352 - Anatomy of Murder, United States, 1959. Dir. Otto Preminger.
Army Lieutenant Frederick Manion (Ben Gazzara) has just killed innkeeper and outdoorsman Barney Quill in a jealous rage over Quill's alleged raping of Manion's wife Laura (Lee Remick). She told him what happened. He took his gun, went to the Thunder Bay Inn, and opened fire on Quill, hitting him five times in succession.
Attorney Paul Biegler (James Stewart) lays out the four options one might have to defend a murder.
"Number 1. It wasn't murder. It was suicide or accidental.
Number 2. You didn't do it.
Number 3. You were legally justified. Like protecting your home or self-defense.
Number 4. The killing was excusable."
Then Biegler informs Manion that he does not fit into any of the first three possibilities. It was murder. He did do it. He was not legally justified: he did not defend his home or himself. In fact, Biegler says, "You're guilty of murder, premeditated and with vengeance."
On top of that, Manion has a history of jealousy and may have hit his own wife in the past for perceived dalliances. He is a soldier. He knows how to kill. He lives under tremendous stress. He has a volatile temper.
Both Frederick and Laura were married before. They left their former spouses for each other. She gets bored easily. She wants her man to excite her. She enjoys attention. She goes out often, whether he is with her or not.
Parts of the film take on the territory of The Accused (1988). That film may have shut the lid on the subject, but here the Prosecution tries to make the case, through implication, that Laura might have lied about being raped. Perhaps it was consensual. Perhaps she lured Barney Quill. After all, look how she dresses. Look how she behaves around men. Was she "deliberately voluptuous and enticing"? Manion made his wife swear on a rosary that it was not consensual. Does he mistrust her that much? She comes on to their own attorney, Biegler, in front of us. She goes out dancing with men just two days after the alleged rape and while her husband sits in jail. What is the jury to make of all that?
Other parts of the film take on the territory of A Time to Kill (1996). What if we grant that she was raped and that it was not her fault, no matter her reputation or behavior? That is not what is on trial here. Her husband openly murdered a man. Is premeditated murder ever excusable? If one is angry and enraged over a rape or murder and retaliates in kind, can a jury let him off?
Mathematically, the deck is stacked so heavily against the defense, it appears impossible to overcome.
Too add to that, Biegler is a ten-year former District Attorney. He has never defended a case; only prosecuted them. His associate is a drunk, Parnell Emmett McCarthy (Arthur O'Connell). He has no money or resources. He cannot even pay his secretary. The wife of the defendant is not helping him. The town is on the side of the deceased. The Prosecution is composed of well-heeled, high-powered attorneys from Lansing. They can eat him for lunch. How will he pull this off?
Biegler knows this from the beginning and throughout. At one point in the trial he states, "I'm making a lot of noise and Quill's racking up all the points."
The film takes place in the Upper Peninsula. When was the last time you saw a movie set in the Upper Peninsula?
The setting gives the film an all-American feel. Lansing is the big city. Outsiders come from Canada or the Lower Peninsula. The local city is Iron City. (Do they mean Marquette? Not Marquette University, which is in Milwaukee, but Marquette, Michigan, which is called Iron City.) The local resort is Thunder Bay.
Biegler's hobbies include boating, fishing, and listening to jazz music. His purchase of an outboard motor is one of the reasons he cannot pay his secretary.
The M'Naghten Rule is used as a test for insanity. It states that a defendant may claim insanity if at the time of the alleged crime he did not "know the nature and quality of what he was doing, or if he did know it, that he did not know he was doing what was wrong."
Manion openly fails the M'Naghten Rule. He testifies on the witness stand that he did know what he was doing and that he did know right from wrong.
Is there any hope for this case at all?
What is "dissociative reaction"? What is "irresistible impulse"? Is there any precedent? What happened in the People versus Durfee, 1886?
And who is Mary Pilant?
And what was her true relationship with Barney Quill?
And what exactly was found at the bottom
Of the laundry chute?
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