Otto Preminger is a director I know largely by reputation. Said reputation is, as a director, he made some great films but was a real taskmaster type on set. He was hardly the only one in those days, and there are probably plenty like that now. As for his work, the only time I saw him in much of anything was an acting role as one of multiple actors to play Mr. Freeze in the Adam West-starring Batman TV series. But as always, one of the pleasures of a project like this is experiencing new work that is remembered fondly for a reason.
That said, I was not expecting this film to be the way it is.
The reason I wasn’t expecting it was due to two factors: the subject matter and when the film came out. A film like this today? Sure. I can buy that. But this is a film that talks frankly about topics I didn’t know big studio films could have in 1959. Not directly. Essentially, this is a film about a lawyer, Jimmy Stewart’s Paul Biegler, defending a murderer in court. Said murderer is Lt. Frederick Manion (Ben Gazzara). There’s no question he committed the crime. Everyone knows he did it. He even admitted it. The big reason for that is basically Manion’s wife Laura (Lee Remick) was raped by the dead man, and Manion decided that he had to take the guy down. There’s no ambiguity here. The film mentions rape multiple times, discusses Laura’s ripped and missing panties, and even brings up sperm. These are not terms I thought I’d see or hear used in any American movie from 1959. I figured they’d dance around the subject a bit.
Heck, there’s a scene in court where Paul, the district attorney and his high-powered associate, and the judge all try to figure out what words they can use to discuss the case in the courthouse without producing laughter. They do settle on “panties” because it’s the least funny word they know for a woman’s undergarment.
As it is, this film is still very much a product of its time. Sure, Laura was raped, but the beating she took seemed to do more lasting damage. The rape is just something that happened the way the film sometimes plays it, something that upsets Lt Manion more than his wife. She is clear that she blacked out during the rape, but that isn’t exactly the issue here. However, the film also plays up the idea that she may have been asking for it. The lawyer from the state DA’s office, Dancer (a young George C Scott), opts to play off the idea that Laura was having consensual sex and wasn’t assaulted, something that is eventually disproven with the help of a final witness. But Paul insists she wear a certain pair of glasses, a modest skirt, and a girdle to look less sexy, not the tight pants and, well, bouncy outfits she was wearing around town while her husband was in the local lock-up. This really does make it close to victim-blaming, to say nothing of the idea that rape is more about sex than power and not the other way around like it is in reality. Laura was dressed sexy and hanging out in the wrong bar. Of course she got raped by the logic of the film.
But that is the issue with watching a film from 1959 with a rape at its center and watching one in 2023 with that plot development. And to be very fair to the film, it doesn’t completely do anything to blame Laura for what happened. She may not remember the rape, but she does remember that her husband, her second in fact, is very much a jealous man that may be inclined towards physical abuse. He likewise on his second marriage, and despite the fact he’s an officer in the Army, the two are living in a trailer park and don’t have much money. There’s a lot of societal commentary on display here as Paul navigates his way through the thorny situation the case puts him in. Dancer is questioning Laura’s virtue and Lt. Manion’s claims of insanity, one key witness is reluctant to step forward due to her own secret social status, and his secretary (Eve Arden) is keeping secrets while his alcoholic legal partner Parnell McCarthy (Arthur O’Connell) is running mystery errands while trying to dry out. Sure, Paul can and will play the “simple country lawyer” card, but he is very much in a tight spot. Everyone knows Manion killed the man. The only question is why as that could be the difference between Manion’s freedom and incarceration.
As such, I am looking at this film and seeing it as both ahead of its time and somehow not. The film does suggest that what happened isn’t Laura’s fault, the right answer, but it sure does present plenty of scenarios that suggest why a woman might not be the victim in a rape case. It’s the same scenario that plays out in the real world, where plenty of people will question a woman’s story for one reason or another. Anatomy of a Murder isn’t exactly a predictor of the #MeToo era or anything along those lines, but it does show the high bar a woman would have to vault to convince a courtroom she’d been raped, and the fact that Laura Manion is an attractive young woman who likes to party and doesn’t wear a girdle (and I am not sure how the people in the courthouse were supposed to see that she did or didn’t, but she wore one to court anyway per Paul’s advice). She’s sexually loose and even admits she sometimes doesn’t wear underwear. Her second marriage came days after her first ended in divorce. She’s the very picture of an immoral woman by the standards of a small town. That doesn’t mean she can’t be raped, obviously, but it does mean that it’s harder to prove that to the satisfaction of a courthouse in 1959. Heck, there’re probably a lot of different courts that would have a hard time believing that in 2023.
Regardless, Paul’s tactics work and get him back into working the law with a sober Parnell. The Manions may not have paid their bill, but Paul feels revitalized enough to finally stop spending all day fishing. And for what it is worth, I did greatly enjoy this film for what it was. I wasn’t expecting something like it, and while it’s still a product of its time, it does have a timeless quality to it as it shows how poorly a woman can be treated both before and after a sexual assault.
NEXT: Hey, speaking of old films with Jimmy Stewart and some questionable gender politics, up next is the first film I would prefer not to revisit, but here I am. Be back soon for 1940’s The Philadelphia Story.
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