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The Kefauver crime hearings in the US Senate were the inspiration for several films of which The Turning Point is one. It's neither the best or the worst of that group.

Idealistic young attorney Edmond O'Brien is put in charge of a local Kefauver like group with prosecutorial powers to go after the syndicate that operates in this unnamed midwest American city. He's the son of veteran police detective Tom Tully and he asks his father to help him in his investigation. Also helping out are Alexis Smith functioning as the commission secretary and a cynical William Holden who is a long time friend of O'Brien's and newspaper reporter.

The syndicate is headed by Ed Begley, his number two is his enforcer Ted DeCorsia and he's got a hotheaded torpedo on the payroll in Danny Dayton. This crime syndicate has its hooks in pretty deep and watching the film you see why they are always one step ahead of the investigating commission.

The Turning Point fits right in with Bill Holden's post Sunset Boulevard tough and cynical image. That would reach its apogee when next year Holden would win an Oscar for the ultimate cynic in Stalag 17.

The rest of the cast performs well in roles that fit them admirably. Some you will remember are Neville Brand as an out of town torpedo who has few words, but an aura of menace, Carolyn Jones in her film debut as a Virginia Hill type witness who performs on stand the way Judy Holliday did in the House Un-American Activities Committee as the dumb moll. But the performance that really stands out is that of Adele Longmire who is the wife of another torpedo who was doublecrossed and killed after a hit he performed. She is really a standout in her scenes as a frightened witness trying to flee the mob.

The Turning Point is a good noir drama that holds up very well today and is even relevant with some of the big name prosecutions of more recent vintage.

William Dieterle's resume shows him to be a solid craftsman only occasionally rising to true distinction. Same can be said of The Turning Point, an often routine noir about a government committee -- this was the era of the televised Kefauver hearings -- investigating mob activity and corruption in a "midwestern" city (though one scene is shot on Los Angeles' funicular railway). Routine also are cynical journalist William Holden and chief investigator Edmond O'Brien, though we're lucky to have the seldom-seen Alexis Smith as a woman attracted to them both. But the best thing in the movie is Ed Begley as the owner of a trucking company who is of course the hoodlum in chief, despite his panelled office and tailored suits. He's memorably slick and squirmy in front of the committee. But his best moment comes when he confides to a henchman his plans to burn down the tenement building where his records are stored: "You don't believe I'd do it?" he jokes. "I don't think a jury would believe it either." The following conflagration is as brutal a plot development as can be found in film noir, with firetrucks, ambulances and bodybags aplenty. It's a scene that sticks with you long after the screenplay's romantic triangle has faded from memory.

The 85-minutes amounts to a surprisingly good blend of a complexly constructed narrative. The personal, romantic, and political all combine here in what's clearly an effort to tap into Kefauver anti-racketeering hearings of the time. Only here it's Eddie O'Brien as legal eagle Conroy, aided by Holden as hawkshaw reporter McKibbon, both on the trail of racketeering kingpin Ed Begley as Eichelberger. Trouble is Conroy's policeman dad (Tully) has been on the take, so his son must now publicly expose him. Then too, Conroy and buddy McKibbon are in love with same girl, Smith as Amanda. There're a number of threads here, most of which weave in and out effectively.

The two biggest pluses are an expert cast, right down to lethally skinny Danny Dayton (Roy) and unforgettable heavy Neville Brand (Red). While dual leads, Holden and O'Brien, low-key their parts effectively. Together, the cast makes the material more plausible than it should be. Second, are the tacky LA locations, from Olympic boxing arena, to skid row, to beloved Angel's Flight tram. The seedy backgrounds also lend a patina of urban realism. Highlights include Red figuring out a catwalk above a fight arena, and the brutal blowing up of Arco's office showing the cruel reality behind Eichelberger's smooth exterior. And catch that surprise ending I didn't see coming.

I expect the b&w film was out of step with the Technicolor extravaganzas Hollywood was turning to at the time. The noirish parts especially have a 40's feel to them. Note early clunky appearance of that upstart menace TV, then making inroads into theatre attendance. Too bad this generous slice of professionalism likely got lost in the mix. It may not be one of Holden's better-known films. Nonetheless, the strong points make the 85-minutes worth catching up with.

William Holden is Jerry McKibbon, a reporter who's trying to help his pal Edmond O'Brien as district attorney John Conroy and his girl Alexis Smith as Amanda Waycross expose the big city gangster Ed Begley as Neil Eichelberger with some help from O'Brien's cop father, Tom Tully as Matt Conroy. I'll stop there and just say this was quite a thrilling crime drama though compared to others from the period, also perhaps a little subdued. Still, a suspenseful atmosphere permeates throughout especially when a boxing match where someone tries to kill provides the exciting climax. No big music score is provided but there are some good sequences when the story doesn't take the time for some romance between either of the male leads and Ms. Smith which aren't really needed. So on that note, The Turning Point is well worth the time.

The Turning Point (1952)

Great cast (good guys and bad), great director (William Dieterle is a stalwart Hollywood director who did "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" among many others), and solid plot. You can't go wrong. It moves fast, it makes sense, it has drama and romance, and a great shoot-em-up ending in a boxing arena.

And yet something is withheld. I think it's partly camera-work, all very shadowy and excellent, but not elegant, not pumped up and dramatic. The story, as well, is a little routine. By 1952 this kind of crime noir gangster film is old stuff. They even hint at this in the movie, by saying that the unnamed midwestern city is seeing a rise in crime in the old style, a return of 1920s gangsterism. But if they mean to return to the great gangster films, they don't quite make it.

But it's still really fine--William Holden is an understated player and therefore underrated. And the co-lead, the star of "D.O.A." and "The Hitchhiker" among a few other lesser films, is Edmond O'Brien, who is maybe at his best here. You see a curious position for Holden, hot off of "Sunset Blvd.," in a somewhat secondary role, because he might be the leading hunk, but O'Brien is the leading man.

A good film without that special something to lift it up, but without a flaw, either, in any usual sense. Totally a pleasure in its understated approach.

If you like your noir realistic, then this film is for you. The twist ending will also provide a surprise for some, although it is generally a Hollywood formula that when two good guys are interested in the same girl, one of them usually gets knocked off. William Holden, Edmund O'Brien, Neville Brand (TV Untouchables), and Carolyn Jones all give outstanding performances. A reporter and cop love the same woman and the mob is after both men. Great dialogue; especially the line where the top hood says (paraphrasing) "your college degree didnt make you better or smarter than the rest of us in the real world".

From 1952 Paramount, The Turning Point is a crime drama starring William Holden, Alexis Smith, Edmond O'Brien, and Ed Begley.

O'Brien is John Conroy an attorney who has returned to his home town to lead a commission dedicated to wiping out corruption in their city, somewhere in the midwest. Holden is Jerry McKibbon, his childhood friend who is now a sharp and somewhat cynical reporter. He spots McKibbon's idealism right away and thinks he might be headed for a big reality check. Alexis Smith plays Amanda, a socialite who is John's girlfriend and secretary.

Some of this is telegraphed early. First off, how long does anyone think Amanda will stay Ed Begley's girlfriend once she sees William Holden? Then John happily tells his police detective father that he is hiring him as chief investigator for the commission. His father (Tom Tully) doesn't want the job. Now why do we suppose that is?

Ed Begley is the head mobster, Neil Eichelberger, a crumb who doesn't care whom he has to kill or blow up to get his way. One of his henchman is Roy Ackerman (Danny Dayton). They're both foul.

Even with some predictability, this is a well-acted, tight story directed by William Dieterle. The end takes place at a boxing match and is exciting. Watch for Neville Brand as an out of town hit man at the end of the film.

For trivia buffs, there are some uncredited people who rose above being uncredited: Carolyn Jones in her first film; '50s starlet Rachel Ames, who joined the cast of General Hospital in 1964, a year after its debut. She still occasionally makes an appearance, and she looks fantastic. Also Whit Bissell and Robert Rockwell (Mr. Boynton on Our Miss Brooks). Good movie.

A nicely assembled rather complex story about small time corruption in an anonymous midwestern city that effectively balances its mix of plot elements into a plausible and interesting whole. Edmond O'Brien plays an idealistic lawyer who heads an investigation that leads him into his own family. William Holden plays an investigative reporter and childhood pal of O'Brien's, a likely and believable role for him, a born cynic on screen if there ever was one, who not only gets to the center of the corruption plague but also attracts the attentions of Alexis Smith, O'Brien's girlfriend and secretary. Directed by William Dieterle, the film should be pulled apart by its competing angles, but isn't, holding together nicely while it fits in the increasingly deadly corruption headed by an always convincing Ed Begley, and showing a sympathetic and at times pathetic O'Brien whose life seems to unravel around him as the film reaches its various points, leading to a tight and exciting conclusion with Neville Brand playing a out of town killer in a crowded boxing arena.

A special prosecutor is assigned to tackle organized crime. Inspired by the Kefauver hearings that had been conducted during the two years preceding this film, this is an earnest but routine drama. It moves at a good pace but becomes bogged down during extended scenes focusing on the hearings. Holden plays a cynical reporter and nobody does cynical better than Holden. In fact he would win the Oscar for playing a cynical POW in his next film, "Stalag 17." O'Brien is OK as the prosecutor. Holden and O'Brien would team up more memorably 17 years later in "The Wild Bunch." Begley is the crime boss while Smith provides the love interest.

Robert Wise's "the captive city" was released the same year and it's roughly the same subject .William Dieterle's work is not as absorbing because his directing is too static and academic in spite of a good cast.Melodramatic elements interfere with the film noir treatment -the father trying to redeem himself after behaving very bad,but he did it in order to pay his son 's studies etc etc -.Fortunately,the last sequence avoids pathos .Wise's film was more interesting because the enemy was almost invisible and the stranglehold it had on the town was complete though.In Dieterle's movie ,in spite of a lot of violence,we never really feel a threatening atmosphere.

John Conroy (Edmund O'Brien) is a Special Prosecutor looking into the activities of the criminal Eichelberger syndicate. The setting is a midwestern city, never named, perhaps because they didn't want to smear the name of Chicago once again. Jerry McKibbon (William Holden) is a local journalist who grew up with John, but who is very cynical and thinks John is just too naive for the task. Jerry gets suspicious of Matt Conroy, John's dad and a policeman, and starts following him. He finds that Conroy is meeting with Eichelberger and his men, and is probably the leak in the prosecutor's office and on the take. Meanwhile, John is suspecting that Jerry might be that leak, and yet Jerry does not have the heart to tell John the truth about his dad, whom John lionizes. Complications ensue.

The plot is fine, though it really doesn't go anyplace that surprises. If you are expecting some neat twists and turns, they never really appear. But that dialogue! Yikes! It's like the writing style of Ayn Rand got spliced together with that of Damon Runyan. You've got ordinary people talking like gangsters and the respectable higher class people range from having what sounds like normal conversation at times to dialogue that sounds like it was written for a Soviet play, with a bunch of ham fisted melodramatic dialogue thrown in for good measure. It really is an odd combination. And you haven't lived until you've heard Russell Johnson - The Professor of Gilligan's Island fame - talking like he was raised in Brooklyn.

The individual scenes are like a guided tour of urban noir settings - the fights, a police line-up, a rather dingy diner, a bowling alley, and a pool hall just to mention a few. And the cinematography does not disappoint. Just don't think too hard when it comes to individual decisions made, in particular those by Holden's character. At times it seems like his actions make no sense other than, without him doing or suggesting something rather stupid, the plot could not progress any further.

The acting in this film is fine, but it can't rise above the story, which is average at best: the tale of a special prosecutor determined to bring a criminal enterprise to justice. Edmond O'Brien is the prosecutor and William Holden is the hard-nosed reporter who warns him, as a friend, that he might have to get dirty to do battle with the likes of Neil Eichelberger (Ed Bagley).

Alexis Smith is the high-society girlfriend who finds herself wedged, emotionally, between the prosecutor and the reporter. Her performance is the linchpin that makes the drama and the romance work.

This is a film about realism versus idealism when it comes to law and order.

Intelligently scripted crime thriller penned by Warren Duff (who, years earlier, had written Angels With Dirty Faces) in which William Holden outshines Edmond O'Brien as a cynical, hard-bitten reporter. O'Brien's a crusading DA trying to break mobster Ed Begley, and Alexis Smith provides the source of a half-hearted, lukewarm romantic sub-plot. Begley's great, Holden's good, O'Brien fills an empty space.

Not to be confused with more than five dozen other movies of the same name, The Turning Point (1952) has Edmond O'Brien tapped to head an investigation into organized crime, aided by his girlfriend Alexis Smith. This provides background for newspaperman William Holden, who advises him that there's a lot of corruption to be rooted out; even O'Brien's father, police officer Tom Tully may be implicated. As the committee's investigation falls apart, Holden keeps digging. He becomes the target.

Based on a Horace McCoy story, this is a fine, complex noir feature rooted in the events of its time. William Dieterle directs with his usual sure hand, pulling out fine performances. Although Lionel Lindon's photography is not as dark as some noirs, he shoots all of the standard LA noir spots except the Bradbury Building, and his shadows, particularly in the climactic Olympic Stadium sequence, are as dark as any.

Special prosecutor John Conroy (Edmond O'Brien) is battling corruption and organized crime in the city. He is surprised when his policeman father refuses to be his investigator. His friend, veteran reporter Jerry McKibbon (William Holden), follows the father and spots him meeting with local mobster. This is a true-to-life police crime drama. It's a little static at times. The hearing scenes are not my taste. I was hoping for more action. This is more average than I expected.

The turning point here is the murder of the father, an honest policeman, which no one expected, least of all the audience, and which even the gangsters afterwards regret as their chief mistake. William Holden and Edmond O'Brien both make excellent performances as a journalist and investigator, and between them is the always strikingly elegant Alexis Smith. Ed Begley makes a self-satisfied boss of the crooks leading divers syndicates, and the film could also be seen as an effort at the anatomy of corruption, how it affects and involves innocent people bringing them to ruin, while the worst thing they can do is to try to get out of it, which will kill them. The dialog and the tempo are excellent all the way, and that's what makes the film worth watching, and we have seen this story and theme many times before, as there is nothing new to it. But the staging here is on a virtuoso level.

Based in "Kaufer Committee" against Organize crime in an unnamed city (Los Angeles) lead by a naïve idealistic Lawyer Edmond O'Brien and his girlfriend Alexis Smith on the spotlights of the press meets with his childhood pal the sardonic down the earth newspaper man William Holden advising him over the powerful man Ed Begley that lead of syndicate crime that hold two million bucks in several front business to cover up all illegal bookmakers on forbidden gambling that entails a high sum of money.

Asking for William Holden what a exactly reason to fighting for the against the powerful organized crime O'Brien replays that haven't any political aspirations at all, just a matter of justice, at this point Holden realizes dealing with a dreamer fool, William soon figures out that O'Brien's father who is invited to add on Committee as adviser, was in the payroll of mobsters as informer, a sub plot comes over when Alexis and Holden start a secret affair somehow it is a betrayal of his buddy O'Brien, soon his father is erase in a fake assault carried out by the Mobsters due Holden reaching near, at last Alex withdraw the info from Holden that Edie's father was a corrupt cop, haggard Eddie considers a resign due the facts will spoil the whole thing, convinced by Holden and Alexis that he must goes ahead whatever the price he can afford.

The Mobsters contract a hitman Neville Brand aiming for to kill Holden at sport arena in a boxing event, meanwhile O'Brien got the witness that due her statement is enough able to send to the jail all organization by a framed to kill O'Brien's father, meanwhile O'Brien and police head to Arena to warning Holden that was caught in a trap by the Mobsters.

I'd confess those Committee were and will a steep-stone for these self-called idealistic men that hide behind their masks of their true intentions, political aspirations, moreover on those witch-hunts prove many times arresting many criminals and also countless good citizens for envious whistleblowers made irreparable injury on those innocents involved in this sticky net that doesn't spare anyone, be carefully on those idealistic men whose like to present himself as guardian of justice without any political aspirations!!

Thanks for reading.

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First watch: 2023 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 7.5.

That's in the opening scenes! So O'Brien 's gonna 'get woke' to the world. I don't think its worth yr time but there is a theological reason to see, even enjoy.