Walls Of Jericho (1948)

Set in Kansas in the early 1900's, the friendship of an attorney (Cornel Wilde) and a newspaper publisher (Kirk Douglas) deteriorates when Douglas brings his new bride (Linda Darnell) into the small town of Jericho. She's scheming, manipulative and ambitious and will stop at nothing to further her husband's career. Directed by John M. Stahl (LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN), this is a wonderful, juicy melodrama along the lines of KINGS ROW and PEYTON PLACE. A small town seemingly respectable on the surface but when the layers are peeled, we find rape, murder, adultery, alcoholism, illegitimate children and political corruption! The kind of movie that if it were a book, you'd call a real page turner. While both Wilde and Douglas are both fine, it's the ladies who dominate the performances. Darnell is marvelous as the devious plotting wife, Anne Baxter as a still rare (it is the early 1900's) woman lawyer in a man's world, Ann Dvorak (Hawk's SCARFACE) as Wilde's bitter and shrewish wife and Colleen Townsend as the girl on trial for killing the man who tried to rape her. Music by Alfred Newman. With Patricia Morison, Marjorie Rambeau, Henry Hull, Barton MacLane, Ann Doran and Gene Nelson.