Watched: 12/14/2025
Format: TCM on HBOmax
Viewing: First
Director: Phil Karlson
The Phenix City Story (1955) was not at all what I was expecting from brief descriptions I'd read over the years when making a choice for what to watch.
First - Phenix City is a real city in Alabama on the Georgia state line. Second - this is a true crime movie that was made in the wake of the assassination of a recently elected new Attorney General from the State of Alabama who was voted in on his promise to clean up the vice and corruption in Phenix City.
Phenix City sits across the Chattahoochee River from the larger Columbus, Georgia and near a very large Army Base, Ft. Benning. Apparently, for decades and decades, that was enough to make the small town (about 24,000 people) into a place where one could gamble and pick up hookers while the locals looked the other way. While Phenix City also had more churches per capita than anywhere else in Alabama, somehow the city basically turned a blind eye to the economic engine that is allowing your town to be Pottersville.
The movie is wildly frank about this for a Hayes Code-era movie. They murder children, on screen. There's other acts of terrible violence. It mentions and shows prostitution, gambling, etc... and even discusses and shows prostitution offered in return for votes for the corrupt politicians. I'm kind of shocked this movie isn't a much bigger deal just as a counterpoint to what people think is both the squeaky clean media of the Eisenhower era and a counterpoint to the dumbulbs who think things were all Mayberry in ye olden thymes.
