Anatomy of a Murder (1959)

Pretty Good

Just perfect...

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

In terns of direction and performances , I have really nothing to add to the common notion that this film was handled as a masterpiece. Everyone involved executed their role brilliantly. Jimmy Stewart is just a fine lawyer with good ol' Preminger at the helm overseeing everything. Because of the performances and good dialogue, I didn't realize just how quickly time flew by over the course of the 2 hours 40 minute duration of the film. Every scene and line pointed to a good build up that should have led to an amazing crescendo in the climax. As is usually warranted in a courtroom drama. Except that it quite didn't deliver on that payoff. I won't go into spoilers but it's actually baffling that they gave away a major reveal quite early on in the film. They had clearly set it up till that point of the reveal for it to work effectively for the audience. They could have easily continued suppressing that reveal, letting the audience work with a red herring in the meantime, until they could have just let it loose in the final courtroom scene. It would have been quite satisfying as a sort of twist. Likewise, there were some other instances where I felt there could have been a better progression of the story and the way certain new characters are introduced.People might think I am nitpicking too much except that this minor carping only serves to explain why I am giving it a solid 8 instead of a rock hard 10/10

This might have been a stunning movie for 1959, but I fail to see how it holds up in the Twenty First Century. If one could get away with a murder rap using that 'irresistible impulse' argument, I think there would be a lot more murder trials today, not to mention a whole lot more killers running around loose. I mean really, a 'psychic shock' which creates an almost overwhelming tension which a person must alleviate, by KILLING SOMEBODY!!! I know there are real live cases of temporary insanity that have gotten people off the hook, but in those situations, the accused is usually deranged enough to merit the argument. I don't see how it worked here, except of course, as being a product of it's times.Even the courtroom drama seemed a little bizarre to me. I can understand the prosecuting attorney Mitch Lodwick (Brooks West) making all those challenges to Paul Biegler's (James Stewart) questioning of witnesses, but couldn't figure out why he thought they were out of bounds. Why wouldn't the alleged rape of Manion's (Ben Gazzara) wife be relevant to the case? It's why he killed bar owner Quill! Or the photographer's pictures of Laura Manion (Lee Remick). If they could corroborate the fact that she got beat up by Quill, even if she wasn't raped, putting them into evidence should have been a no-brainer.There's also that scene in which Mary Pilant (Kathryn Grant) rolled over so easily when Biegler asked her to get the bartender to cooperate with his investigation. Any other person would have told the attorney to take a hike if it was going to implicate her own father. That scene just didn't pass the smell test for me.But with all that, I still thought the film was fairly compelling in the way Biegler sniffed out his opportunities and played them out for the court. Some of his over the top antics didn't seem realistic but he was putting on a show for the jurors. I liked Judge Weaver (Joseph N. Welch) by the way, I was surprised to learn he was a real life attorney during the Army-McCarthy hearings. No wonder he seemed so credible in the role of the judge.The most surprising thing about the movie for me was the way it handled some of the era's sensitive subjects like rape, women's undergarments, and male sperm as evidence in an abuse case. Don't forget, this was the tail end of a decade when the Ricardo's slept in separate beds and topics involving sex were still taboo subjects for TV. The dialog in the film was credibly done without getting sensational, so that was a plus.The thing that really got me though, no one even mentioned in a couple dozen reviews of the picture I read on this board. When all was said and done, and after Manion was found not guilty, Jimmy Stewart's character arrives at the trashy trailer park and gets handed that message about Manion's irresistible impulse to hit the road. The guy scammed Biegler, the court, and the jury, and got away with murder! Time to go fishing, I guess.

In what could only be interpreted in a cosmic sort of irony, I watched "Anatomy of a Murder" shortly after serving a stint of jury duty. Thus, I was in the right frame of mind for this kind of film. Unfortunately, it doesn't rise above being a strict courtroom drama.For a basic plot summary, this movie sees country lawyer Paul Biegler (James Stewart) defending soldier Frederick Manion (Ben Gazzara) for murdering a man who had supposedly raped his wife Laura Manion (Lee Remick). During the long trial, Biegler runs into hot-shot city lawyer Claude Dancer (George C. Scott), who engages him in a battle of wits right up to the very end of the case.If you view this movie strictly by what goes on inside the courtroom, you would probably have to give it a higher star rating. The sparring between Stewart/Scott is tremendous and produces the best scenes of the entire film. There is also a feeling a tension that the courtroom brings, as with each new witness comes a new wrinkle to the case.The trouble with "Anatomy of A Murder", though, is that the experience actually doesn't differ all that much from what I was supposed to do during my jury duty: disregard anything outside of the court proceedings. The film just fails to capture any other semblance of emotion outside the courtroom. Besides Stewart/Scott, the acting is quite pedestrian, and there are certain character arcs that seem interesting at first but (due to the 2:40 runtime) run out of gas by the conclusion. Even the case that is being debated should have had a bigger finale than it did (instead, it left me feeling a bit frustrated that "all that time" was spent for such a generic finale).Overall, I am surprised that "Anatomy of a Murder" gets such generally high marks. I supposed if one idolizes Jimmy Stewart or really, really is entranced by courtroom dramas it will be better, but I couldn't give it any more than the "okay" ranking. There just wasn't enough happening "outside the court" to sustain my whole interest.

I expected much more from this movie, as it had got such good marks and reviews. Instead I found it boring, uninteresting, failing to engage. One problem was that I could not feel anything for anyone concerned. Both the accused and his wife were unlikeable - and the murder victim we never got to see at all, as there were no flashbacks. Even James Stewart as the defence lawyer, whom I normally like a lot, was strangely uninteresting and even physically ugly in this movie. The whole thing was somehow flat... I at least expected some big, surprising twist at the end - but there was nothing like that either. It is difficult at the best of times to make a court-room drama - if it only (or almost only) takes place in the court-room after the crime, as in this movie - interesting. This movie was not one of the few exceptions.