Film Forum

U.S., 1947
Directed by Elia Kazan
Starring Dana Andrews, Jane Wyatt, Lee J. Cobb, Arthur Kennedy, Karl Malden
Produced by Louis de Rochement.
Screenplay by Richard Murphy (Academy Award nomination)
Based on an article by Anthony Abbot
DCP. Approx. 88 min.

Cops nail a priest’s murderer, but D.A. Dana Andrews decides to reinvestigate in the teeth of community hysteria. Based on a true story, with Kazan’s first use of all-location filming (in Stamford, Conn.) and, except for the five major parts, non-pro actors (including Kazan’s uncle Joe, the original of America, America).

Presented with support from the Robert Jolin Osborne Endowed Fund for American Classic Cinema.

Reviews

“Brilliant drama in all respects. Richard Murphy’s taut screenplay from Anthony Aboott’s article “The Perfect Case” is based on a factual incident. Playwright Arthur Miller appears as one of the line-up suspects.”
– Leonard Maltin

“In fact, Boomerang! is the most directly political of all the postwar docudramas. It begins and ends not with ‘Street Scene,’ but with an orchestration of ‘America the Beautiful.’”
– Richard Koszarski, “Keep ’em in the East”: Kazan, Kubrick, and the Postwar New York Film Renaissance