Cinema: The New Pictures, Jul. 13, 1959

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...

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