BOOMERANG
US, 1947, 88 minutes, Black and White.
Dana Andrews, Lee J. Cobb, Jane Wyatt, Arthur Kennedy, Karl Malden, Robert Keith, Ed Begley, Cara Williams.
Directed by Elia Kazan.
Boomerang was considered one of the best films of 1947 and comes from a social mood at Twentieth Century Fox that produced films like Gentleman's Agreement and Crossfire. Here, local justice, city administration and newspaper and political pressures on legal processes are examined and a glimpse given of the average American city's capacity for prejudice and fanaticism and victimising those who seem guilty. It is made as a semi-documentary in authentic Connecticut locales. While it has some of the features of the murder mystery and the court room drama, there is more to it than this, questions of right and wrong, conscience and honesty.
Elia Kazan, later to make On the Waterfront, Splendor in the Grass, America, America and the film version of his novel, The Arrangement, made this film the same year as Gentlemen's Agreement and established himself as a successful director.
1. Was the semi-documentary style suitable for this film? Did it help it? Although it was designed for an audience of the late 40's, does the message still have value for Americans and for ourselves today?
2. The film makes the point of emphasising how one town is much the same as another and how ordinary people are the same everywhere. Are most of the characters in the film types that you would meet anywhere today, especially in the larger country towns?
3. Although the film is a murder and trial story, these are of secondary importance. What is the theme of the film?
4. The screen audience was shown the murder at closer range than the witnesses. Did you recognise the murderer? Why do people stick so doggedly to their testimony?
5. Why was the murder of Fr Lambert shocking? The film had to show his popularity so that the town's feeling would make sense. How well was Fr Lambert's popularity sketched in? Could you understand the town's determination to find his murderer?
6. Were the flashbacks during the sermon fair to the two men shown in them? Did these provide some indication why Fr Lambert could be killed, also his place in the civic reform of the town?
7. Why did the police not come up with leads? did it show the police force was incompetent?
8. Why did the opposition paper step up its campaign of dissatisfaction with the police? Did it have any concern for justice? Has the paper a right to conduct this kind of campaign?
9. Were the governing council a good body of men? Were they too ambitious? What kind of man was Paul Harris? Were they right to pressurise the State's attorney and the police chief?
10. How were the numerous indiscriminate arrests a harsh and satirical comment on the type of pressurised justice the politicians and the papers wanted?
11. Was the state attorney right to back the local police?
12. Was the interrogation of the suspect typical? Was it just? Would any prisoner sign a confession after the pressure?
13. What kind of man was Henry Harvey? Was he a convincingly good and honest man? Why did he believe the suspect innocent? Why was the offer of governorship a temptation on the eve of his attempt to rehabilitate the suspect?
14. How courageous was the stand Harvey took in declining to prosecute the accused? Why was his stand interpreted as politicking?
15. Why did people outside the court want to attack the accused? What did the film have to say about bigotry, prejudice, fanaticism and taking the law into one's own hand for revenge?
16. Were Paul Harris's threats real pressures, including the possible blackmailing because of Mrs. Harvey's investment?
17. What did Harvey's demonstration prove about witnesses, reliability, evidence, the search for truth?
18. Did the final American praise ring true? Did that detract from the value of the film?
