Within the span of a week, I read the novel and watched the film Anatomy of a Murder. I hadn’t done the novel / film thing for a while. Since I’d never really heard of the novel or the film before last week, this might seem to be a strange exercise to embark upon.
Even though little known now, these were actually significant events in their time. Released in 1958, the novel was a best seller and even now gets consistently good reviews. It was so popular that the film version was released shortly thereafter in 1959.
What distinguished the novel was that the author was a practicing attorney. A district attorney for ten years, John Voelker (writing under the pen name of Robert Traver) had been voted out of office and was kind of at loose ends. Among other things, he decided to write a novel that would, instead of sensationalizing a trial and the legal system, would actually describe how it actually works. The result of that was the novel Anatomy of a Murder.
There’s a couple of interesting things about the film. First of all it was directed by Otto Preminger. Preminger is a fairly famous director of film noirs (most famously, Laura) and socially liberal films. Being a fan of film noir, it’s weird that this is the first Preminger film that I’ve seen. It has an impressive film cast starring a range of actors in various stages of their careers. Everyone from James Stewart to George C Scott to Eve Arden to Orson Bean to Ben Gazzara appear in this film.
The basic plot is the same in both the novel and the film. Barney Quill allegedly rapes Laura Manion (Eve Arden). Infuriated, Laura’s husband Frederick (Ben Gazzara) goes to the bar where Barney is serving drinks and immediately shoots him dead. There are multiple witnesses. There is no question of guilt.
Into this impossible situation comes Paul Biegler (James Stewart). Biegler was previously a district attorney until voted out of office. Now in private practice, Laura Manion asks him to represent Frederick. Stuck with limited options, Biegler figures that his best option is to enter a plea of temporary insanity.
Knowing that this is a high profile case, the borderline competent new district attorney gets help in the form of a state attorney Claude Dancer (George C Scott). During the trial, it is the very aggressive Dancer pitted against Biegler. Much of the trial is the two of them sniping at each other with the judge (Joseph Welch) trying to keep the court in order. Even though it’s a 65 year old film, I won’t spoil it. Since James Stewart is the star and protagonist, I’m thinking that you can probably guess how it ends up.
There were differences between the novel and the film that I found interesting. One is that the film was significantly more explicit on sexual matters than the novel. Typically, it’s the opposite, especially keeping in mind that the film was released in 1959 (released under the Hays’ Code).
First of all, in the film Laura is much more sexually suggestive. She is positively alluring as she not so subtly tries to seduce Biegler. A motive in both the novel and the film is Frederick’s jealousy of Laura. In the novel it’s portrayed as a character flaw. In the film, you get the sense that perhaps he has legitimate reasons for his jealousy of Laura.
The rape is described fairly graphically at trial, especially considering the year in which it was released. Dancer’s cross examination of Laura is brutal. He highlights the fact that Laura was a divorcee who almost immediately married Frederick after her divorce was finalized (gasp!). In the rape, Laura’s panties had gone missing. A woman’s undergarments was a pretty risqué subject in 1959 but the film dealt with it very explicitly. The overall tone of the cross examination was that Laura was a floozy asking to be raped. As jarring as it seems now, slut shaming rape victims was actually considered a legitimate legal maneuver in the not so long ago past. Preminger, with his liberal social beliefs, purposely highlighted how offensive this is.
The novel was much more focused on the duel between Biegler and Dancer. The two men at times shout at each other. Biegler all but accuses Dancer of prosecutorial misconduct by intentionally keeping possibly exculpatory facts from him. Most weirdly (and what inspired the title of this post), there are multiple cutting references to Dancer’s size. There are many times where he is referred to as the little man or to the short man. It’s not like he’s a little person. He’s just a man that’s below average in height. The constant references to his lack of stature just seemed odd.
It’s pretty clear that Biegler is actually Voelker. The novel is written in the first person. For this edition, Voelker wrote a preamble describing what inspired the novel. The style of the preamble is essentially indistinguishable from the novel. Biegler and Voelker are both former district attorneys that recently lost elections. They are both avid fishermen. In fact, this case is based upon one that Biegler defended. A man was accused of murdering the man that allegedly raped his wife. He was acquitted on an insanity plea. I get the feeling, when writing this novel, that Voelker used the trial transcript as the starting point. Another reason I believe that is because the novel is less dramatic than the film. There are few courtroom grandstanding fireworks in the novel.
So, which one would I recommend? They’re both worthwhile. They’re both good representations of their time (late 1950s). I’d probably give the edge to the film, if nothing else you get to see James Stewart, Ben Gazzara, and George C Scott act against each other.
dorkenstein 