O Olho da Justiça

When James Stewart, Strother Martin, and Kurt Russell are released from prison, they decide to go straight. Jimmy has been in prison for forty years, and for his time, he's received $25,000. He and his two friends are planning on opening up a grocery store and enjoying a legitimate life. But George Kennedy, the crooked prison guard who never liked Jimmy, wants that money for himself. He and his cronies follow the three ex-cons as they travel by train to cash the check in the bank that issued it.

Fool's Parade features a really fun role for James Stewart. He wore a prosthetic glass eye during the production (which was so uncomfortable he could only wear it for twenty minutes at a time) and got to play a bit of a villain. In my favorite scene, he straps himself with dozens of dynamite sticks and threatens to blow up the bank if they don't cash the check. He's a scoundrel, but for the right reasons. He really does want to open up a grocery store. George Kennedy is the real villain in the film, even though he's usually such a likable fellow. I'd recommend this oddball comedy if you want to see Jimmy in a different type of role. Keep an eye out for an unrecognizable Anne Baxter. I didn't know it was her until the end credits!

I grew up in Moundsville W.Va. where the movie was filmed and got to watch many of the areas they filmed, i was able to get several signatures from the actors, Jimmy Stewart, Struther Martin and George Kennedy. I never got to meet Kurt Russell. It was a really good movie, not Oscar material, but very enjoyable. The last comment about why the movie never made it to copy, is because (this is what I've heard) Anne Bancroft did not like her portrayal and would never authorized a release in copy. She is now deceased, so i can only hope this will allow copies to be made and distributed. I for one would be the first in line to get it!.

After doing about four or five straight westerns, James Stewart obviously wanted a change of pace, so he starred in this Depression era film about a man just released from prison and ready to cash a check for $25,000.00. This is the equivalent of 40 years of working in the prison mines as convict labor and apparently never buying anything in the prison commissary. Which is the part I find hard to believe.

Now possibly had this story been set in 1925 in the boom times of the Roaring Twenties, Stewart might have had different ambitions. But he and friends Strother Martin and Kurt Russell just want to open up a general store in some small town and live quietly.

But this is the Thirties a decade of hard times and bank failures. Local banker David Huddleston can't afford to cash Stewart's check or the bank in which he's been dipping in the till will go belly up with his name on the failure. So he goes to whom he usually goes to bail him out of these situations; prison guard George Kennedy and henchmen Mike Kellin and Morgan Paull.

The story is far fetched but Andrew McLaglen put together a really good cast and the film definitely had some colorful characters. Anne Baxter plays the painted prostitute of the river who has a boat for assignations and a young girl played by Katherine Cannon for those who don't like the older model. Her life's ambition is to get into the Daughters of the American Revolution because as she puts she and her family have been serving our country by servicing our soldier's needs since 1776.

George Kennedy's part is also a gem. He's a Sunday school teacher as well as a prison guard and contract killer for hire. We haven't seen a religious hypocrite like him since Robert Mitchum as Reverend Harry Powell in Night of the Hunter. Then again that's no accident since Davis Grubb wrote the novels on which both films are based.

Robert Donner has a key role in the film as the train conductor with a conscience. I can't say more, but the man's conscience is what brings about a righting of all wrongs.

Best scene in the film is James Stewart getting the drop on Morgan Paull during the first confrontation. Paull is a would be country singer who does a little killing on the side, but only if they're atheists. And of course it's Kennedy and Kellin who point out the atheists to do in.

Kennedy is also carrying around one ton of homosexual repression. Note that in his scenes with Paull and with Kurt Russell as he declaims loud and long about how he doesn't like boys. He likes them too well when his religion tells him that's a big no-no.

I remember back in my working days at NYS Crime Victims Board I did a claim for a homicide victim who was a 67 year old letter carrier for U.S. Post Office. He was a man described by the police as someone who just worked all his adult life for the Post Office, never married and raised a family, never took a vacation, just worked and saved. He managed to accumulate over $350,000.00 in his life and the estate was going to go to our claimant who was his 88 year old mother. Sad when you think of it, but letter carriers are a bit better paid than convict labor even granting the differing values of the dollar in those eras. It's why I can't grasp how Stewart saved all that money.

Despite my inability to suspend disbelief Fools' Parade is a colorful film with some fine acting in it and a must for fans of James Stewart like myself.

I've seen some references state that Anne Baxter didn't like her own performance and had the ability to block distribution. Her vanity pretty much assured that the city of Moundsville would lose a rare lifeline to drag itself out of poverty oblivion. It must have been a terrible let-down at the time because you can bet that the townsfolk were tickled pink.

I do not think it is possible to come up with a better version in a remake, but perhaps someone should try that out. I see no chatter to indicate that the distribution will ever be approved.

A new version with current actors might attract a following and create the stimulus to release the original. Want to make a movie? You can rent this town for cheap - it's not changed a lot since the movie except for Walmart and other eyesores on the highway.

I consider this a must-see movie and if you look hard enough around the Internet, you will find copies.

My Dad grew up in WV and took my brother and I to see this movie at the theater when it came out in 1971. It was a great film! I have waited for 35 years to see it again, with no luck.

The beginning of the movie was set and filmed in Moundsville, WV in the early 30s. Jimmy Stewart played a character with a glass eye, who had served some 30 or 40 years in prison and was headed to the WV capitol to cash his check for funds owed to him for his prison labors. The conflict in the movie is the evil warden type, played by George Kennedy, who is out to kill Stewart and his two buddies, one of which is played by Strother Martin. The Strother Martin character wants to open up his own grocery store with the help of the Jimmy Stewart character.

This is a wonderful film, somewhat similar in style to The Film Flam Man, and of the same vintage. I would love to get a copy of it, or see it again on TCM or another channel.

Could anyone guess why this movie has never been made available since its original release? I would sure like to know...