Based on the life of Fr. Charles Clark, a minister to street gangs.Based on the life of Fr. Charles Clark, a minister to street gangs.Based on the life of Fr. Charles Clark, a minister to street gangs.
- Awards
- 2 wins & 1 nomination
Norman McKay
- Father Dunne
- (as Norman MacKaye)
Walter L. Wiedmer
- Father David Michaels
- (as Walter Wiedmer)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaConcerned that the critics would not be kind to an actor appearing in a film he wrote, Don Murray penned the screenplay under the pseudonym "Don Deer", his nickname as a track and field athlete in high school in Rockaway, NY.
- ConnectionsReferenced in Alice, Sweet Alice (1976)
Featured review
Well-meaning but Arty
Irv Kerschner, who was George Lucas' teacher at USC and later directed one of his pupil's Star Trek features, made this glossy well-meaning melodrama released by United Artists in 1961. Shot on location in St. Louis and featuring the semi-documentary but often overly self-conscious B&W cinematography of Haskell Wekler, the story is based on the real life story of a Jesuit priest --perhaps the first man in America to set up a half-way house for ex-cons. Although its heart is in the right place, and the film makes the plea that the criminal justice system in the United States only serves to criminalize young offenders rather than reform them, Kershner cannot resist all the obvious opportunities to be arty: chases through railroad yards and into abandoned buildings with broken furniture and boarded-up windows providing the right shadows on the wall. He also hammers home his point by squeezing out the last drop of melodrama from the shaky plot, including a totally implausible electric chair sequence with the priest admitted into the chamber as his hoodlum friend is about to be electrocuted. The film tries to have its cake and eat it, too. In real life the Irish priest was helped to build his halfway house by a Russian-Jewish immigrant attorney, Morris Shenker, but the film homogenizes their relationship; the young offenders somehow feel as if they dropped out of "West Side Story," made the same year, because they were unable to sing and dance.
helpful•1420
- ilprofessore-1
- Jan 27, 2009
Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Language
- Also known as
- ...der werfe den ersten Stein
- Filming locations
- Missouri State Penitentiary, Jefferson City, Missouri, USA(prison seen at beginning of film)
- Production company
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $600,000 (estimated)
- Runtime1 hour 41 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.66 : 1
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