Speaking pleasantly but pointedly with a local mob boss, attorney general candidate Albert Patterson (John McIntire) wearily agrees to the reminder that a grand jury found no evidence of gambling in the city. He cites the dictionary, saying "a gambler is one who plays a game of chance. They're right; there's no gamblin' here. Nobody in Phenix City has a chance." So ripped from the headlines that it opens with a 13-minute newsreel interviewing the real-life subjects, The Phenix City Story is one of the grittiest, darkest late-period noirs of the '50s.Aptly compared by Bosley Crowther in a moment of critical faculty to On the Waterfront and All the King's Men, The Phenix City Story is a horrifying look into mass corruption, coerced silence and the near-impossibility of doing the right thing in a rigged system. Made on-location with a minuscule budget, the film's pseudo-documentary feel paints a portrait of vice so utterly soul-corroding that even those who seek to get rid of the gambling and the mob use the same violent, mindless tactics to fight back.
