Anatomy of a Murder

Anatomy of a Murder (Otto Preminger, 1959) The novel of "Anatomy of a Murder" (by judge John D. Voelker and based on a 1952 murder case where he was the defense attorney) was a number one best-seller in 1958—and on the New York Times Best-Seller List for 62 weeks!—so it was fast-tracked to the movies with a tight script and un-fussy but frame-filling direction by Otto Preminger. The German producer-director shot it in one mere month and had it edited and scored ready for previewing 21 days after that. That could be the reason why the film is a whopping 161 minutes long, or it could just be that the film is so full of good stuff there wasn't anything to cut out.

 

But, "that stuff" was enough to make it controversial—and even banned in a couple places—in the U.S. of the 1950's. Preminger always enjoyed thumbing his nose at the Hays Code, and Anatomy of a Murder's constant harping on rape, torn panties, spermatogenesis, penetration, contraception and the terms "climax," "bitch" and "slut" were enough to draw people away from their televisions—where married couples couldn't sleep in the same bed—and into theaters (although star  James Stewart's own father considered it "a dirty picture").

Stewart plays, well, basically author-judge Voelker, loving the law and fishing. Retired D.A. Paul Biegler (Stewart) is enjoying a happy retirement—forced on him by being voted out of his district attorney position—of fishing and free jazz when he's approached by Laura Manion (Lee Remick) to defend her Army Lieutenant husband, Fred (Ben Gazzara), who has been arrested for murder in nearby Thunder Bay, Michigan. The victim was a local innkeeper named Barney Quill. Meeting Mannion in prison, Biegler finds him admitting to the murder, but defends it saying that Quill raped his wife. He also claims that he has no memory of killing Quill, just the sort of detail Biegler can hook his defense on.

With his secretary sardonic Maida Rutledge (Eve Arden) and alcoholic colleague Parnell McCarthy (Arthur O'Connell), the small consortium start doing research in the law stacks and strategizing their defense of Manion, which will entail a little manipulation of the facts...or at least some creative presentation. For instance, Manion's lack of recall lends itself to a defense precedent for temporary insanity based on "irresistible impulse"—that'll mean expert witnesses whose theories might lead to debunking by cross-examination.

Then, there's the matter of  Laura Manion, who is (shall we say?) a little "loose"—not only in her manner, but also with the facts— andcould be smeared at trial for "provoking" her attacker—the usual "tarnish the victim" strategy. So, she is coached, given a make-over, and presented in such a way at trial to be as unprovocative as possible. But, the facts of the case and Quill's attack can't be denied, try as the prosecuting team—local D.A. Mitch Lodwick (Brooks West) and stringer, big-city prosecutor April Dancer (George C. Scott, in one of his early highly acidic roles)—might, so they go after the tenuous "irresistible impulse" defense and the Manion's volatile married life. This creates a highly charged trial with Dancer's vicious cobra-like questioning and Biegler's "courtroom theatrics" thundering back and forth. One would swear 50% of the dialog consists of "Objection!" Pity the poor judge (played by Joseph N. Welch, he was made famous by the Army-McCarthy hearings—and had no shame to exploit it!).

Anatomy of a Murder is different than most of the trial depictions that 1959 audiences were used to. Saturated with previous courtroom dramas and the weekly trials of "Perry Mason" on television, viewers were seeing these things as mystery stories, with the investigating going on in real time only to have the solution revealed at the end. This one, however, already has the "whodunnit" sorted out before the first swing of the gavel. The emphasis is on debate, advocacy, counter-arguments, presentation, theatrics, and, frankly, scoring points with the jury. It's more like a real trial process is, but with better lines and better actors.

And...it's a hell of lot less boring. But, then, the law SHOULD be boring. Theatrics only muddy the head-waters to the truth. And to justice.

Scott goes in for the kill: "Barney Quill was WHAT, Miss Pilant?!"

But, it's also a movie on the cusp of change, especially with the actors, a mix of old Hollywood, young Turks, and The Method, the clashing styles all giving off friction-sparks in the proceedings. It is a genuine thrill to watch aging pro Stewart at full volume going after the intensely malevolent Scott and more than holding his own, or watch him back off and scrutinize the inscrutable performance of Gazzara. Stewart always makes it look easy, but he was a student of the acting form with a vast array of tricks in his kit-bag. He navigates the styles and generations of actors like a well-tuned sports car, constantly and smoothly shifting.

It's always a pleasure to sit back and judge Anatomy of a Murder. It sure beats jury-duty.

Laura

Laura (Otto Preminger, 1944) A favorite for many film-goers for the unique reason that it's a multi-hyphenate of genres. Laura ticks off many boxes: a detective story, a murder mystery, a love story, a ghost story, a "woman's picture," and a proto-film noir.

The story of the murder of advertising executive Laura Hunt (played by Gene Tierney) is an investigation into the gossipy underbelly of New York high society, contrasting the low-down jealousies and back-biting of the rich and famous amid the glamorous fashions and elite penthouse settings, all seen through the eyes of an unimpressed gumshoe trying to see the truth behind the lace curtains.

 

The film's production history is a tempestuous one, filled with office politics at 20th Century Fox--studio head Darryl F. Zanuck had an on-going feud with producer Otto Preminger, but with Zanuck in Europe with the Army Signal Corps documenting the war effort, he had no say in Preminger's work on an adaptation of the property, which came to him when it was still the first draft of a stage-play called "Ring Twice for Laura" written by Vera Caspary. Preminger saw it as a good vehicle to make his directorial debut, and tried collaborating with the author to make it a viable project for the stage...and screen.

Ultimately, the two parted ways and Caspary turned her story into a 7-part serial for Collier's magazine with play's original title, which when re-published in book-form was shortened to, simply, "Laura" and was bought for development at 20th Century Fox.

It falls on jaded New York police detective Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews) to find out who murdered the influential ad executive Laura Hunt (Tierney), and forensics doesn't help as she was killed by a shotgun blast to the face just inside her swanky apartment. No murder weapon has been found, so he makes the rounds of Laura's acquaintances to see if he can come up with any motivation behind the killing. First, he sees Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb), notorious newspaper columnist, who, after initially dismissing the ambitious Miss Hunt, became her Svengali/mentor. Lydecker used his column to promote the up-and-coming designer, but also to disparage any suitors approaching Laura on a romantic basis.

That didn't seem to dissuade Shelby Carpenter (Vincent Price), Laura's fianceé at the time of her death and boy-toy of her aunt (Judith Anderson). McPherson gives them all third degree burns, but is no closer to cracking the case: which of these high-toned, impeccably-dressed lizards would have, well, just the bad taste to do in Laura? Appearances may be deceiving, so he doubles down on Laura's old haunts, her apartment, going through her letters and diary, trying to read between the lines, looking to her thoughts on who might be the culprit. Instead of learning more about any suspects, he learns more about the girl, finding a woman of ambition, yes, but, a different sort than the duplicitous phony-balonies she was navigating amongst.

That's where "the twist" comes in. McPherson finds himself falling in love with the dead woman, and things only get more complicated from there, deepening the resentments that the suspects have against the lower-class detective.

Once Preminger had the script he wanted (with some venomous contributions from Ring Lardner Jr.), but his plans to direct were vetoed when Zanuck came back from Europe. Preminger was relegated to producer, and the studio head ultimately gave the director's chair to Rouben Mamoulian, who must have sensed that his producer would lose in any battle with Zanuck, and so started to re-write the script and do his own casting, using a painting by his wife for the portrait of Laura, and favoring the more sinister Laird Cregar (Hitchcock's The Lodger) as Lydecker over Preminger's choice, the slight and haughty Clifton Webb.

 

Preminger and Webb prevailed, but none of the cast was happy with Mamoulian's direction in the first days of filming, where he ignored Tierney, Andrews and Webb, and encouraged a stagey performance by Anderson. A mutiny began among the cast and Zanuck was forced to fire Mamoulian and replace him with his antagonist, Otto Preminger. Preminger kept the cast, but re-staged all of Mamoulian's work, even going so far as to toss the portrait by the director's wife.

But, there was one more ingredient that was needed to make the film an immortal classic. Zanuck assigned David Raksin to do the score and the composer met with the TCF head following a screening: "I liked the picture at once but was disheartened to hear [producer Darryl] Zanuck immediately zero in on an essential scene in which...the detective assigned to solve the ostensible murder, wanders disconsolately around Laura's apartment at night. I gathered that the sequence had already been severely shortened, and now it was about to be reduced still further. . . . There was a horrified hush when I was heard to interject, 'But, if you cut that scene, nobody will understand that the detective is in love with Laura.' Zanuck turned toward me, then ... told me that he was about to trim the sequence again precisely because he felt that as it stood the audience would not understand it. . . . I persisted. 'This is one of those scenes,' said I, 'in which music could tip the balance--tell the audience how the man feels. And if it doesn't work, you can still trim the sequence.'"

Meeting with Preminger, Raksin was also disheartened to hear the director had planned to use Duke Ellington's "Sophisticated Lady" for the score, and told the director that he would have a better substitute by the next Monday morning. He was dissatisfied with his work—the legend goes—until he finally got around to reading the "Dear John" letter his wife had sent him. That was the inspiration for the "Theme from Laura", which Preminger was impressed by, Zanuck approved (the sequence wasn't trimmed any further) which became a huge hit, quite apart from the movie. It did add one element that was missing from the movie, even if it hinted at motivation—sentimentality, the melancholy sort. And it hammers home the point that love is such a strange beast that it can make one fall in love with a ghost. It is a love story, after all.

It was nominated for five Oscars (winning for Cinematography) and in 1999, it was voted into the National Film Registry. But, the ultimate test is that it still holds up today (even after being copied for at least one episode of every detective show on television) for its wit, sophistication, and downright grisliness. Good movies are not all that common. It takes a certain magic, an indefinable "something" of happenstance that makes one more than its separate elements. Given its turbulent production history and how many times it avoided mis-steps, Laura is something of a miracle.

Frank Sinatra had a hit with "Laura"

but there's something about Raksin's scoring that is...haunting.

Skidoo

Saturday is traditionally "Take Out the Trash" Day...and they don't get much more trashy than this one...

Skidoo (Otto Preminger, 1968) Legendarily off-kilter comedy by that "master" of comedy, Otto Preminger, who, in his effort to make a movie that was "with it" perpetrated a film so far without "it," that one wonders why nobody told him it might be a bad idea...for any director. 

 

It might have been because there wasn't anybody at Paramount Pictures who had the power or the industry knowledge to be credible to a movie veteran like Preminger. Paramount had been "acquired" by Gulf and Western in 1966 and its chairman Charles Bluhdorn had made his mark in auto parts, zinc mines and manufacturing and was furthering his mint-making by buying up properties and tinkering or selling them off. Preminger was making films for Paramount and was a "studio property" who'd had a history of making edgy films that would challenge taboo's, but whose recent films were considered both artistic and financial failures.

This did nothing for the fortunes of Paramount, which, if you look at the films being released in that period (before bringing on Robert Evans as head of production) betrays of a long line of losers with the odd hit—usually a foreign acquisition, like Alfie and films that might be interesting (Seconds) but didn't attract an audience. The industry itself was seeing a downturn in receipts with more color TV's in homes and a calcified audience that wasn't getting any younger. Preminger thought he had a solution—make a movie that would appeal to "the kids."

Retired hitman Tony Banks (Jackie Gleason) has his evening of television interrupted by a pair of mobsters, Hechy (Caesar Romero) and son Angie (Frankie Avalon), who have orders from their boss "God" (this will be revealed as Groucho Marx, his first film appearance in eleven years) to knock off "Blue Chips" Packard (Mickey Rooney) who is due to testify before a Senate committee on organized crime. Banks begs retirement, but when a buddy (Arnold Stang) is found dead, he goes along with the plot for the safety of his wife Flo (Carol Channing) and his daughter Darlene (Alexandra Hay).

The idea is to have Banks smuggled into the same prison as Packard and then whack him—or "kiss him" in the mob parlance used in the film. He is incarcerated with Leech (Michael Constantine) a psychopath and "The Professor" (Austin Pendleton) a technical wizard arrested for draft-dodging. Meanwhile, Darlene's new boyfriend Stash (John Phillip Law) and his gang of "hippies" are being hassled by the police for their anti-establishment ways and Flo, being a bit of a free spirit herself, helps them from being arrested for living in the streets and invites them into her home.

Tony already has guilt feelings about whacking "Blue Chips" but when he mistakenly takes a tab of acid provided by The Professor, he gives up on the idea and instead tries to find a way of breaking out—involving lacing all of the food in the prison with LSD and escaping by makeshift balloon when everybody is high as kites.

The movie's heart might be in the right place, but it's mind is utterly lost. Maybe they were thinking they were making an all-out all-star comedy like It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World—a favorite of writer Mark Evanier, and who takes the opportunity to trash Skidoo every time it comes out of hiding. Sure, there are grudging pleasures: it features performances by the Big Three Batman TV villains with Romero, Frank Gorshin and Burgess Meredith, all acting, as does everyone in the film,in a manner that would charitably called "broad." Small parts with Richard Kiel and Slim Pickens. The notion that they filmed part of it on John Wayne's yacht. The score by Nilsson is harmless—he sings the End Credits—but it's not exactly good, either.

Nor is the film by any stretch of the imagination, even stretched pharmaceutically. There are sequences—a musical number with dancing garbage cans for instance—that are so badly thought out and executed that it is doppler-shifted into inscrutability in post. There is a cold-sweat chill of desperation over the whole enterprise. Sometimes even that can be cruelly funny. But not here. Even the casting of grizzled—if professional—veterans can't remove the stink of mercenary pandering and witless and dull-edged stabs at satire.

It's a mess. And not a funny one. Not even the knowledge of incompetence—as with the films of Ed Wood—can save it. One can only look at it with the hope that the bottom of the barrel has been reached. But even that hope gives no comfort. 

 

Bad trip, dude. 

Bunny Lake is Missing

Bunny Lake is Missing (Otto Preminger, 1966) It starts normally enough. Most nightmares do.

American Ann Lake (Carol Lynley), newly moved to London following with her brother Steven (Keir Dullea) who has moved for a prominent new job there, goes to pick up her daughter Bunny at the private school she's just enrolled her in. 

But, she can't find her. Nobody at the school remembers her, and can't recall seeing her. The teachers (including Anna Massey) are trying to deal with a crush of new kids starting off to school, so it's a little hard to pin-point the one individual child from the pack. But Ann is insistent, almost to the point of hysteria, and Steven is no help, poking around and questioning the odd woman (Martita Hunt) who lives above the school, berating the teachers and being oddly, vaguely threatening. Fearing a "bit of a row", the police are called in to investigate.

In walks Superintendant Newhouse (Sir Laurence Olivier) and his adjutant Williams (Clive Revill). Newhouse is a bit fusty, a might impatient, trying to understand a situation he doesn't quite fathom. He has an hysterical mother, a "helicoptering" brother, and a "missing person" that no one seems to have seen. It's all quite queer. He presses for details that seem to be there but no corroborating witnesses. He starts a line of inquiry that begins with a search of Steven and Ann's apartment.

When they get there, all traces of "Bunny Lake" are gone. No clothes, no toys, no dolls. Nothing. There isn't a sign that a child has ever lived there. Ever. Newhouse begins to suspect (as do we) that "Bunny Lake" is not only missing, but never existed in the first place. She may just be a figment of Ann's imagination, and the investigation changes from a "missing person" case to an investigation of Ann's psychological state. Steven volunteers that Ann had an imaginary friend as a child that was named "Bunny," and that steers Newhouse to try a different line of inquiry.

He takes Ann to a local pub where he begins an odd line of investigation. He asks Ann about "Bunny" and their history, hoping to liquor her up to find the truth. He learns that, while in the States, Ann had a boyfriend who got her pregnant and skipped out and Ann kept the baby, whom she called "Bunny." Steven was livid at the boyfriend's behavior and had even threatened him, but decided, instead, to get Ann out of that environment, taking a job in London and moving there with Ann and the child.

If the move had improved Steven's temper, it isn't noticeable when he storms into the pub and accuses Newhouse of trying to "railroad" his sister, and, instead of trying to find "Bunny," of trying to prove his sister is crazy. He warns the police to stay away from her...and him and do their jobs finding the missing child. Newhouse demurs, but he widens the search to find out what he can about the Lakes...all of them. 

Meanwhile, for the audience, the list of possibilities grows with every scene. That crazy old lady in the school's attic apartment doesn't seem the most stable of people, the cook who took charge of "Bunny" in the morning goes missing as well. Then, there's the actor-neighbor of the Lakes (Noel Coward), who can only be described as "pan-sexual," making a pass at Ann when they're alone. Maybe there is a "Bunny Lake," given all the potential suspects that would be handy to commit the crime. Maybe there isn't. And maybe Ann is being "gas-lit," led down a particular path to drive her crazy.

Adapted by John Mortimer (he created "Rumpole of the Bailey") and his wife Penelope (The Pumpkin Eater)—with a reported assist from Ira Levin—from a novel by Marryamm Modell, Bunny Lake is Missing is directed by Otto Preminger, a director who vacillated between prestige projects and controversial ones, to the point where one wondered whether he favored making good movies or headlines. But, he rarely played it safe, except in matters of budget. Here, he combines the genres of noir (with which he was all too familiar, having directed one of the classic ones, Laura) and the psychological drama, which Hitchcock had exploited successfully before and who had reached the box-office apex with Psycho.

Since 1960, Preminger had produced and directed big budget blockbusters with novel credibility—Anatomy of a Murder, Advise and Consent, The Cardinal, Exodus, and In Harm's Way. With Bunny Lake... there was budgetary down-sizing, so that less money was at stake, but Preminger's reputation was such that he could still get actors like Olivier and Coward, even if the film was small in scope and less than seemly in content. He changed the book's location from New York to London (probably for budget reasons, but also to benefit from an unfamiliar British cast and enhancing the disorientation of the "Ann" character). And somewhere along the way, they also changed the ending of the book to lend an extra element of surprise. 

Preminger favored long "takes," getting the most mileage out of his actors and his shooting day, editing being dictated by how things went on stage—nothing fancy. Preminger, who favored black and white for cinematography whenever he could, filled the screen with rich areas of darkness, learned from his early noir's.
Bunny Lake is engaging, fairly engrossing for most of its length with odd curiosities along the way. That it doesn't quite fulfill the promise of maintaining it might be a bit in the playing of it, rather than in the preparation.