Moviecut—The Family Secret

source: The Family Secret

If you really want to expose a bad actor's badness then put him or her up against a great actor. Like Ava Gardner opposite Bogie in "Contessa". Or Natalie Trundy juxtaposed with Dean Stockwell in "Careless Years". Or John Derek, in this snorer, next to Juror #3.

The beginning of The Family Secret immediately hooks you in: John Derek, the teenage son of Lee J. Cobb and Erin O'Brien-Moore, comes home early from a night on the town. He washes mud off his tires and changes his clothes before greeting his parents and their dinner guests. We find out soon why he's so morose and cryptic: he's just killed his childhood friend. It was self-defense and accidental, but he still fled from the scene and tampered with evidence. Lee, an upstanding citizen and prominent lawyer, knows his son will do the right thing and confess immediately. Erin wants to cover it up. John's entire life would be ruined, she argues, and it wouldn't bring the dead boy back. As you can tell from the title, John decides to take his mother's advice. With exception to the jazz music played in some scenes, this feels like a noir from the 1940s. There's a lot of voice-over narration explaining things that don't need explaining, and the scene construction and direction feel very much a part of the silver screen rather than the golden age. Plus with solid character actors from that era like Whit Bissell (who will tug win your sympathy as he struggles with his weak heart), Henry O'Neill, Carl Benton Reid, and Harry Cheshire, it sets the mood of the late 1940s. I rented it to see a solid, fatherly performance from Lee (but I didn't mind the eye candy of John either) and it was nice to see him in a good-guy role, unlike On the Waterfront and The Trap. If you like this one, check out a similarly themed drama also starring John Derek, Knock on Any Door.

David Clark is in trouble. He had killed his best friend in self-defense. He confesses to his lawyer father Howard Clark (Lee J. Cobb). They are set to come clean to the D. A. but another man gets arrested for murder. It's the dead man's bookie and Howard gets the job to defend him. I like the starting premise but I don't like David. It's a complicated role and the actor doesn't seem to be up to the task. He has to play both innocent and guilt. Mostly, he's playing snarky and cold which leaves me a bit cold. He should be running around and changing the evidence. The plot needs twists and turns. This could have centered around Lee J. Cobb instead. He's the veteran actor and the more capable one. I would also get rid of the narration. When done well, this premise has generated plenty of good tense shows. There is so much potential but I don't see it being maximized. The final turn is more a morality play than a surprise twist. The opening premise is full noir but the movie turns into a bland 50's morality lesson.

Twenty five year old john derek. When david may be in serious legal trouble, his parents (lee cobb and erin obrien moore) can't agree on what to do. Dad is an attorney, and certainly knows the law inside and out. To make matters worse, it involves their best friends. Small role for familiar face whit bissell. Some heavy issues in this suspense drama.... having the courage to do the right thing, as well as damaged family communication. Right versus wrong tackled in the 1950s in films. It's very well done, although they could have left out the over the top drunk scene where david acts like a total jerk. Cobb was nominated for two films in the 1950s, and appeared in the HUAC congressional hearings. Directed by henry levin. Directed a couple biggies, but looks like he never got the oscar. Check out john derek's story on wikipedia; he sure covered a lot of ground.

When the film begins, David Clark (John Derek) drives home. Apparently, he killed his friend and instead of going to the police, he sneaks home and acts as if nothing had happened. Eventually, he tells his father (Lee J. Cobb) what happened...how it was an accident and how he was attacked first...and his father and mother agree to keep this a secret. Soon you learn that the father is an attorney...and that a man was just arrested for the killing! Instead of telling the truth, the parents continue to enable David to be a stinking weasel...and through the course of the film David shows himself to be a characterless jerk. What's next? Will he do the right thing? Watch the film to find out for yourself. I really liked this film because it was so unusual and much more realistic than most movies of the day. In addition to this nice script, the acting is also very good and it's well worth seeing....especially because it offers some neat twists along the way.

***SPOILERS*** It's when young law student David Clark, John Derek, came home one evening disheveled and confused that his father attorney Howard Clark, Lee J. Cobb, senses that something was very seriously wrong. As it soon tuned out David's best friend Art Bradley was found dead with his skull crashed outside a tavern wher the two usually hung out at. As it turned out it was David who killed Art, who was drunk and disorderly, in self-defense. It all started when Art caught David innocently talking with his girlfriend Vera Stone, Jane Alexander, and just flipped out! Howard left everything up to David in him turning himself into the police which David at first intended to do. But at the very last moment the next day at D.A George Redman's, Santo Ortega, office he got cold feet and just offered to help find Art's "murderer". As fate would have it local bookmaker Joe Elsner, Whit Bissell, ended up taking the rap for a crime that he didn't commit. It was Elsner who came upon the scene of the crime but was too sacred to report it. Not in just that he was involved in illegal, taking book, activities but had a fight, verbally, with Art over money he owed Elsner while placing bet with him. Howard took the case for Elsner knowing that he's innocent and trying to keep this tragedy in the Clark Family from getting worst than it already was. David meanwhile is on the verge of having an emotional collapses in that now he's not only responsible for one life being lost but possibly another Joe Elsner! If he's convicted in murdering Art Bradley and ends up either behind bars for life or executed by the state. ***SPOILERS*** Things just couldn't get any worse for both David his father Howard and especially Joe Elsner. Just when Hoaward was about to brake the case wide open in his client's favor by proving that main witness for the prosecution Archer Sims, Raymond Greenlest, was not only a proved liar but spent three years in a mental institution Elsner, while on the stand, suffered a massive heart-attack and died a few moments later! With now two people's deaths on his conscience David after talking things over with his fiancée and secretary Lee Pearson, Jody Lawrance,decide to do the right thing and give himself up for the self-defense death of Art Bradley. It was the totally innocent Joe Elsner's death that finally made David see the light in what he's done. And with that and two years behind bars, for homicide not murder, he can finally clear his conscience and then marry Lee who'd be withing for him when he gets out.

Spoiled son who's also a playboy accidentally kills his friend and then tries to hide it. His sense of guilt and his father's sense of honest justice keeps you guessing. Makes a parent think what they would do in the same situation.

This movie was horrible. I couldn't even get through it. It's about a young man that supposedly kills his best friend in self defense. He claims the friend was drunk and starting attacking him so he had to defend himself and accidentally kills him. John Derek plays the man who commits the murder. And his dad, played by Lee J. Cobb, just happens to be an attorney. This is cookie-cutter soap opera drama. The acting is horrible, except for the gal that plays John Derek's secretary, played by Jody Lawrence. At one point, she is relaying phone messages "from your harem", to Derek's character. But she does it by taking on the accents and mannerisms of each of the callers. It's hilarious! But there's nothing else here worth watching.