Anatomy of a Murder (1959)

Director Otto Preminger's daring courtroom drama was about an explosive rape and murder case. The plot was based on a real-life case that occurred in July of 1952 in the small town of Big Bay in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, when returning Korean vet Lt. Coleman Peterson shot and killed tavern owner Mike Chenoweth, allegedly because Chenoweth raped Coleman’s wife, Charlotte. A plea of temporary insanity was argued for Peterson and he was freed of the charges after a trial.

There were numerous concerns about the film's content (a rape trial), and various objectionable words. The Production Code of the time demanded that director Preminger excise the words sperm, sexual climax and penetration and restrict the use of the words panties and rape. The National Catholic Legion of Decency complained of the film's impropriety, and its screening in Chicago was delayed when censorship advocates argued that the words "intercourse," "contraceptive" and "birth control" needed to be deleted. A Federal judge ruled it was not obscene, however, because it did not "tend to excite sexual passion or undermine public morals."

The film opened with Saul Bass' sytlized designs for the title credits.

As the film commenced, country-styled, crafty, small-town defense lawyer Paul "Pauly" Biegler (James Stewart) was introduced as a Philadelphia ex-prosecutor and confirmed bachelor more interested in jazz piano and fishing than trying cases. He was with one of his closest associates Parnell McCarthy (Arthur O’Connell), an alcoholic colleague, when he received a phone call from Laura Manion (Lee Remick), asking him to defend her husband in an impending case and to speak to him the next morning.

Before leaving for the jailhouse the next day, Biegler briefly spoke to his mocking secretary Maida Rutledge (Eve Arden). Biegler met the attractive wife Laura leaning on her car outside the jail. She displayed a right black eye behind her sunglasses (she claimed it was from a rape incident, although it was also probable her husband slapped her).

In a private room, Biegler met with hot-tempered, rude and brutish Army officer Lt. Frederick "Manny" Manion (Ben Gazzara) from a nearby base. He had been charged with the first-degree murder of Barney Quill - the bartender and keeper-owner of Thunder Bay Inn who had allegedly sexually assaulted Laura Manion, his wife. An hour after his wife told him about the rape, he counter-attacked with pre-meditated, cold-blooded intent. Manion shot and killed Quill, and then turned himself in and was arrested for first-degree murder. Manion alleged that the murder was justified because Quill had raped her, but the time element was a major issue. At first, Biegler suggested that Manion plead guilty and ask for mercy, and hope for the jury's sympathy. But then when Manion said: "I must have been mad..I mean, uh, I must have been crazy," Biegler thought that might be a possible avenue to argue.

The innocently-portrayed, yet slightly trampy-acting Laura spoke to Biegler about the night of the attack and what she was wearing: "In a sweater, like this, and a skirt...Underneath? I had on a slip and panties and a bra....I don't need a girdle. Do you think I need a girdle?..." She had been offered a ride home after leaving the bar at 11 pm, but her trailer park auto gate was locked. She then described Quill's rape-attack upon her in his car parked off the road on a lane in the woods. He hit her, tore off her panties, and then raped her:

"And then he grabbed me and he said, 'I'm gonna rape you.' Just like that... Exactly those words...I fought him off as best I could, but he was terribly strong...He began to shout names at me like 'army slut' and some other names. And then, he drew back and hit me with his fist. He hit me again and I didn't fight anymore. I must've been only half-conscious, but I know that he tore my panties off and did what he wanted."

Conversation About the Rape Between Laura and Biegler

However, a doctor had examined Laura and said he didn't think she had been raped. She shot back: "I don't care what the doctor thought, a woman doesn't mistake these things." [Note: There was always the possibility that Laura was bartender Quill's lover and that Manion killed him and beat her up when he discovered them together.]

Hired to represent and defend Manion, Biegler took a strategic tactic - he urged his client to claim that he had no memory of the homicide (even though five shots were fired) and to plead temporary insanity (or "irresistible impulse") - a blinding rage that made him powerless to stop him from committing the murder.

Shortly later, Laura and Biegler had a lengthy open-car conversation, when she admitted her husband was always insanely jealous of her looks, and she was afraid of him. She confessed:

"He was jealous even before we were married. I should've known how it would be. It's funny, though. He likes to show me off. He likes me to dress the way I do, and then he gets furious if a man pays any attention to me. I've tried to leave him, but I can't. He begs, I give in."

Biegler received a definitive answer to his repeated, pointed question before the trial: "Does your husband have any reason to be jealous?" She coyly answered: "No, not once, not ever."

While researching the case, Biegler visited the bar at Thunder Bay and learned that the pretty hotel manager Mary Pilant (Kathryn Grant) had recently moved there two years earlier from Canada, and was now bound to inherit the place. When Biegler asked her about the rape, she claimed she knew nothing about it ("I don't know what happened with Lt. Manion's wife so there really isn't anything for me to explain...Barney was well-liked here by everyone, Mr. Biegler). She became upset by Biegler's insinuation ("It's very generous of everyone to overlook his little faults, like raping other men's wives"), became upset, and left the table.

Biegler became concerned when he witnessed his client's soused wife Laura at a roadhouse party dancing with some GIs. He whisked her away and ordered her to return home immediately: ("I'm the lawyer trying to beat the rap for your husband. Do you remember?"). He implicitly ordered her to stay away from men and party-places, and wear a girdle in order to play the part of a "meek little housewife" rather than that of a happy-go-lucky party girl. He also specifically suggested that she must act demurely before and during the trial, and that she should visit her husband at the jail more often:

Now you listen, now until this trial's over, you're gonna be a meek little housewife with horn-rimmed spectacles. And you're gonna stay away from men and juke joints, and booze and pinball machines. And you're gonna wear a skirt and low-heeled shoes. And you're gonna wear a girdle. And especially a girdle. Look, Laura, believe me. I don't usually complain of an attractive jiggle, but just, you save that jiggle for your husband to look at - if and when I get him out of jail.

She consented to wearing more appropriate formal clothing (a baggy woman's suit), horn-rimmed glasses, and a hat in court. However, after he drove her to her trailer park, she said she was very lonely in the trailer all by herself: ("I had to get out of that trailer. I couldn't stand being cooped up all the time. I'm-I'm lonely, Paul. I'm awful lonely. I wouldn't have gone to that roadhouse if it weren't for that, you know?"). She also stated off-handedly that she would be happy if her husband was convicted, because she could then be free of him: ("You mean you think maybe Manny won't get off?...If he didn't, it'd be one way to end it. No, I don't mean that. I may think it sometimes, but I don't really want it").

Two days before the trial opened, Detroit army psychiatrist Dr. Matthew Smith (Orson Bean) had diagnosed that Manion was suffering from "dissociative reaction" (the "irresistible impulse" or "temporary insanity" defense that Biegler wanted). The crux of the case that Beigler planned to argue hinged on a precedent established in an 1886 Michigan Supreme Court ruling (in People v. Durfee) that a defendant was forced to commit a crime because of an "irresistible impulse" he could not control: ("Nevertheless, if he was forced to its execution by an impulse - by an impulse, which he was powerless to control, he will be excused from punishment").

During the melodramatic, sensationalist courtroom scenes and deliberations, the crafty Biegler was pitted against two lawyers: the local DA Mitch Lodwick (Brooks West), and flamboyant, tough "big city" co-counsel and assistant prosecuting attorney Claude Dancer (George C. Scott). Dancer and the prosecution wished to block any mention of Manion's motive for killing Quill - the raping of Laura. A doctor's testimony brought up touchy subjects such as the fertility of the sperm of Quill: ("Spermatogenesis was occurring at the time of death"), and Beigler clarified: "In other words, the deceased, in life, was not sterile. He could produce children." Also, determinations regarding intercourse were also made in the post-analysis - the doctor reported that there was no evidence that Laura had been raped: ("There could be several reasons why the test on her was negative. The use of a contraceptive, or possibly, there was no completion on the part of the man").

However, Biegler eventually was able to persuade level headed, even-tempered Judge Weaver (real-life Boston lawyer Joseph Welch in his only screen appearance (famous for asking in the Army-McCarthy hearings in 1954 - "Have you no decency at last, sir?")) to rule in his favor and get Laura Manion's rape issue into the record, when in a monologue, he described how the shooting and killing of Quill was triggered by Manion's "temporary insanity":

"Your Honor, how can the jury accurately estimate the testimony being given here unless they first know the reason behind this whole trial -- why Lt. Manion shot Barney Quill? Now, the prosecution would like to separate the motive from the act. Well, that's, that's like trying to take the core from an apple without breaking the skin. Well, now, the core of our defense is that the defendant's temporary insanity was triggered by this so-called trouble with Quill. And I beg the court, I-I beg the court to let me cut into the apple."

After a few pregnant moments after he wound his watch, the Judge made a decision to allow the motive for the murder into the case: "Objection overruled." During questioning, it was alleged that Quill beat and raped Laura - and afterwards, Manion - under an "irresistible impulse," had calmly walked to the tavern about an hour later, and committed the crime with five shots of a gun. Was he legally sane or insane?

Later in the testimony regarding the alleged rape, another doctor testified: "It's impossible to tell if a mature, married woman has been raped....Insofar as no sperm was present, it didn't appear that she had had recent relations with a man...Violation is sufficient for rape. There need not be a completion."

Dancer's strategy was to paint Laura as a trampy, loose, provocative and seductive adulteress who wore tight clothing to entice men. In response, Biegler had Laura show off her beauty as a point in his favor: "It's pretty easy to understand why her husband became temporarily deranged, when he saw such beauty bruised and torn by a beast."

During a break in the trial, Biegler spoke again to Mary Pilant about her father, and also heard again from the bartender Al Paquette (Murray Hamilton) who had witnessed the murder. The lawyer, hypothesizing that Paquette was covering up for the rape, attempted to persuade Paquette to testify that Quill had indeed raped Laura, but he refused: ("Barney wouldn't hurt a woman").

Mary Pilant	Bartender Witness Al Paquette (Murray Hamilton) with Mary	Mary's Explosive "Panties" Testimony

When Laura took the stand, Dancer was able to get her to divulge on the record that she was previously married, and tied the knot with Manion three days after her divorce. He also made 'veiled suggestions' about her frequent flirtatious behavior: "When you left to go to the inn, did your husband know you were going?...Had you ever gone to the Thunder Bay Inn or elsewhere in Thunder Bay, alone at night?...Did your husband know you were going?...Did you ever go to meet another man?...You mean to say, Mrs. Manion, a lovely woman like yourself, attractive to men, lonely, restless, that you never once...On these occasional excursions into the night, did you always go and return home alone?...Was this the first time you had been in Barney Quill's car at night?"

Laura Manion On the Stand Against Dancer

The trial contained daring details, testimony, and evidence regarding contraceptives, rape charges, and the entering into evidence of white or pink nylon lace "lost panties" (allegedly torn off by Quill): "Do you always wear panties?...Since they've not been found, I submit that it's possible she wasn't wearing any and has forgotten." Dancer suggested that Laura hadn't worn panties that night, and that she lied about being raped to prevent her insanely jealous husband from beating her: ("Is your husband a jealous man?...Did he hit you that night?...Hadn't he already beaten you up at the gate when he caught you coming home from a trip down lovers' lane with Barney Quill?").

Damning but unreliable testimony was provided by Manion's cellmate Duane "Duke" Miller (Don Ross) who claimed that Manion had told him that he had fooled everyone in court and then he made a shocking statement about what Manion also said: "He said that when he got out, the first thing he was gonna do was to kick that bitch from here to kingdom come." Biegler had Manion testify that he had never beaten his wife at any time.

It was also verified by the last witness, inn manager Mary Pilant who was the sole heiress of the Thunder Bay Inn, that she had found Laura's missing (and torn) white laced panties the next day in the laundry chute near Quill's room. Supposedly, Quill had dropped them down the laundry chute when he returned home. Dancer argued that Mary was lying - he assumed that she was Quill's mistress ("Are you Barney Quill's mistress?") and that she had sought jealous revenge against Quill's interest in Laura. The most shocking revelation of the case reversed Dancer's theory - Quill was actually Mary's father and she was his illegitimate daughter.

In the quick conclusion to the case, Manion was found not guilty (by reason of temporary insanity at the time of the shooting). He unexpectedly left town with Laura (who was seen crying) - with only a note for Biegler, explaining that he was seized by an "irresistible impulse" to leave. Evidence at the trailer park in the trash barrel suggested that Manion was a heavy gin drinker who beat Laura before they left (the reason for her tears).

The film ended with a mystifying possibility that the Manions had duped everyone - it was highly probable that Laura's sexual encounter with Quill was consensual (and not rape) and that Manion had killed Quill out of drunken jealousy.