The production has no bankable stars and a low budget. There are less than half a dozen sets, and some of the actors turn in performances that might have come straight out of a high school play, maybe "Our Town," in East Orange, New Jersey. The plot takes us beyond he level of implausibility into the upper reaches of Zen.
Yet, despite all this, the thing works pretty well. There is an element of "High Noon" in it as the clock ticks relentlessly towards the dawn execution of "the boy" in the state's new electric chair. And, as in "Front Page," a diverse group of reporters sit around in Pop's café and post office, waiting for the bus that will take them to the prison as witnesses, meanwhile playing gin rummy and trading wisecracks and insults. Pop's Place reminded me of "The Petrified Forest." There are frequent cuts to the cell in death row, where "the boy" -- he's a young man who has put several years in the army and worked as a reporter -- tells the Padre his tale of innocence and woe. Did he murder the guy in the unique fashion described? Six shots fired in such rapid succession that they sound like a machine gun? He claims not. The Padre believes him and promises that, if he's truly innocent, God will believe him.
I used to be an usher in the Yiddish theater and there was one scene in which a similarly innocent young man was strapped into the electric chair. The playwrights allowed Mama to enter the death room, fall to her knees, and sob onto her son's lap. There wasn't a dry eye in the house, although no one can even imagine such a thing happening. Except here, too, the boy's girl friend shows up at the prison and is taken into the warden's home to be comforted by the warden's wife, offered tea, a place to lie down, a quantum of sympathy. She doesn't actually get to weep on the condemned shoulder though.
You won't believe the resolution, so I'll skip it. I don't mean that you won't believe what happens on the screen. I mean you won't believe ME if I describe it. You'll think I'm lying to you. Come to think of it, that's a pretty filthy attitude. You don't even know me and yet you accuse me of being a liar? "The boy" (Philip Shawn) spends most of his time staring into space. The Padre is too handsome for a priest but at least he can act like a professional. The editing is clumsy enough for interpolated shots of them sitting silently together, both of them staring into the unknown. The cast has a number of faces that will be recognizable to fans of older movies. Howard St. John, as the warden, was the corrupt assistant of Broderick Crawford in "Born Yesterday." King Donovan was the guy who found the "blank body" on his pool table in "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." Percy Helton is probably recognizable too. He's the short reporter with the turned-up nose of some kind of rodent, like a prairie dog, and has a high, hoarse, clipped voice.
Despite the precariousness of the plot, it all more or less fits together. There is a nebulous logic in which belief and doubt merge into a strangely comforting concinnity. Try it, you'll like it.
Yet, despite all this, the thing works pretty well. There is an element of "High Noon" in it as the clock ticks relentlessly towards the dawn execution of "the boy" in the state's new electric chair. And, as in "Front Page," a diverse group of reporters sit around in Pop's café and post office, waiting for the bus that will take them to the prison as witnesses, meanwhile playing gin rummy and trading wisecracks and insults. Pop's Place reminded me of "The Petrified Forest." There are frequent cuts to the cell in death row, where "the boy" -- he's a young man who has put several years in the army and worked as a reporter -- tells the Padre his tale of innocence and woe. Did he murder the guy in the unique fashion described? Six shots fired in such rapid succession that they sound like a machine gun? He claims not. The Padre believes him and promises that, if he's truly innocent, God will believe him.
I used to be an usher in the Yiddish theater and there was one scene in which a similarly innocent young man was strapped into the electric chair. The playwrights allowed Mama to enter the death room, fall to her knees, and sob onto her son's lap. There wasn't a dry eye in the house, although no one can even imagine such a thing happening. Except here, too, the boy's girl friend shows up at the prison and is taken into the warden's home to be comforted by the warden's wife, offered tea, a place to lie down, a quantum of sympathy. She doesn't actually get to weep on the condemned shoulder though.
You won't believe the resolution, so I'll skip it. I don't mean that you won't believe what happens on the screen. I mean you won't believe ME if I describe it. You'll think I'm lying to you. Come to think of it, that's a pretty filthy attitude. You don't even know me and yet you accuse me of being a liar? "The boy" (Philip Shawn) spends most of his time staring into space. The Padre is too handsome for a priest but at least he can act like a professional. The editing is clumsy enough for interpolated shots of them sitting silently together, both of them staring into the unknown. The cast has a number of faces that will be recognizable to fans of older movies. Howard St. John, as the warden, was the corrupt assistant of Broderick Crawford in "Born Yesterday." King Donovan was the guy who found the "blank body" on his pool table in "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." Percy Helton is probably recognizable too. He's the short reporter with the turned-up nose of some kind of rodent, like a prairie dog, and has a high, hoarse, clipped voice.
Despite the precariousness of the plot, it all more or less fits together. There is a nebulous logic in which belief and doubt merge into a strangely comforting concinnity. Try it, you'll like it.