My Son Is Guilty

From the magic year in films, 1939, except the fairy dust didn't land on this movie.

My Son is Guilty is a B film starring Harry Carey as Tim Kerry, a 61-year-old cop still walking a beat in Hell's Kitchen. It didn't look like Hells Kitchen, and people seemed to walk aimlessly up and down the street.

Kerry's son Ritzy (Bruce Cabot) is released from prison after a two-year stint. He promises his dad he's going straight, but he's lying. One problem might stem from naming him Ritzy.

Ritzy joins a gang planning a heist. Since he's a radio expert, they suggest he talk to his dad about working the police calls at the department so he can delay the all cars notification when the robbery occurs. Most police departments definitely want an ex-con handling this so they hire him.

Twenty-three year old Glenn Ford plays a neighborhood kid in competition with Ritzy for the affections of Julie Bishop.

Despite a fine cast, not a good movie.

Look for Edgar Buchanan in a small role as a bartender.

Police Officer Tim Kerry (Harry Carey) is a great cop...but he has a huge achilles heel...his son, Ritzy (Bruce Cabot). Ritzy is just no darn good and has just gotten out of prison but Tim thinks his son has seen the light and has changed. In fact, Tim helps Ritzy get a job...a job which he wants so he can help his gang with a robbery! About the only one who can see right through Ritzy is Barney (Glenn Ford)...a childhood acquaintance who knows he'll never change.

The acting is pretty good in this one though the film itself is yet another formulaic B-movie from Columbia. This doesn't mean it's bad...but it's also not particularly good because it's all pretty predictable. One of the few surprises is seeing Glenn Ford in one of his earliest roles (despite one reviewer saying it's Ford's first film, it isn't). The other is the message that cops sometimes just have to ignore civil rights and beat the truth out of suspects!! A decent time-passer that seems to promote occasional police brutality and not a lot more.

It's Hell's Kitchen. Tim Kerry (Harry Carey) is an honest cop trying to do good in the neighborhood while watching out for the bad apples. His son Ritzy (Bruce Cabot) is getting released after two years in prison. It's hard to stay on the straight and narrow.

This story would be more compelling if Ritzy is younger. He's in his mid-30's. He is who he is by this point. If he's a twenty year old, he would have his whole future ahead of him. It would be a more dire struggle to save the boy. As it is, I'm surprised that he is still coming home to his pop. I'm just not that into him and I stop caring about his drama. There is an early twenty-something Glenn Ford. He would be a better Ritzy.

I don't think that My Son Is Guilty would have been in any Oscar contention had it been released intact. But the editing department thoroughly butchered this film into incoherency. My Son Is Guilty was also Glenn Ford's debut film for Columbia Pictures, but fortunately for his career he wasn't the star.

Harry Carey stars in this film as your kindly neighborhood Irish cop in Hell's Kitchen in Manhattan. His bad seed of a son Bruce Cabot is getting out of jail after a 2 year rap.

Carey thinks a little kindness will reform him. But Cabot's got no such notions of turning straight. But he does let his father use his influence to get him a job in the police radio room where at a propitious moment the radios go bad when a gang Cabot is working with pull a large payroll holdup where a cop is killed.

Glenn Ford plays a friend from the neighborhood and rival to Cabot for Julie Bishop. Later on Cabot kills Glenn Ford's mother when she recognizes the fugitive.

The idea of any police department employing Cabot with a rapsheet in a police command center really boggles the mind. I was speechless at the mere concept.

My Son Is Guilty was also the first time that Glenn Ford worked with Edgar Buchanan whom he became great friends with and always tried to use in his films. Buchanan plays a bartender here.

Best performance in the film is that of Wynne Gibson as the widow of the former head of the gang Cabot works with and she's tough, smart, and beautiful. Too bad her performance was wasted in this film.

Glenn Ford made his feature film debut in Heaven With A Barbed Wire Fence the same year for 20th Century Fox. But Darryl Zanuck passed on signing him so Ford got a contract with Columbia. He'd have to work his way up in quality of pictures so My Son Is Guilty would be the start of quite a climb.

We know pretty much know from the beginning of this film where it will wind up, since the Hayes code demanded that anyone who kills an innocent victim has to pay the ultimate price. However, there are a few turns and detours along the way that make the movie watchable.

Harry Carey is perfect as a beat cop, who sometimes performs the duty of a full detective (one of the drawback of the film). Bruce Cabot of King Kong fame goes against type as the cop's son who cannot escape his desire to be a big shot. The most interesting part of the film is watching the development of Glenn Ford in a supporting role as an old friend of the son and a rival for the usual love interest in all of these types of films.

There really is not much new here, but this is only one of two films I have ever seen where a father and son come to a very bad end; the other was Taras Bulba.