sherwin-1

It's a tough job to have to deal with death row inmates every day and to give the electric chair to men you take care of. Interesting relationships developed in Cold Mountain Penitentiary… relationships between the guards and the captives, between the husbands and wives and between a little mouse named Jingles and the inmates. After one of the inmates demonstrated the gift of healing, it became especially tough to have to carry out the death penalty on John Coffey, the giant black man. Was there another way? After Coffey had performed several miracles, Paul Edgecomb began to suspect that this man was not both a healer and a killer… that God would not give the gift of healing to a murderer.

The Green Mile got me thinking about the lack of justice in our world today and wondering how often people have been wrongly convicted or died for crimes they didn't do? It also got me thinking about my own mortality… about how much longer I have to live? `We each owe a death. There are no exceptions. But sometimes the Green Mile seems so long.'

In a visit home to see his parents, Nick Charles again must solve a murder… a man drops dead on the front porch. The cast is choice, from Anne Revere who is a truly Crazy Mary to Donald Meek as Willie Crump the nervous art dealer. (He was Poppins in ‘You Can't Take It With You', which is another of my most favorite oldies.)

In the typical `Colombo' fashion, Nick digs around gathering all the facts and then brings all the suspects together for the grand finale to reveal the killer. There is something about some of these `oldies' that I really enjoy… not to mention that they are free of the filthy language that many of our new movies think is so important today.

I was amazed at how much I enjoyed this movie, in spite of its simplicity. Without flashbacks, special effects, or music, I felt like I was part of the cast, deciding the destiny of the accused. The judge asked the jury to decide the case beyond a reasonable doubt. `Reasonable doubt! That's nothing but words.' -Juror #3 Yes, but truth is important for life. it must be the basis of justice. It made me hope I never get called to serve on jury duty. but if I do, that I might have the genuine compassion to do the right thing and not just the expedient thing. I can see why our local college requires this movie as a must see for all law students.