If there is a worthwhile story to be told about the events in Boise in 1955, it's obscured by this movie's incompetence. It seems like an uninspired parody of Ken Burns's formulaic and pretentious historical documentaries for PBS, in which a disembodied narrator reads from contemporary sources (in this case, a single Boise newspaper) and follows each reading with the name of the source.When the source is almost always the same source, that already tiresome formula quickly becomes unbearable - like the second or third time this narrator solemnly says "The Evening Standard" (or whatever its name was) after reading from the newspaper for about 10 seconds. By the time he'd said the same three words the same way a dozen or more times I was ready to pull my hair out. I was no longer able even to listen to what he was reading from the paper, because I knew that another horrible "The Evening Standard" was only seconds away.But he's only one of this movie's several unseen narrators. That man reads the bits from the newspaper, but another narrator, the one who fills in most of the gaps between his readings from the paper, is a woman who is even worse than he is. The first time she pronounced "escape" as if it were spelled "excape", I had to do an instant replay because I couldn't believe my ears; but there it was.At least this movie doesn't use the other even more annoying gimmick that's practically universal in historical documentaries now, which is the dramatic reenactment of historical events. I really can't stand those dumbed-down reenactments, as if we would never believe that the Declaration of Independence was signed unless we saw bad actors doing it on TV.This movie doesn't have those, but I'm pretty sure it would if the producers had had the money for D-list actors and chintzy sets and costumes. The western world is now populated by people who can't grasp anything unless they see it acted out on TV, the more like a soap opera the better. The entire 8+ hours of HBO's silly John Adams miniseries was like that, and people loved it.I may follow another reviewer's excellent suggestion and read the book on which this incompetent movie is based (John Gerassi's The Boys of Boise: Furor, Vice and Folly in an American City). I'd rather read on my own than be read to by an idiot who evidently thinks I've forgotten where he got the stuff he reads and has to remind me every ten seconds.Or I may just leave Boise in its petty, ignorant past and get on with my own life. I'm certainly not learning anything about the town from this movie, except that it has the worst newspaper in the United States.

Documentary recounting the homosexual scandal enveloping the city of Boise, Idaho, in the autumn of 1955. A local probation officer got the idea that one or more men in the town were arranging sexual contacts with several teen boys. He was brushed aside by higher ups (and eventually demoted for his troubles), but he persisted. The major newspaper in the state, The Idaho Statesman, got hold of the story and began a sensational press campaign to dramatize and exaggerate the matter. Rumors grew to suggest that the ring included many men and "hundreds" of male youths. A witch hunt of sorts unfolded over the next couple of months.In all, 16 men were indicted, only one of whom successfully challenged the charges and was acquitted. A majority of the others, including a few prominent men in town, went to prison. Others left town, some never to return, including one of the most popular men in town, whose family ran a drive-in restaurant, and the son of a councilman, who was exposed as one of the boys who had participated. As a result, he left West Point in disgrace and killed himself the following year.This film panders to shopworn stereotypes: homosexual men as simply predators upon the young, or such predation being the "cause" of homosexuality. There is no effort to link this story to any of the well recognized circumstances that involve anti-gay prejudices in America today. Indeed, in his recent interview for this film, Dr. Jack Butler, a psychiatrist who was brought in to advise Boise city fathers in the midst of the 1955 upheaval, states that this sort of hysteria would not occur today, implying that our culture has matured in its attitudes toward homosexuality.Well, yes, there is some evidence to suggest that this is true. Walking around downtown Boise these days, you can see ads for an upcoming local Gay & Lesbian film festival, and a tavern not far from the state capitol states on its marquee that it is "Straight Friendly." But with all due respect for Jack Butler, who is my esteemed colleague and friend in Portland nowadays, I cannot agree with him that stigmatization of gays has eased all that much. Nationwide, homophobic hate crimes are more common today than they were 10 or 20 years ago, even in the face of a general decline in violent crime. And anti-gay sentiment is evidenced in the widespread opposition to gay conjugal unions. Most importantly, sexual predation on teens, regardless of gender orientation, invariably, and rightly, evokes strong public outrage in any era. By not making any effort to generalize, either to the present day or to other locales, this film pigeonholes its story, isolating it in both time and place.Beyond that, with few exceptions, this movie is poorly crafted. Monotonous, self conscious, vividly colored computer graphic images of stylized autumn leaves and fancy opening titles do little to set the stage for the somber, largely black and white, archival material that follows. Much of the film stock - scenes of the town in the 1950s – is of poor quality. Sound is also variable, occasionally not audible.The recent interviews with Dr. Butler and with Alty Travelstead, the late son of the restaurant owner who left town in 1955, are well done, really the best elements in the film. Travelstead's sense of having no home, after being uprooted as a young boy and drifting with his family from place to place, is poignantly told. By and large, though, this film is an amateurish effort. Possibly a good film could be made from this material, but it will take a more mature talent for screen writing and editing to produce a decent product. My grades: 6/10 (B-) (Seen at the Idaho International Film Festival, 09/30/06)

"The people of Boise tried to 'stamp out' homosexuality. They discovered it couldn't be done. In the learning process, everybody suffered:" this theme, expressed in 1967 by CBS news sets the tone for "Fall of '55," a documentary by Seth Randal, which while laudable in its goals suffers from a lack of uniform tone and and amateurish TV documentary feel that adds little to its readable source material, John Gerassi's "The Boys of Boise." Contrary to the sinister tone of CBS's pronouncement, the case in question really boiled down to the arrests of 16 men, most of whom were held for contact with minor boys. The hysteria wrought from these trials is alluded to in Randal's documentary, but not nearly so much as in Gerassi's book, which no doubt caused confusion among audience members with no prior exposure to the film (a representative of the Idaho Human Rights Task force went so far as to open the post-film roundtable by denouncing "crimes against juveniles.") This lack of social context in Randal's film is its chief flaw. Opening to a cheesy leaf montage, the film begins with a melodramatic narration recalling the E! network's True Hollywood Stories, intoning that "autumn would bring darker skies" and scandal that would, "shake the City of Trees to its roots." The film's narration and interspersed interviews play over a montage of '50s and modern day film clips of the aforementioned City of Trees, sometimes depicting actual sites described and sometimes as jarringly random as the pseudo-trippy visuals of a 1980s music video. In his opening speech, Randal expressed gratitude for the canisters of 50s era film he'd discovered in the Egyptian theater itself and it soon becomes evident what a blessing the find was, as at least three-quarters of the film's visuals relies wholly upon it. Actual interview footage was a welcome change when presented; the film's sources ranged from participants in the trials to then Boise residents. Fading audiotapes from men tried during the case are presented without subtitles and, at times, virtually impossible to understand. Redolently lacking is the perspective of any gay man or woman living in Boise at the time who could provide perspective on gay life in the 1950s. No suggestion is ever made that any two adult homosexuals anywhere in Idaho were attempting to carry on a private and consensual affair, and this omission only reinforces the old canard that homosexuals recruit by seducing youth, and weakens the film's goal of presenting the incident as a witch hunt, because most people would argue that sex crimes against youth is a goal worth prosecuting. The post-film roundtable proved far more entertaining than the documentary itself, with panelists comparing the Boise incident everything from the War on Terror to the Salem Witch Trials and Statesman columnist Dan Popkey announcing, with a straight face, that the media would no longer actively create hysteria whilst pretending to objectively report on the same hysteria. On the film's website fallof55.com, the filmmaker presents as one of his stated goals: "To fairly and accurately present the various sides of the story, without judgment and bias." And in the roundtable, the "condescending" tone of Gerassi's book is noted; however, a mere retelling of the case in a manner scarcely compelling offers little of new value that an update of the book featuring the same audio recordings or interviews could not have granted. Overall, the film's audience seemed to have turned out as a de facto protest against Idaho's proposed gay marriage ban, but audiences looking for compelling stories and film-making would be advised to skip this movie and read the book.

The Fall of 55 was an outstanding example for historic journalism. The movie reminds us to remember our mistakes from the past in an effort not to repeat them in the future. Its use of historic records and photographs bring you into the movie making the audience feel as though they are a third party observer and yet Mr. Randall et al succeed in not taking sides on the issues presented. Facts are presented clearly and the evidence is weighed but the cast and crew of Fall of 55 let you the audience come to you own conclusions. This was a well rounded film showing both sides of the issue. 50 years later it puts into perspective what happened and allows the audience to try to understand what was right or wrong about it, and what the consequences were. This is an outstanding film and a must see for anyone into independent film and/or historic journalism.