Some movies don’t need reviews. You can just tell readers to see it. All they need to know is that it’s perfect, from Duke Ellington’s jazzy opening score, to the grins on those two guys’ faces at the end. Why? Because it’s impossible to say just a little. Once I get started, I won’t be able to stop for a while. But, OK, if you must have a clue or two first, read on ….
Attorney Paul Biegler (James Stewart) is not exactly washed up. But these days he spends more time fishing than defending clients. Years ago he was voted out as the local district attorney of his small Michigan hamlet, which took the wind out of his sails. His secretary, Maida Rutledge (Eve Arden), has stuck with him, as has former attorney and now town drunk Parnell McCarthy (Arthur O’Connell). Cash is running low. Maida says flippantly that she can’t even write a check to pay her own salary. But things may be looking up.
He’s gotten a call from Laura Manion (Lee Remick), wife of Frederick Manion, an Army Lieutenant who’s in jail for murder. Whose murder? A local tavern owner who Laura says raped her. The tavern owner died of lead poisoning – the five shots Frederick fired when he went to confront the man in front of a barroom full of witnesses.
Husband Frederick, a decorated Korean War vet, believes it’s open and shut: the murder was justified given the rape. Biegler brings him back to reality quickly and bluntly; there’s no such provision in Michigan law. Cagey country lawyer Biegler leads Frederick through some carefully parsed questions that help his client appreciate the route to freedom. And so now it comes back to Frederick … yes, he must have been temporarily insane when he pulled the trigger five times.
Lending to the noirish elements is wife Laura. With her tight clothes and coquettish attitude, she’s the classic femme fatale. How much do we believe her story? Husband Frederick? There’s a cold and threatening air about him. It’s not going to be an easy case.
Still, Paul, Maida, and Parnell scatter throughout the town to ferret out info that could help with the upcoming case. But it all comes down to the extended courtroom drama.
And boy, is it a doozy.
The prosecutor (the slightly dim bulb who beat Paul in the election) brings in a big gun from the state attorney’s general office: Claude Dancer (George C. Scott), a sort of Darth Vader of state prosecutors. And so the trial begins. I won’t try to summarize the action. Every interrogation of prosecution and defense witnesses is a lesson in screenwriting economy, tension, humor, and pathos. Every time the prosecutors land a blow, Biegler parries by casting doubt on the testimony. When Biegler presents his case, Dancer attacks the witnesses viciously, leaning in intimidatingly close. Never a dull moment.
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No one could be more perfect for this role than Jimmy Stewart. He’s authentic and compelling in all of his personas: the defeated but content lawyer-turned-fisherman; the straight-talking, pragmatic counselor who gives his client the cold hard facts; the younger man trying to inspire his fallen older friend; the outraged lawyer dressing down his client’s wife about her impropriety that threatens her husband’s chances; the “simple country lawyer” working the judge.
I’ve rarely liked Ben Gazzara, but here he’s likewise perfect as the admitted murderer who thought he had an “easy out” due to the circumstances. From the first to last frame of his on-screen time, he is cool and menacing, never a sympathetic moment.
A bit less than perfect (maybe 98% rather than 100) is Lee Remick. Not for her performance. Her deer-in-the-headlights paralysis as Dancer leans in, nose to nose, to accuse her is perfect. She’s both pathetic and sympathetic in those moments when she’s making a futile pass at Biegler. The trouble is that she’s assigned the unsavory duty of portraying the stereotypical femme fatale. She does it well, but you wish the screenplay made that part of her persona more ambiguous.
Let’s also talk about Eve Arden’s turn as the wise, and wise-cracking, secretary. During the court room drama, focus on her in the background with her surprised, amused, or thoughtful looks, acting up a storm even when she’s not the focus of the action. In her tit-for-tat exchanges with Jimmy Stewart, it seems they genuinely enjoy acting together.
And George C. Scott in a role seemingly written for him. Smart, condescending, and so confident that he thinks he can ignore dangerous questions.
One more: Joseph N. Welch as Judge Weaver, a substitute for the ailing local judge. A real-life lawyer in his only movie credit, he’s dead-on entertaining as the sophisticated big-city judge trying to keep the small-town courtroom and squabbling lawyers in line.
With such dazzling acting and alternately dramatic and diverting courtroom theatrics, it’s easy to overlook that the story is, to use that old cliché, morally ambiguous. The Manions … the coolness of their moments together and their unsavory personality faults make us seriously doubt we know the full truth. The prosecutors … they twist the investigation to suppress key facts bolstering Manion’s motive, and they obviously view the trial more as a career-defining opportunity rather than the pursuit of truth. And Biegler is no saint, doing what lawyers must do, taking their client’s statements, no matter how suspect, and making the best defense he can despite his doubts. We root for him because we just like Jimmy Stewart, not because we think he’s committed to doing the right thing.
As Biegler and McCarthy weigh their next steps after the case, you’re left to decide whether you believe justice was done. Myself, I doubt it, but I don’t care one way or the other, because a “final reveal” would have turned this into just another predictable, clichéd Hollywood drama. No matter whether you know everything or nothing about Anatomy of a Murder, you’ll enjoy it start to finish.