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beste uhrenAnatomy of a Murder: A Superb Courtroom Drama That Was More Revolutionary than To Kill A MockingbirdAs I have made clear on multiple occasions my love of film began at an early age. I attribute my appreciation of the cinema to my parents who helped me at the age of seven start watching movie musicals, classic comedies and exceptional films made by British directors. My love of classic movies has never stopped.But as you go through the list of the films that are commonly regarded among the greatest films ever made, there are certain absences that have always struck me. It is not that these movies were recognized as masterpieces at the time: indeed, many of these films were nominated for Best Picture and some won multiple Academy awards. Nor is because they do not still hold up more than half a century later: they still work as entertainment and many of them hold up issues that still resonate to this day. Perhaps it is because the directors are known for better films in their repertoire. Perhaps it is because the films never revolutionized their genres and were ‘only’ incredible pieces of film. Whatever the reason these films never get listed among the greatest of all time or even among the greatest of their genre. I have little doubt that TCM pays tribute to them when they are aired, but when you provide those introductions to every movie, it becomes monotonous and you discount much of what you here.So in this column I will pay tribute to some of my favorite films. I may have watched (and rewatched) many of them over and over when I was a child but this is not a case of youthful admiration: these were great films when I saw them and they still are today. Seeking them out may take some effort, though I imagine one or more streaming service does. You might have to break down and get a DVD player to do so. But they are all worth the time.Anatomy of a Murder (1959)The last time AFI did a poll of the 100 greatest heroes and villains, number one on the former was Atticus Finch, the noble attorney Gregory Peck plays in the classic To Kill A Mockingbird. I’ve heard on numerous occasion that Peck’s performance, which won him his only Oscar, inspired many young people to go to law school, and it’s easy to understand why: Finch defense of an African-American in 1920s Alabama, taking the case that Finch knows in advance will make no difference to his clients fate and will irreparably harm his reputation in the community, is no doubt the portrait of all that the attorney wants to be. It’s noble and stirring and it makes you proud at the end, even though his client ends up getting lynched and you have to forget that in doing so, he has to basically accuse that the women who accused him of assaulting her was promiscuous and asking for it.I think a more realistic portrayal of what a defense attorney truly is and should be appeared in another film that was more groundbreaking than To Kill a Mockingbird when it came out in 1959 — was in fact, nearly censored — but doesn’t have anywhere near the same reputation, despite the fact it features an actor the equal of Peck, the debuts of two of the most memorable actors that would dominate the screen for the next thirty years and was itself nominated for Best Picture. There’s even an argument that this attorney is by far the better lawyer than Finch is; he manages to get his client acquitted even though everybody saw him do it and he actually confessed.I first saw Anatomy of A Murder on TNT when I was 13 years old. I recorded it, rewatched it at least four times before I was fourteen and have always made time to see it whenever it airs on TCM. By chance, I ended up seeing it before I ever saw To Kill a Mockingbird and perhaps that has prejudiced my opinion of both films.For whatever reason, I have always found something preachy and treacly about Mockingbird. Don’t get me wrong, the performances are excellent and the writing superb. I just think that because we’re seeing it from the perspective of a child we can’t truly trust what we’re seeing. A daughter will always see her father in the best light and as noble as Atticus Finch appears that’s how father try to look to their children. (Perhaps that is why so many people reacted poorly to Harper Lee’s sequel half a century later which seemed to take the glasses off.)There is of course a critical difference when it comes to the character of Paul Beagler played by Jimmy Stewart in one of his greatest performances. For one thing this movie takes place in the 1950s and in Michigan. For another, this is a much more cynical movie and no one is more cynical than Paul himself. He’s just returned from a fishing trip over the Canadian border and he has learned from his housekeeper and partner that he has missed the biggest thing in town in years: Barney Quill, a bar owner and lothario had just been shot four times by Colonel Frederick Manion.There is no nobility in why Paul takes the case. He needs the money and he wants the publicity this case will bring him even if he loses. He is asked by the defendant’s wife: Laura Manion. Laura tells her to help her husband and says that her husband did it because Barney raped her.To a modern audience, that’s not much. Except director Otto Preminger, one of the great iconoclasts of filmmaking did not hide from the term ‘rape’ which in a world where movies were sexless was the kind of thing that could get your film censored by the Legion of Decency. Nor did he flinch from using scientific and biological terms when it came to discussion in the courtroom, including what constituted it. Anatomy spends as much time trying to prove that the rape of Laura Manion happened so as a defense to get her husband off.Perhaps just as critical to this film was something unheard of in a 1950s film. In any major courtroom drama to that point, the accused was either innocent or falsely accused. The attorney believed in his client and was determined to prove a miscarriage of justice. This is thrown out the window within a minute of Paul Biegler meeting his client. From their first meeting Manion makes no shades about his guilt only that he had a reason. Paul lays out four ways he can get a client off and tells him immediately three of them are useless. He’s left with the fourth: “the killing was excusable.” Manion then comes up with a half-hearted defense: saying that he had ‘an irresistible impulse.” Not insanity, an impulse. Paul doesn’t believe this for a moment, but he and Parnell spend several nights looking through law books for ‘precedent’ that can help get their client off.Paul doesn’t think much of either of the Manion’s from the start. He doesn’t much like Frederick and he never makes it clear one way or another he believes Laura was actually raped. This is actually a subject of some dispute in the film: Paul asks Laura how she dressed when she went to the bar. The Manion marriage was clearly shaky, and Laura openly tries to flirt with Paul at one point. After agreeing to represent the Manion’s he is appalled to learn that Ezra is broke and can only afford to pay him if he gets off. This gives Paul more motivation to help get Manion free and may even make him better as an attorney.Laura was originally supposed to be played by Lana Turner but Turner quit after being unable to deal with Preminger’s temper which was legendary. Preminger cast the unknown Lee Remick as Laura and she is perfect in the role. Honestly, I’m not sure Turner could have done a good job: by this point Turner was passed the ability to play an ingenue and Remick managed to play the right combination of innocence and sexuality. Paul instructs Laura to play the good housewife and support him in court and that is what she does every day but we’re never entirely sure how much is an act. Ezra is played by Ben Gazzara, a superb character actor in one of his best roles.The film is well over two and a half hours long but it never seems to lag. The cast is so wonderful to watch along the way that you are entertained even as it builds. Arthur O’Connell, a brilliant character actor who deservedly was nominated for Best Supporting Actor, is charming and wily as Parnell, who spends much of his time drunk but is clearly Paulie’s right hand man. Just as important in the early scenes is Eve Arden as their housekeeper and secretary. Arden has a small role but every time she’s on screen she makes you laugh. At a critical point in the film Paul tells her she’s fired. “You can’t fire me until you pay me” she tells him. Paul drops it.The trial takes up the body of the film, and it is here we get some of the greatest moments I’ve ever seen on film. Joseph Welch, who historians knew was a critical figure in the McCarthy-Army Hearings, takes on the role of the judge in the trial. Welch is both remarkably dignified and often terribly funny. He gives the film the gravitas it makes it go even when it seems to be treading water.To try the case the District Attorney calls in help from the capital. That attorney is Claude Dancer, in what was George C. Scott’s film debut. I’d already seen Scott in other films; later that same year I saw two of his more famous roles in Dr. Strangelove and The Hustler. But there’s always something about his work as Claude that strikes as me more remarkable among his performances and it may involve how the trial itself proceeds.As the prosecution presents its case Paul seems to know that cliché that attorneys across the world are aware of: “If the facts are on your side, argue the facts. If they aren’t, charm the jury.” Paul spends almost the entire case doing so, frequently by eliciting laughter from the galleries and the jury as he asks questions designed to often humiliate the witnesses, such as when he asks one of the photographers about whether his pictures turned out or one of Quill’s employees the kind of man his bartender was. Over and over the DA’s objections make him look like a fool and in the midst of one blustery one, Paul simply says it’s too much for him and withdraws the question, eliciting more laughter. Early in the prosecution’s case Danser asks questions following the DA and Paul pleads that he feels overpowered by this. “You seem to be batting a thousand,” the judge says dryly, and we all agree. All of this charm is led towards a purpose: the DA doesn’t want it entered into evidence that Laura Manion accused Quill of rape and Paul keeps pecking away at the DA and judge until he finally is willing to give in.However, when the defense begins to present it’s case, the prosecution takes a different tack Danser leads the cross examination on every witness and its clear from the first question he asks Manion that he’s learned from Paul’s tactics and is more than capable of maneuvering around them. With each subsequent witness Scott proceeds with caution and an eerie calm in a way that Paul has no ability to rattle the same way he could the DA. Scott gives one of his subtlest performances that I’ve seen him give: he never raises his voice, and the gravely tone that we come to associate with much of his later work is never remotely present. This is a remarkable accomplishment for a man who is making is debut onscreen and it shows. Stewart clearly sees what is going on and spends as much time trying to figure out what Danser knows and what has been withheld. At a critical moment, Danser gambles and calls someone that Manion knows about but Paul doesn’t. The maneuver catches everyone off guard and Manion loses his cool in courtroom and Paul barely recovers.I realize that I have given away the verdict of the trial, but perhaps that is necessary to explain the power of the film, certainly in 1959. That March Susan Hayward had won her only Oscar for I Want to Live!, a film in which an innocent woman is sentenced to death and bravely goes to the gas chamber. That was considered revolutionary; today it is ham-handed. By contrast, the fact that we spent an entire movie watching and in fact rooting for an attorney to help a guilty man get away with murder — and there’s a good chance it was simply cold-blooded murder — was far more radical that Hollywood was used to and indeed, far bolder than what we got in To Kill A Mockingbird. Preminger was making an argument that was far more cynical than Hollywood was used to but was keeping in with the mood of the era: the McCarthy era has scarred the entire industry and people were found guilty even if they were innocent. But even those blacklisted screenwriters never went so far as to argue the justice system itself was anything but fair; people had gotten away with murder in other films (another favorite on this list will illustrate that) but there was always some kind of retribution involved. Here not only does Manion walk away from a murder but Paul seems fine going along each time a new lie is told.The movie is filled with magnificent performances but at the center is the work of Stewart. Stewart received what would be his final Oscar nomination for Anatomy of A Murder and he probably should have won. (He lost to Charlton Heston in the Oscar sweep of Ben Hur.) Much of the work that Stewart after he returned from World War II was among the best of his career, particularly the films he made with Hitchcock and John Ford but this performance strikes a perfect balance between the cynical nature of so much of his work in the 1950s and 1960s and the youthful idealism we saw in the work he did with Frank Capra. I can’t imagine Gregory Peck being able to do the same thing that Stewart does here.Anatomy Of A Murder received seven Oscar nominations, though Preminger was not nominated for Best Director. Most of the nominees from that era, such as Diary of Anne Frank and Ben Hur do not have the same depth that this film does, though the classic of that era Some Like It Hot will live forever. (Naturally, the Oscars did not nominate it for Best Picture.) But there is something about this movie that argues that it is one of the great courtroom dramas in history and certainly a more accurate film about the legal process that Mockingbird is. Many people may have gone to law school hoping to be Atticus Finch, but they no doubt ended up as Paul Biegler and they might want to see this film only to know that their real hero was out there and they never knew it. They’ll also get to see a real legal legend (Welch actually was nominated for a Golden Globe) and a great score by Duke Ellington. Pretty sure there was none of that in Mockingbird.