342. Anatomy of a Murder (1959)

Directed by Otto Preminger

Synopsis

A man is accused of having murdered his wife's rapist. Jimmy Stewart must get him out, but will the defence of "temporary insanity" convince anyone?

Review

I really like court dramas. From Law & Order to Boston Legal to 12 Angry Man to A Few Good Men, anything really. And then they give me one with Jimmy Stewart and the great George C. Scott, and make it last for over 2 and a half hours, how could I not love it?

In fact it is a pretty great film, like Some Like it Hot which I reviewed just yesterday, this is another of those films which helped put the final nails in the coffin of the by now ripe-smelling production code. Words like sperm, rape and panties are used liberally throughout, and even if that sounds tame to us it sounds revolutionary in the historical context. So does the Duke Ellington soundtrack, he even has an excellent cameo doing a duet with Stewart.

And then the way the film leaves you completely without answers about the case, I personally wouldn't have bought the defence, is astonishing at a time where no criminal could get away scot-free. At the beginning I thought, hey the defendant and his wife are quite bad actors. As the film goes on, however, you consider is this bad acting because they are acting lying? It feels like that at times, and this is immensely smart. We'll never know what happened, but the film is great.

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The movie, inspired by a 1952 Big Bay Lumberjack Tavern murder trial in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, was adapted by Wendell Mayes from the novel by Robert Traver (pen name of John D. Voelker, a Michigan Supreme Court judge from 1957-1959).

It was filmed in Big Bay, Marquette, Ishpeming, and Michigamme, Michigan. Some scenes were actually filmed in the Thunder Bay Inn in Big Bay, Michigan, one block from the Lumberjack Tavern, the site of a murder that had inspired much of the novel. The movie was directed by Otto Preminger, and was noted for featuring unusually frank dialogue for 1959. It was among the first Hollywood films to challenge the Production Code, along with Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot (1959) and Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960).

Silly trailer: