speed, Chaplinesque puppet dance of the people, which failed to lend the necessary comic relief to the grim scenes that paraded before us.
The first thing we saw was a huge crowd of protesters carrying signs and banners in the rain. I was puzzled to see a gigantic pillar in the center of the picture. A shot from farther back revealed it to be the base of Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square. Tall-helmeted bobbies milled around the fringes of the mob. Flash to Paris, where a similar throng stood and pranced around the Arc de Triomphe, the primitive camera making the solemn marchers look like square dancers as they jumped and turned and sashayed arm in arm. On to Moscow, where, as one would suspect, they were going bananas. Whole trainloads of protesters, probably encouraged by the state, filed off railroad cars and drummed through the wide streets as they met farmers driving troikas and oxcarts. Around St. Basil's the multitudes in tall hats and billowing skirts shouted and raised their hands together, sang, and hopped about like bunny rabbits. In Rome the crowds were tumultuous, as might be expected in the home country of the accused. Though lightly clad in comparison to their northern cousins, the crowds in St. Peter's Square engaged in the same tragicomic square dance.
Shot of a building. Bertoni announced that it was the Dedham courthouse, scene of the trial. Pan down the street toward another biggish building, which we cannot see. Then another shot. It is a prison, complete with high brick wall and coil of barbed wire, barely visible, creeping over the edge. Two watchtowers, and the big cell-block building itself, with barred windows. The Dedham jail looks the way we think a jail should look- perfect for a movie set. A crowd coming toward the camera, with all the people doing that old-time-movie polka dance that's usually funny but now is not. Close-up of four men. I see instantly that the two in the middle are Sacco and Vanzetti. They look young… and hopeful. Sacco even manages a weak and fleeting smile. Vanzetti looks stern. He is talking. He is holding hands with his fellow prisoner, a nice gesture. No, wait. They're handcuffed together. Their outer arms are also handcuffed, to the marshals beside them. Vanzetti is trying to say something, but he wants to use his hands and he cannot. He finally manages to bow his head and remove his worker's snap-brim hat, which he holds, and speaks to the camera. Shot of Sacco, saying nothing. Vanzetti is tall and handsome; his giant drooping mustache gives him the air of an orator. Sacco is short, stocky, and trim in his dark suit and bowler hat. Very close shot of Sacco's face. Typically Italian. Dark, with rather prominent nose and cheekbones. Intense and handsome. The face aroused much controversy because witnesses swore that it was Nick Sacco they saw at the scene of the robbery and murder. Nobody claimed to have seen Vanzetti. And yet Herbert Ehrmann, the young, bright assistant defense counsel, showed the striking resemblance between Sacco's typical Italian face and that of Joe Morelli, leader of the holdup gang in Providence. A resemblance that was not twinlike but clonelike. The prosecution and the state refused to consider the evidence.
Back to Vanzetti, who finishes his speech and replaces his cap. The crowd moves on, jump-stepping fast down the street. Policemen in double-breasted coats with brass buttons bring up the rear, carrying shotguns. Switch to big car pulling up in front of courthouse. Car is fancy, probably a Stutz or Packard or Cadillac. Out pops a man in tails and top hat. Close-up as he tips his hat and smiles. judge Webster Thayer. His hair and mustache are trim and white. He looks prosperous, and is. Switch to beefy, truculent man charging down the sidewalk. Military carriage, firm bouncy step, skimmer straw hat. Fred Katzmann, the district attorney and chief prosecutor. He looks competent, trained, thorough, and absolutely merciless. He proves himself to be all of these, especially during the cross-examination of Sacco, in which his questions are directed toward Sacco's political beliefs, his American patriotism, his home and family life, and a dozen other subjects not related to the South Braintree crime but designed to inflame and prejudice the jury. Katzmann gives a false smile and quicksteps on. Crowd going up courthouse steps. They jump and swing their way up in double time. One can almost hear the dance caller and fiddle. As each person appears Bertoni identifies him for us. Then we are surprised to see the interior of the courtroom, and Bertoni explains that this was before the Lindbergh kidnapping trial, at which cameras of any type were banned from courtrooms.
'It keeps getting darker and lighter,' said Mary, breaking our silence. 'Why's that?'
'It was before high-intensity lamps,' explained Frank. 'They're lighting magnesium flares, one after the other.'
The courtroom is packed. Shot of curious looking wire cage in back of courtroom. Sacco and Vanzetti are sitting in it. Cage is solid except for space to peek out in front. Close-up of judge Thayer. Shot of someone testifying. Slow pan of pistols and bullets and cartridge cases on table. Shot of defense table, with attorneys Thompson and Ehrmann nodding and talking to each other. Shot of Katzmann again. Scary. Evil. But then the film was designed to convey that…
Final close-up of Sacco and Vanzetti. Then the strange, snake-like scratches in the film, the dark vertical lines that weave about on the screen, seem to converge on the two men in the dock. They snake forward and back, growing thicker, almost blotting out the two faces. Close-up of Vanzetti, whose face has lost all of its former defiance and sternness. One now sees doubt in the handsome, youthful face. Doubt, and the beginnings of fear. The lines grow thick again. Big white blotches explode around the face.
Cut to Boston Statehouse. Big crowd on Beacon Street and up the steps. Cops with brass buttons and billy clubs holding the crowd back. Huge car pulls up. Much bigger than Judge Thayer's. A real limo. Out pops a man in a sporty three-piecer, with skimmer. He jumps up the statehouse steps, removes the skimmer, and waves it to the crowd. Governor Alvan Fuller. He looks rich, and is. He owns the Packard dealership in Boston. He wants to be President. Close-up of Fuller speaking. Then a shot of three middle-aged men. Very distinguished trio. Bertoni tells us they are the special commission chosen by Fuller to review the case. They look as alike as Winkin, Blinkin, and Nod. All have white hair and trim mustaches like judge Thayer. All have well-cut suits with tails, and top hats. They look as if they're going to a ball. The credentials of the commission were flawless: Robert Grant was a former judge, Samuel Stratton was president of M.I.T., and A. Lawrence Lowell was president of Harvard. In fact, the towns of Lawrence and Lowell were named after members of his family, who put up the money to build the factories and dams and canals to make even more money. But they meant well, those three top-hatted gentlemen. I guess;
Cut to crowds of protesters on Beacon Street again. Cut to Trafalgar Square, Paris, Moscow, and Rome again. Cut to a grim crowd of silent people standing around a big prison. Now, even the old time movie camera cannot make them jump or dance. They are frozen. Waiting.
'This is Charlestown Prison, the afternoon of the execution,' said Frank.
The camera pans the faces of the crowd. All is still. Then the shot we aren't ready for a small crowd of prison officials opening the gates, and behind them people carrying out the two black coffins…
The film hissed and crackled. The wavy black lines snaked along over the picture. The white splotches exploded on the screen.
Cut to Langone's funeral parlor, the place we had just been to see Andy Santuccio. Then a shot of the inside, where the open caskets are resting on sawhorses, the big banner with Judge Thayer's quote up behind them. It looks, just like the photographs we'd seen earlier. Then the final scene, a slow procession of the two hearses down Hanover Street, decked in flowers. Cut to a quote:
None of my enemies will be mourned as I am.
– Bartolomeo Vanzetti, 1927
The film crackled loudly, snapped through the gears of the machine, and flipped round and round until Frank Bertoni switched it off. We sat, stunned. Mary's mouth was halfway open. She didn't twitch a muscle. Finally Joe broke the silence by thanking Frank.
'Was it really that big, Frank?' asked Mary. 'People protesting all over the world?'
'Oh yeah. In fact a lot of people, in retrospect, think that the protesters did as much as anything else to send them to the chair. It got too big. Too threatening. The big shots in the system felt that half the world was against them and willing to help 'the reds.' It scared hell out of 'em, and they convinced themselves they had to snuff out this radical menace before it got out of hand and overpowered them. It became a battle of ideology and class, not a criminal trial.'
We had some of Frank's Amaretto and departed. We stopped to buy coffee beans and spinach pasta, then went to the car. Joe asked us over to his place on Pinckney Street, so we went. After all, he treated us to dinner, and I think he wanted a chance to pay us back for the weekends in Concord. But my heart wasn't' in the visit. The film had done me in. Mary too. We sat and listened to records and shared a bottle of bubbly. Joe sensed our depression.
'Movie got to you eh? Yeah. Thinking back now to when I first saw it, I remember feeling pretty depressed
