Movie Review – Anatomy of a Murder

Anatomy of a Murder (1959) – A soldier’s wife (Lee Remick) is raped and he (Ben Gazarra) kills her rapist.  The former local prosecuting attorney (Jimmy Stewart) agrees to defend the husband.  His client is just a bit too slick and the wife is just a bit too much of a party girl.  Both of them seem to have a rather distant relationship with honesty.  The defense will be insanity but the truth may be a bit more elusive.  One of the great court room movies.

Where to even begin?  Otto Preminger produces and directs.  The cast is quality top to bottom.  James Stewart, Ben Gazzara, Lee Remick, George C. Scott, Eve Arden, Orson Bean, Kathryn Grant (who became Kathryn Crosby, Bing’s wife) and the great character actor Arthur O’Connell.  Duke Ellington provides the music and even makes a cameo appearance.  Add in the appearance of Joseph N. Welch, one of the actual attorneys in the Army/McCarthey hearings of the early ’50s, as the judge.  It was Welch who uttered the immortal line at the hearings, “Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”.  He is wonderful in the role.  Combine those elements and they only way the movie fails is if they try to fail.


This movie doesn’t fail.


In its day this was a very controversial film.  Stewart’s own father considered it a “dirty movie” and took out newspaper ads in their hometown paper telling people not to go see it!  It was the first major American movie to deal openly with the subject of rape.  Its use of the words “rape”,”panties”, “bitch”, “contraceptive”, “semen”, “slut” and “penetration” were groundbreaking.  Sounds pretty tame today but at the time it was outrageous.


Members of the legal community have noted that unlike many (maybe even most) court room dramas “Anatomy of a Murder” actually represents the law and legal procedure realistically.  Yet even while focusing on the more mundane realities of the legal life (like research in a law library) the movie keeps your attention and involvement.  It is filled with fabulous little touches (like Stewart’s character tying a fishing fly during the prosecution’s questioning of witnesses), or pretty much any scene with Eve Arden in it.


If you want to see what a courtroom drama should look like, here’s your chance.


Rating – ***** Must See