"Anatomy of a Murder" movie showing at 7 p.m. Jan. 7 at Boca Grande Community Center Auditorium.
Based on the best-selling novel by Robert Traver (the pseudonym for Michigan Supreme Court Justice John D. Voelker), Anatomy of a Murder stars James Stewart as seat-of-the-pants Michigan lawyer Paul Biegler.
Through the intervention of his alcoholic mentor, Parnell McCarthy (Arthur O'Connell), Biegler accepts the case of Lt. Manion (Ben Gazzara), an unlovable lout who murdered a bar owner. Manion admits he committed the crime, citing the victim's rape of the alluring Mrs. Manion (Lee Remick) as his motive.
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Faced with formidable opposition of big-city prosecutor Claude Dancer (George C. Scott), Biegler hopes to win freedom for his client by using the defense argument of "irresistible impulse."
Also featured in the cast is Eve Arden as Biegler's sardonic secretary, Katherine Grant as the woman who inherits the dead man's business, and Joseph N. Welch - who was the defense attorney in the Army-McCarthy hearings in real life - as the ever-patient judge.
Progressive-jazz musical score provided by Duke Ellington, who also appears in a cameo.
Producer/director Otto Preminger pushed the envelope by using technical terminology referring to sexual penetration, which up until 1959 was a cinematic no-no. Preminger was not merely being faithful to the novel; most of the banter about "panties" and "semen," not to mention the courtroom revelation, was invented for the film.
Filmed on location in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Rated G, 2:40 long.
