The DVD of Anatomy is curious, because it informs you that the picture is "full screen" and that it has been "modified" to fit "your screen" (assumed to be 1:1.33). But of course, that was the way it was shot — at 1:1.33 and framed so that cropping it to 1:1.85 in the theatre was fine. So one has to be careful on this subject. Other films shot in the same manner are being released on DVD as 1:1.85 only.

Anatomy of a Murder makes the "favorites" list — but just barely! I think that it is the only Otto Preminger picture to ever make an impression on me at all. Preminger is not generally considered a "stylist" in any way. Despite this, there is an unconscious verisimilitude in this film I rather like — even though everything in the picture seems just ever so slightly stilted and false.

For me, it is fun to visit the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in the late 50s. But to Preminger, it's just another place — no more and no less. It's all the same to him: Michigan, Hollywood, Israel, it's just there. Other directors want to take you there — by whatever means they can, and I think that directors distinguish themselves in the public's mind according to how thoroughly they are able to do this. Preminger is an interesting case, because he was becoming recognized as one of the "bigshot" directors working in Hollywood at the time Anatomy of a Murder was filmed and released. He was another one of those directors who, after cutting their teeth working under contract to the studios, went independent during the collapse of the studio system. His name is all over the posters and credits: "Otto Preminger presents."

© 1959 Carlyle Productions. All Rights Reserved.

And yet this notoriety is difficult to fathom today. Preminger's reputation with the public rests on the fact that he was more daring in terms of the subjects he chose than what he actually accomplished with those subjects. The difference between Anatomy of a Murder and Billy Wilder's Witness for the Prosecution (1957) is largely due to the difference in the type of trial involved. But what differences!

I suppose that Preminger figured that he could boonswaggle people into the tent with promises of scintillating talk about sex, penetration and underwear. It must have worked, for Anatomy was one of the biggest films in the year it was released, allowing Preminger to continue cooking up his conceptions of "showbiz," Exodus (1960) The Cardinal (1965) Skiddoo (1968) and so on; all exercises in exploiting what was currently on the public's mind.

Andrew Sarris once wrote about Wilder's Witness for the Prosecution that "only (Charles) Laughton's owlish performance makes (the film) the tour de force it was intended to be." I would have to say that James Stewart's performance in Anatomy is similar. His presence and character holds the whole thing together. Witness for the Prosecution sometimes feels like a great excuse to hang around with Laughton, Ty Power and Marlene. The twisting convolutions at the end are contrived, but we appreciate them for what they are — a wow finish.

Anatomy ever so slowly introduces us to Paul Biegler, the none-too-successful Michigan lawyer fond of fishing. What interests me is the set up in both films. In Prosecution, Laughton's character is shown in a somewhat poor light as he comes home from the hospital. When he returns to his office for the first time, he finds that his courtroom wig is stored in a box with mothballs. "You might as well thrown me in there too." He grouses. Laughton's language and observations are dripping with legalese that are really rather funny. But that's Wilder. A lawyer will speak like a lawyer.

Here we have Preminger. Preminger is content to open his courtroom drama with a tracking shot of our hero driving his car into frame. The camera slows down, so that we are parallel to Biegler's car, where we can get a good look at him. Then the camera slows down some more, and Biegler's car drives off. Nothing more. Whoopie. Preminger repeats this same move a couple of times during the film, and it's one of the interesting things about how the film is structured. Biegler continues to slowly reveal who he is through visuals only: he arrives home from a fishing trip, looks at the mail, puts his fish in the sink, answers the telephone, and that's about it. This drunken old fool of a has-been lawyer named Parnell McCartney (Arthur O'Connell) shows up without much fuss. His secretary, "Miss" Meta (Eve Arden) arrives the next day and calmly announces that she is the Salt of the Earth type because even though her pay is late, she is going to faithfully sit and answer the telephone.

© 1959 Carlyle Productions. All Rights Reserved.

Preminger was experienced enough to know how to do all of this. It plays. It's atmospheric and feels good to watch. The trick is to get the viewer into this world, so that they become invested in hanging about to see how it all ends. It sure had me going. There has to be a sense of "where is all of this going?" or you have nothing.

Toward this end, you have the wife of the defendant, Laura Manion (Lee Remick), who is just the biggest slut ever put on the screen (at that time — we've been handed LOTS bigger sluts since). Remick has always been a curious talent to me. Most of the time, she seems completely false and artificial. But when the chips are down, and the characters she is playing has to really show some emotion, Remick is always right there, and spot on, fully alive. It's hard for me to imagine what she was really like. I picture her working on the Anatomy locations in a state of happy inebriation, even though I know this cannot be the case. But it is a measure of how fully Remick inhabits this character — despite some of the stiffness one senses in her work.

Same holds true for Frank Manion, the character Ben Gazzara plays. Gazzara is all smoldering hostility and squinty looks. It is part of the structure of the "courtroom drama" that characters don't represent themselves fully at first. But in Gazzara's case, you are looking for the payoff as to why this guy is such an asshole, and it never comes. He is as big a mystery at the finish as he was at the beginning. True to life perhaps, but not especially satisfying dramatically. I can't even imagine why anyone would give two hoots what happens to him — but one does somehow. Then there is the usual assortment of witnesses, including the wonderful Murray Hamilton, playing the bartender Alphonse Paquette. Many people think that Hamilton is a lousy actor, but I don't know where this reputation comes from. He's wonderful here in this film, especially where he is on the witness stand being cross-examined by Stewart. Then too there is Katherine Grant as Mary Pilant, the dead man's employee/lover/daughter. It's more than a little rattling to see the way that Grant plays all her scenes. At first, she is introduced by name to a table full of people by Stewart. After she decides that she doesn't want to be interviewed by the man who is defending her boss' assailant, she gets up, and without missing a beat, bids then all farewell — calling each of them by name. She does all the rest of her scenes with such wide-eyed openness. If they would ever show any real filmmaking guts and make a Barbie movie, I would cast Katherine Grant in a second! I also like Ken Lynch, who plays Police Sergeant Durgo. He sort of blandly gruffs his way through his witness testimony. It's a real contrast to the only other role I know him for, which is playing the sadistic man who catches Jack Lemmon breaking into his liquor store in The Days of Wine and Roses (1962).

Okay, you have a rape case where a man is killed. You have a defendant, who is a taciturn hunk in the Army. His lawyer is a down-at-heel jazz piano playing fishing dropout, played by one of the most likeable actors ever to grace the screen. What else can we do to make this more interesting? Hey, I got a great idea! Let's film the whole thing on location! It turns out the entire movie was filmed in Michigan. The bar in Thunder Bay, the holding tank in jail, where Stewart and Gazzara first meet, the huge courtroom — all of these rooms have an authentic feel to them. There is also something about the quality of the dialog recording in these places that suggests the dawn of extensive location shooting. At least three eighths of Anatomy takes place in this courtroom, but they didn't shoot it on a set. This need to work in real locations gives the film an added texture, even though it is all perfectly shot by Sam Leavitt.

© 1959 Carlyle Productions. All Rights Reserved.

But this is the curious thing about this picture. Anatomy wasn't filmed at a point in cinema history where directors felt the need to make little editorial comments along the way. Here we are attending a rape/murder trial in Michigan, and we are working on real locations with great actors with all the full Hollywood technical expertise. But when Preminger's camera enters the courtroom for the first time, what does it show us? The walls and the people in the courtroom. Contrast this with what David Lean's camera catches when it enters a similarly picturesque courtroom toward the end of A Passage to India (1984). There is a little brown man squatting on the floor in the corner, who pulls up and down on a rope, which is attached to a large flag that sways back and forth over the judge's desk, causing his papers to flutter. What this has to do with anything, the audience is left to discover for themselves, but it is something that Lean wants you to see. It's a real detail (possibly mentioned in E.M. Forrester's book), even though this courtroom is a set on a stage at Elstree.

That is the difference between directors like Preminger, who shot things as they were, and Lean, who really put you there. Although I have not read the novel Anatomy of a Murder, I suspect that it is not especially exciting writing. Preminger wouldn't have bought the screen rights for something more flavorful. That just wasn't his temperament. Anatomy of a Murder bumps along, the Army hunk is acquitted, and we are sitting there waiting for the wow finish — which never comes. Stewart and O'Connell are driving along, Stewart says that because the old fool has been a Good Guy and not fallen off the wagon, that they will be law partners together, which is probably the most low-key redemption of a character in all of cinema.

They drive up to where Gazzara and Remick's trailer was supposed to be, only to discover the pad empty, and a curt note saying, "So long, sucka." The defendants really weren't all that much worth defending, Stewart is screwed out of his fee, and they drive off and Preminger tells us (via Saul Bass titles) that THIS has been Anatomy of a Murder. What??? Crazy, man. Movie over. You can go home now.

I have this theory. It goes like this: That the end of a movie ought to be commensurate with the length of the movie. Long movie, big finish. Short movie, not so big finish. The ending to the three-hour and forty minutes of Gone with the Wind (1939) is bigger than the ending of the three-hour and forty minute Lawrence of Arabia (1962), but the Lawrence story doesn't need to add up to anything. Anatomy of a Murder is two-hours and forty minutes!

Anatomy is an interesting film to see for me because of this weird combination of styles. The contrast between Stewart and Gazzara, the location shooting and the pro formula nature of the story. Somehow all of this went over big back in 1959. And it still plays today for some reason.

9.29.02