Anatomy Of A Murder
T. It.: Anatomia Di Un Omicidio; Sog.: Dal Romanzo Omonimo Di Robert Traver; Scen.: Wendell Mayes; F.: Sam Leavitt; Mo.: Louis R. Loeffler; Scgf.: Boris Leven; Cost.: Michael Harte, Vou Lee Giokaris; Mu.: Duke Ellington; Int.: James Stewart (Paul Biegler), Lee Remick (Laura Manion), Ben Gazzara (Frederick Manion), Arthur O’connell (Parnell Emmett Mccarthy), Eve Arden (Maida Rutledge), Kathryn Grant (Mary Pilant), George C. Scott (Claude Dancer), Orson Bean (Dott. Matthew Smith), Russ Brown (George Lemon), Brooks West (Mitch Lodwick), John Qualen (Sulo, Il Guardiano), Murray Hamilton (Alphonse Paquette), Don Ross (Duane Miller); Prod.: Otto Preminger Per Carlyle Production/Columbia Pictures Corporation; Pri. Pro.: 1 Luglio 1959; 35mm. D.: 154′. Bn.
Film Notes
“In a way, Preminger offers us the description of an honest man during the 20th century. Some may find this description cynical. Doesn’t the machiavellian Biegler’s craftiness show an unprecedented vivacity? All the more unprecedented because it is subtle and thus we discover it along with the trial’s audience, by surprise, in its natural state and without commentary: when we see him interrupt Laura Manion’s interrogation on the false pretence of Dancer standing between him and the witness. This kind of cunning denotes a great level of intelligence – too great to ignore his sensitiveness. Of all the great cineastes, Preminger is perhaps one of the most cruel, one of the most lucid, but by far one of the least evil. Cynics are a good lot”.
Luc Moullet, Ottobiographie, “Cahiers du cinéma”, n. 101, November 1959