Boomerang

Boomerang! is a 1947 American crime semidocumentary film based on the true story of a vagrant accused of murder. It stars Dana Andrews, Lee J. Cobb, Karl Malden, Arthur Kennedy and Jane Wyatt, with voiceovers by Reed Hadley. The film was directed by Elia Kazan and adapted from a 1945 Reader's Digest story written by Fulton Oursler (credited as Anthony Abbot) based on an actual 1924 crime. The film was shot mostly in Stamford, Connecticut, after Kazan was denied permission to film in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where the crime and trial occurred. The film was entered into the 1947 Cannes Film Festival. Plot Episcopal priest Father Lambert is shot dead on a Bridgeport, Connecticut street at night. The police, led by Chief Robinson, fail to immediately find the murderer. The case soon becomes a political hot potato, with the police accused of incompetence and the city's reform-minded administration attacked by the corrupt political machine that it had displaced. Robinson and prosecutor Henry Harvey face severe pressure by cheap political leaders, the press and the public to find the killer or otherwise seek outside help.