Anatomy of a Murder (Carlyle Productions; Columbia), based on the 1958 bestseller by Robert T raver (pen name of Justice John D. Voelker of the Michigan Supreme Court), is a courtroom melodrama that seems less concerned with murder than with anatomy. In scene after scene, the customers are bombarded with such no-nonsense words as "intercourse . . . contraceptive . . . spermatogenesis . . . sexual climax." And even the least barkbound of spectators may find himself startled to see and hear, in his neighborhood movie house, extended discussion of what constitutes rape ("Violation is sufficient; there need not be a completion ... on the part of the man"), of whether a doctor can or cannot "tell if a married woman has been raped." The Chicago police commissioner, at any rate, was so startled that he banned the film, and the moviemakers eagerly expect that other communities will follow suit.
Actually, it is difficult to take offense at any particular passage in the screenplay. The discussions are conducted with verbal propriety and legal objectivity, and every one of them is necessary to the development of the theme. But it is possible to object to the theme itself, and to suspect that the moviemakers picked it principally because it offered opportunities for sensationalism. Nevertheless, the film displays an attitude toward sex that is more wholesome than the merely sniggering spirit that prevails in many a movie; and for those who can stand the straight talk, it provides a memorable exhibition of legal bicker and dicker, infight and outrage.
The plot: a bartender is murdered by an Army lieutenant (Ben Gazzara), who tells the police he committed the crime because the bartender had beaten and raped his wife (Lee Remick). The wife supports the lieutenant's story, and a lie-detector test, though not admissible in evidence, supports her account of the rape. But the medical examiner finds no physical evidence that the woman was violated. What's more, the lieutenant's wife is a well-known tramp about camp. Obviously, the prosecution reasons, she had been a willing partner in whatever happened with the bartender; she had acquired her bruises at the hands of her jealous husband, who had beaten the truth out of her and then rushed off to kill her lover; and she was now lying to save her husband's life. The defense (James Stewart) contends that both husband and wife are telling the truth, and asks acquittal on the ground that the lieutenant had been rendered "temporarily insane" by what had happened to his wife. The verdict is predictable, but the ending has a surprise twist.
At 160 minutes, Anatomy is longer than the subject warrants, but the pace seldom slackens—thanks to the competence of Director Otto Preminger. The actors—particularly Stewart and Remick—handle themselves like the glossy professionals they are; but a number of important scenes are grandly swiped by that slick old (68) amateur, Boston Lawyer Joseph N. Welch, who plays the judge almost as memorably as he played himself on TV during his historic fracas with the late Senator McCarthy.