The Old Man Who Cried Wolf

In this made-for-TV movie, Edward G. Robinson G. Robinson is a retired furniture dealer. He visits his old friend, Sam Jaffe, who runs a candy store in run-down San Pedro. Jaffe has a thousand dollars he wants to get to his sister in Poland. He wants to know if Robinson can help it get it to her without the cops taking it. Then a large Black man comes into the store, beats Jaffe with a rubber hose. When Robinson comes to, Jaffe is dead, and the police say it was a heart attack. No one will believe Robinson, not even his adoring son, Martin Balsam. Instead, they think he is going senile, and call in psychiatrist Edward Asner, who takes him to the hospital for observation. But Robinson is not losing his mind. He is right, and the world begins to close in around him.

There's a fabulous cast of old-time actors in this movie supporting Robinson, including Ruth Roman and Jay C. Flippen. Robinson gives a heartbreaking performance as an old man, losing his way physically but not mentally. I had many an elderly relative like this at the time this movie was made, and it's spot on. It one of the reasons that Robinson was a performer I would watch if he announced he was going to read a phone book.

Personally, I love movies about old people, and particularly when starring acclaimed and extremely experienced veteran actors/actresses in the autumn of their careers. It might just be my impression, but it always feels like these ageing stars try extra hard to give stellar performances in their last films, as if they need to prove they are still as capable and talented as they were 40-50 years ago. I always use "The Whales of August" or "The Straight Story" as example, but I might as well add "The Old Man Who Cried Wolf" to the list, since Edward G. Robinson is stupendous here in one of his final lead performances.

Robinson was about 77 or 78 when depicted the role of 70-year-old Emile Pulska (usually actors are older than the characters they play, but here it's the other way around); - a wise and respectable man of Polish origin living in New York. One day, he witnesses how a black mobster beats his best friend Abe Stillman to death with a rubber stick, and Emile himself gets injured as well. When he regains consciousness, everybody claims that Abe died from a heart-attack and that Emile fell and hit his head. Emile clearly remembers what he saw, but nobody believes him. The police and eyewitnesses believe that the old man suffers from overactive imagination, and even his loving son and daughter-in-law begin to doubt their father's sanity and seek psychiatric help. Emile is strong and stubborn, though, and escapes from whatever mental clinic to seek out the truth.

This entire TV-movie revolves solely around the brilliantly charismatic performance by Robinson. That's not bad, of course, but it could have been even better if the script was more elaborated, and if more time and effort had been put in the unraveling of the murder plot, the background of several fascinating supportive characters and the backgrounds of both Abe and Emile. Now, with a running time of barely 72 minutes, everything feels rushed, and the ending comes abrupt and leaves far too many questions unanswered. Gradually, the plot of the film shifts from Emily trying to discover why his friend got murdered, to Emily having to persuade the entire city of New York that he's not a useless, senile and paranoid senior citizen. That's a missed opportunity and a shame, really.

This is a heart-rending story that would have been almost unbearable if it were not for the exceptionally poignant performance of Edward G. Robinson as an old man getting caught in a web of urban corruption. Sam Jaffe's brief but equally upsetting performance is on the same level, and it's like a nightmare of helplessness of old age. At the same time, a character like this wouldn't fit anyone but Robinson - he made many such characters before, but they all mount up to this one, lost in a world that because of his old age refuses to take him seriously or even believe him, since he alone knows the truth but can't understand it or make it credible, since it is too evil for human understanding. Even his son (Martin Balsam) ultimately fails him, while the end comes as a surprise, since it should have turned another way. It's a great story, all the characters are excellent, and the events and circumstances of this asphalt jungle of a hostile city environment are quite typical of 1970 - that's how the world was in those days, with psychiatry as the infallible authority of human life. Although it is very late, this is still a noir and one of the very darkest as such. When you try to settle after the film you feel very old and lost, like the too convincing old honest Robinson.

Man, TV movies in the '70s were so much better than they are today. Hell, many of them are even better than theatrical films today. This is an engrossing movie starring the great Edward G. Robinson as an elderly man who sees his friend murdered but can't get anyone to believe him. It's a well-written and fairly gritty picture with a fine cast of familiar faces backing up Robinson, who's just dynamite. The ending is a bit of a downer but that was the '70s for you.

Other reviewers seem to be picking on "why didn't anyone believe him" as a major flaw with the film. I just can't disagree more. I mean, were we watching the same movie? First, there's the underlying theme of how the elderly are treated at the heart of all this. The well-meaning but full-of-it shrink even compares them to adolescents. Second, there's the fact that there wasn't one shred of evidence to back him up. They spent the majority of the film showing him trying to convince people only to have it repeated over and over that there simply was no proof. So it was his word versus the evidence, which is all that would matter in reality to anyone but those who loved him. The son was the most sympathetic to his plight and even that wasn't much. The daughter-in-law, the real villain of the piece in my view, seemed like she couldn't muster an ounce of sympathy for the sweet old man. I half-expected her to be in on the cover-up! There simply was nothing to back up what he was saying. And the shrink going out investigating, which at least one reviewer took issue with, was more about the shrink trying to prove to the old man that he was wrong than it was about trying to seriously investigate the case.

The fundamental theme in this film is so flawed that it is not a particularly good movie...and it's a shame as I love Edward G. Robinson and really wanted to love "The Old Man Who Cried Wolf".

When the story begins, Emile (Robinson) goes to visit an old friend he hasn't seen in many years, Abe (Sam Jaffe). However, a man comes into Abe's shop and beats him with a rubber hose and steals the $1000 he'd been saving to send to family back in Poland. Now here's the part that just didn't ring true. Emile is beaten as well and when he awakens the police immediately assume that Abe died of natural causes and there was no attacker. At the same time, a really annoying neighbor woman vehemently denies anyone else had been there and says that Abe never had $1000 in cash. How would she know this since she wasn't there?! Yet, inexplicably the entire case is chalked up to an old man losing his faculties...even though he never had a history of mental impairment. Plus, the intensity at which the nasty neighbor insisted nothing happened is very suspicious in and of itself. Yet, oddly, folks assume Emile is confabulating this story. It just defies common sense and essentially ruined the film. Why should he have to prove he ISN'T demented and why does everyone ignore him?!

So is there anything about this film worth seeing? Well, Robinson's performance is quite good as he was the consummate professional. But it's also so very sad that he wasn't given a better written story. Provide REAL reasons for folks to not believe Emile or at least build up to this better. Instead, it seems as if part of the story is missing...like they forgot to explain why people didn't believe Emile. Fortunately, this was not his final film as it would have been sad if this was his final film considering his terrific battery of work.