On ANATOMY OF A MURDER - Ira Joel Haber recalls his first viewing of Otto Preminger's great courtroom drama of 1959

It's 60 years ago this past July that Anatomy of a Murder opened in New York City at the Criterion Theatre (above, click on any image for a slideshow), and even though I was only 12 years old, the film caught my attention. The main reason for this attention grabbing was the bold logo for the film of a cut up body that was designed by the great Saul Bass (poster below). I had no idea who he was, even though I had been seeing his designs for titles and ads for a few years. But this one was different, it inspired me. It made me want to be creative, to spend my life making things. 

I didn’t understand really what graphic design was or for that matter what art really was, but I knew that I wanted to do something with my imagination. I wanted to be an artist. The film of course was taboo and out of bounds for me to see. There was trouble with the censors over some words that Preminger refused to change or take out, but in the end he did make one change using the word violation instead of penetration. And then there was the big brouhaha over the use of the words “panties” and “bitch”, hard to imagine so much controversy over these words today. 

This was not going to be a Saturday afternoon movie outing for me at my neighborhood Loew’s eating my popcorn and drinking my coke. Just the year before at 11 years of age I was turned away from an afternoon showing of Some Came Running, and I finally had to wait to until my Mom took me to see it on a Friday night. I wanted to see Anatomy as I referred to it when talking it up with my mother at the Criterion, but this didn’t happen and I had to wait until it was on the 3rd run Neighborhood circuit at the lousy run down Beverly Theatre on Church Avenue. 

I sat in the darkened balcony watching the movie in shock and awe with smoke from my mother’s Raleigh cigarettes swirling all around me. This was an adult movie, a sleazy murder and trial based on a real incident that took place in some backwoods small time town in Michigan. We never see the actual murder nor the alleged rape, there would be no movie if we did, but I was still engrossed by what was happening on that screen. I finally repaid a visit to this childhood film of mine via the beautiful Criterion transfer. 

James Stewart, Joseph N. Welch, Lee Remick, 

Directed with assurance by Otto Preminger (this is to my mind his last good film) and superbly acted by an impeccable cast including James Stewart, Lee Remick, Eve Arden, Arthur O’Connell, Ben Gazzara, George C. Scott and, in an imaginative touch of casting, Joseph N. Welch as the presiding judge. Welch (middle above) was the head counsel for the army during the Army-McCarthy-Army hearings and scolded McCarthy with his statement “Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?” which was the beginning of the end for the evil senator from Wisconsin. 

James Stewart, Eve Arden

The film starts with the superb title sequence by Bass with the great Duke Ellington score laid over it and pounding away. We are soon introduced to James Stewart in a smooth tracking shot driving home after one of his many fishing trips. Stewart plays an ambiguous lawyer and bachelor Paul Biegler, (Polly to his friends) who lives in a rundown smudged house (this was the real life home of the author of the book John D. Voelker, who was a sitting judge and wrote novels under the pen name of Robert Traver). Soon we also meet his much put upon and rarely paid secretary-assistant played by the great Eve Arden (above), and his rummy ex-lawyer friend played perfectly by Arthur O’Connell who rises to the occasion when asked by Stewart for his help.

Ben Gazzara

There is a message waiting for Stewart asking him to call Laura Manion whose husband a lieutenant in the army played by an intense Ben Gazzara (above) is in jail awaiting trial for the murder of a bar owner who allegedly raped his wife played by the luminous and sexy Lee Remick. The film is lavish and leisurely with its exposition and not very fluid, with most of the second half of the film taking place in the courtroom. 

The fun of the film, (and it is fun) comes from watching the actors strut their stuff especially when Stewart goes up against the big hot shot city prosecutor Claude Dancer, played with oily presence by the terrific George C. Scott in this his second film, and watching Lee Remick throw her sexual attractiveness around with loose abandonment as if she is saying to us I know what I got, and I’m going to spend it while I can. 

 

James Stewart, Lee Remick

Filmed on location where the actual story took place with terrific black and white cinematography by Sam Leavitt. The film is ambiguous and the ending is swift, cynical and hard. One of the years 10 Best Films, Best Supporting Actor Arthur O’Connell and Best Supporting Actress Lee Remick.