You need only get a few seconds into Anatomy of a Murder (1959) before you realize it’s not the film you thought it would be. When you hear the words “Jimmy Stewart” and “courtroom drama” in short succession in the description, you expect a Capraesque affirmation of the American justice system. You assume the opening titles—the first thing you see—to be in clear, bright letters and backed by a rousing score. Instead, we get an enigmatic title sequence by Saul Bass portraying a human body cut into pieces, and a score of cool, piercing jazz composed for the film by D.C. legend Duke Ellington, who also cameos. This is not the courtroom drama you thought it would be.
Nominated for seven Academy Awards, Anatomy of a Murder is based on the 1958 novel by John D. Voelker, a defense attorney who handled a case similar to the one depicted in the film. The facts are clear: Army Lieutenant Frederick Manion (Ben Gazzara) shot and killed a barkeep who he believed had raped his wife, Laura (Lee Remick). Stewart plays Paul Biegler, a former district attorney now technically working as a defense lawyer in his small Michigan town, though he spends more time fishing and playing the piano. The case intrigues him, maybe because of the challenge of convincing a jury that the coolheaded Frederick was temporarily insane at the time of the shooting. Or maybe he would like to spend more time with the beautiful Laura, who seems unperturbed by the sentence awaiting her husband and is eager to flirt with a handsome lawyer. Everyone in Anatomy of a Murder is open to our suspicion, and no motives are clearly spelled out.
With a tough case defended by a lawyer in search of redemption, Anatomy of a Murder is like a clean template for the courtroom drama, but with a pervert’s wet dream layered on top of it. Paul describes Frederick’s fevered state—in a phrase repeated numerous times throughout the film—as that of an “irresistible impulse,” words that conjure thoughts of lust, murder, or any other number of human urges. It could apply to pretty much every character in the film. Laura is portrayed as unabashedly sexual; her alleged flirtations with the man who raped her are weaponized against her while on the stand, but the rumors and innuendo doesn’t stop her from flirting heavily with Paul every chance she gets. Then there’s Paul’s associate Parnell (Arthur O’Connell), an aging alcoholic who struggles to stay sober during the trial. Even the no-nonsense district attorney Claude Dancer (George C. Scott), called in from Lansing to prosecute the case, seems driven by a sweaty, insatiable desire to win. No one here can control themselves.
The thrumming lust isn’t there just to titillate the audience. It’s to challenge them—and the establishment that would rather such urges be stricken from the record. To convince the jury of his client’s temporary insanity, Paul has to convince them a rape took place, and this requires going into detail. Watching Anatomy of a Murder now, it may not shock to hear the characters discuss rape freely, or use words like “sperm,” “sexual climax,” or “panties.” In 1959, the Production Code—a list of prohibited subjects that, if violated, could prevent a film from being distributed—was still in effect. Among the Code’s prohibitions were “any inference of sex perversion” and “any lecherous or licentious notice.” That made Anatomy of a Murder dangerous to produce, as there was a chance it would have to be cut severely to pass muster, and to distribute, as crusading moralists could have easily risen up against it and brought it down in a wave of bad press.
In a sense, it was a battle for creative freedom that director Otto Preminger had been fighting for several years. His 1955 film Man with the Golden Arm pushed the boundaries of portraying drug addiction on screen. It was initially denied the Production Code’s Seal of Approval, but theaters showed it anyway, significantly weakening the Code’s power. In 1960, he broke the Hollywood blacklist by announcing publicly that Dalton Trumbo, one of the most public victims of the House Un-American Activities Committee, would be his screenwriter for Exodus. Preminger, an Austrian Jew who immigrated to the U.S. in 1935, likely saw Anatomy of a Murder as an opportunity to push boundaries around the language of sex and sexual assault. It worked, as the film earned a hefty box office, praise from critics, and the disapproval of at least one old-timer: Stewart’s own father thought it was a “dirty picture” and even took out an ad in a newspaper discouraging people from seeing the film.
It’s unlikely anyone would be shocked by Anatomy of a Murder today, but there’s a fresh thrill in seeing the conventions of the courtroom drama trotted out for the first time, and its lingering sense of moral ambiguity is still jarring. Perhaps it’s due to the presence of Stewart, who was almost always on the side of right. He is so sympathetic and endearing that we can almost shake the sense that his client may very well be guilty, but every once in a while we get reminded we might be on the wrong side of the law. It’s there in the smirking side-eye of Gazzara, the baldly manipulative aw-shucks grandstanding by Stewart, and the pervasive sense that purity has no place in a courtroom. If jazz were a movie, it would be Anatomy of a Murder, a tilted portrait of American justice that pleases and pushes us at once. Duke must have been proud.
Anatomy of a Murder (NR, 161 minutes) plays April 26, 28, and May 1 at AFI Silver. silver.afi.com. $11–$13.