CALL NORTHSIDE 777 (1948) Stewart to the rescue

Returning from World War II, Jimmy Stewart revealed a darker persona, as evidenced in such movies as IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946), ROPE (1948), and all the Anthony Mann-directed Westerns in the ‘50s. Likewise in CALL NORTHSIDE 777, a documentary-styled noir in which he plays a cynical Chicago reporter who opens a 10-year-old murder case with reluctance and winds up pursuing it with passion. All proof pointing to the convict’s innocence is circumstantial until McNeal (stalwart Stewart) finds an old newspaper photo. When enlarged with "advanced" '40s technology that looks positively prehistoric today, a tiny fact is spotted that unequivocally clears him. Well acted by all and still engaging and suspenseful. The telephone number in the title is that of the convict's mother, a scrubwoman whose classified ad, offering a reward to anyone who can clear her son, attracts the attention of Stewart's editor (ever-crusty but lovable Lee J. Cobb).