't aged too well.  In fact I'll just go ahead and say it: it's boring.  We all know right from the beginning how the story is going to end, so any suspense is thrown out the window.  The semi-documentary filming style doesn't help things at all either.  Added onto that the numerous loose ends and the lack on a concrete bad guy CN777 is pretty slow going.  Stewart's performance is fine, as is Lee J. Cobb's, but even so I can't think of any reason in the world why I would ever want to watch this film again.  If you need me I'll be in my room watching THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION.