Attractive jiggle

Anatomy of a Murder 1959 Columbia (160 minutes) directed and produced by Otto Preminger, written by Wendell Mayes, original soundtrack by Duke Ellington.

‘Attractive jiggle’ is at the center of this authentic mid-century courtroom drama.

Laura Manion (Lee Remick), a provocatively attractive young Army officer’s wife, contacts Paul Biegler (James Stewart), a small town bachelor lawyer, to defend her husband, charged with shooting to death a civilian bar owner whom she claims raped her.

It’s a tough case: there is no question that Lt. Frederick Manion (Ben Gazzara) came into the cocktail lounge and shot Barney Quill five times with a ‘war souvenir’ German Luger pistol in front of witnesses.

It’s also a tough case for the lawyer Biegler to resist: it is a heady professional and intellectual challenge, and it pits Biegler against District Attorney Mitch Lodwick (Brooks West), to whom Biegler lost the county prosecutor’s job in a recent election. His practice could use the potential fee it would bring.

The facts and the law are the easy part. The mystery, and what makes this two-and-a-half hour movie fun to watch, is the people at the center of the case. Lt. Manion comes across at first as arrogant and contemptuous. Biegler senses Manion’s intelligence, but is the lieutenant intensely jealous? Does he have problems controlling his anger? Is he a wife beater? Or is he a calculating killer?

Laura repeatedly is on display from the moment we see her meet Biegler—with a lovely high riff from Johnny Hodges’ trumpet. When Biegler asks her if she is afraid of her husband, she tells him that Manion ‘likes to show me off. He likes me to dress the way I do. But then he gets furious when a man pays attention to me. I tried to leave him but I can’t. He begs and I give in.’

Is Laura’s flirtatiousness quirky, fun and unselfconscious, or is she manipulative? Was the alleged sex a rape or consensual? Was there any sex at all? Is Laura trying to help Biegler get her husband off the hook, or did she set the lieutenant up to get rid of him?

Biegler sums up his problem when trying later to persuade a reluctant witness to testify: ‘As a lawyer, I’ve had to learn that people aren’t just good or bad; but people are many things. And I kind of had a feeling that Barney Quill was many things,’ he said—and not only the victim Barney Quill.

The story comes from a best-selling novel of the same title, written by an upstate Michigan retired judge named John Voelker writing under the name Robert Traver. The trial preparation and legal proceedings, tailored to the drama, move a lot more quickly than in real life.

One of the things that make the movie courtroom work so well is that a real trial lawyer plays presiding Judge Weaver. Joseph N. Welch was a senior Boston lawyer and became a household name as lead counsel for the Army in the nationally televised Army-McCarthy Senate hearings earlier in the decade. (His wife is one of the jurors). Welch’s role undoubtedly is informed from practicing in front of many variations of the figure that find its way into Judge Weaver’s black robe. Welch brings gravitas, a sharp mind and a fine sense of humor to the role.

Joseph N. Welch, James Stewart, Brooks West and George C. Scott in Anatomy of a Murder.

Another interesting detail is that Preminger skips the closing arguments, the summation each side gives at the end of the case, which often provides high dramatic moments both in court and in movies. Trained as a lawyer, perhaps Preminger found the facts more compelling.

There also are strong supporting performances. Arthur O’Connell plays Parnell Emmett McCarthy, Biegler’s senior associate and alcoholic mentor, who talks Biegler into taking the case, then whom Biegler makes swear to lay off alcohol. Comedienne Eve Arden is Maida Rutledge, Biegler’s arch secretary, and George C. Scott is Claude Dancer, a hard-driving assistant Michigan state’s attorney ‘sent up from Lansing’ to help prosecute the case.

Duke Ellington’s score comments on the action like a hip Greek chorus and it has seasoned well with age. Ellington, as pianist-bandleader Pie Eye, and four of his band appear in one scene as the Pie Eye Five in a roadside tourist joint.

The music in the place swings way too well to be just background. The camera finds two pairs of hands at the piano: one pair from ornate sleeves belongs to Pie Eye; the other hands are Biegler’s, sitting in as a jazz fan and musician. But Biegler has to get up when he sees his client’s wife dancing drunkenly with other military officers. 

‘Thanks for letting me sit in, Pie Eye.’

‘You’re not splittin’ the scene, man?’

‘Huh?’

‘You’re not cuttin’ out?’

‘No, I’ll be back.’

But Biegler doesn’t come back. He knows that his job is to keep his—and especially, a jury’s—focus on the case he is trying to win. When he gets Laura outside, he tells her:

‘Look Laura, believe me: I don’t usually complain about attractive jiggle, but… just… you save that jiggle for your husband to look at, if and when I get him out of jail.’