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Chicago judge living in rough neighborhood leaves a small estate in change
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The 1960 film "Let No Man Write My Epitaph" is set in the 1950's and 1960's in a rough neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. Nellie Romano, the widow of an executed murderer named Nick Romano, lives with her young son Nick Jr. in a small apartment. Nick has been studying music and plans to become a professional pianist.
 
Nellie is a good looking woman and works as a bar waitress. 'Judge' Sullivan is a former judge who has become an alcoholic and is one of Nellie's friends.
 
Nellie and her friends agree to look after young Nick and assist him in realizing his music dreams. This means keeping him out of juvenile gangs.
 
Almost no one in the neighborhood has much money including Judge Sullivan. There are a few scenes of the judge with small change including the final scene when the judge dies leaving a 'legacy' of some US coins including a half-dollar, a quarter, and three nickels.
 
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Let No Man Write My Epitaph
1. Title
The first scene shows the neighborhood and states "Chicago 1950."
 
Let No Man Write My Epitaph
2. Chicago 1950
Nick Romano is a young boy, around 8 years old, who lives with his mother Nellie. Nick's father was a executed for murder when he was young and Nellie is raising the boy by herself. Nellie has many friends in the area and one is 'Judge' Sullivan.
 
Let No Man Write My Epitaph
3. Judge Sullivan and young Nick
Judge Sullivan is a large Irishman who had been a real judge but is now an alcoholic.
 
Judge Sullivan visits Nellie and Nick.
 
Let No Man Write My Epitaph
4. Nellie and Nick at home
Nick is in his bedroom while Nellie smokes a cigarette.
 
Let No Man Write My Epitaph
5. Nellie counting her money
She has a few bills and some loose change including a dime and a cent. The bills are standard Mexican Revolution motion picture stage or prop bills.
 
Judge Sullivan looks out onto the street.
 
Let No Man Write My Epitaph
6. Street action
Judge sees a two men mugging (robbing) another man and makes a plan to save Nick.
 
Nellie's friends visit her.
 
Let No Man Write My Epitaph
7. Nellie's friends
Nellie's friends agree to watch over young Nick until he grows up.
 
Ten years go by and now young Nick is a teenager going to high school and studying music. He has been resisting pressure to join a gang and sometimes gets into fights.
 
Let No Man Write My Epitaph
8. Judge Sullivan and Nick Romano
Judge and Nick walk by a movie theater showing the 1959 film "The Last Angry Man."
 
Let No Man Write My Epitaph
9. The judge at his table
Judge frequents a local bar and lays some loose change on the table.
 
Nellie makes the mistake of her life when the handsome Louis Ramponi picks her up.
 
Let No Man Write My Epitaph
10. Nellie meets Louis Ramponi
Louis runs a florist shop which is a front for his criminal businesses which include selling heroin. He immediately gets Nellie to drinking with him at his office, then sleeping with him, and then becoming a heroin user and addict.
 
Judge Sullivan still has some rich Chicago society friends and takes Nick to see one.
 
Let No Man Write My Epitaph
11. Downtown Chicago (near the Congress Hotel)
Judge Sullivan takes Nick to see Grant Holloway, an attorney who lives in a fancy high-rise apartment with his pretty daughter Barbara.
 
Let No Man Write My Epitaph
12. Barbara, Grant Holloway, and Judge Sullivan listen to Nick play
Grant Holloway promises to arrange a musical audition with a music school for Nick. Nick and Barbara immediately like each other.
 
Back home, Nick hears some noises coming from the bathroom and finds that his mother is giving herself an injection of heroin.
 
Let No Man Write My Epitaph
13. Nick stops Nellie
Nellie starts screaming at Nick when denied her shot and then things get worse when Grant Holloway and Barbara make an unannounced visit and see how Nick lives. Grant suggests to his daughter that she not see Nick any more.
 
Nick knows that Louis has been selling heroin to his mother, steals a pistol from a news vendor, and goes to visit Louis's office. Louis and his assistant overpower Nick and lock him in a basement. They intend to give Nick injections of heroin.
 
Nellie gets Judge Sullivan and another friend Max to see Louis. Louis denies that Nick is there and Judge and Max break into the basement and find Nick. Louis pulls out a pistol and shoots Judge who then strangles Louis.
 
Let No Man Write My Epitaph
14. The judge strangles Louis
Judge Sullivan then says goodbye to Nellie and dies. Later some of the friends are meeting and Max arrives from the Judge's apartment.
 
Let No Man Write My Epitaph
15. Max arrives
Max tells the others "That's all there was. Nothing more in his room." and then "The estate of Judge Sullivan."
 
Let No Man Write My Epitaph
16. The estate of Judge Sullivan
A couple of bills are seen along with some US coins including a Walking Liberty half-dollar, a Washington quarter, and three Jefferson nickels.
 
Nellie pulls card from Sullivan's wallet and reads it: "Let no man write my epitaph, till other times and other men will do me justice." Nellie then tells the others that "I'm gonna miss that man. I'm gonna miss him real bad."
 
(The quote "Let no man..." was said in 1803 by Robert Emmet, an Irish nationalist, before he was executed by the British)
 
Nick and Barbara are then seen back together.
 
Let No Man Write My Epitaph
17. Nick and Barbara
Cast, Directors, Writers:
 
Shelley Winters as Nellie Romano
James Darren as Nick Romano, Jr.
Burl Ives as Judge Sullivan
Ricardo Montalban as Louis Ramponi
 
Philip Ober as Grant Holloway
Jean Seberg as Barbara Holloway
Ella Fitzgerald as Flora (singer)
Rudolph Acosta as Max
Jeanne Cooper as Fran
Bernie Hamilton as Goodbye George (boxer)
Walter Burke as Wart
 
Director: Philip Leacock
Writers: Robert Presnell, Jr.
Based on Willard Motley's 1958 novel Let No Man Write My Epitaph
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