Compulsion
Directed by Richard Fleischer
Written by Richard Murphy based on the novel by Meyer Levin
1959/USA
Darryl F. Zanuck Productions
First viewing/Netflix rental
[box]Jonathan Wilk: In those years to come, you might find yourself asking if it wasn’t the hand of god dropped these glasses… And if he didn’t, who did?[/box]
This is a superb treatment of the Leopold and Loeb case, also adapted for Hitchcock’s Rope.
Arthur A. Straus (Bradford Dillman) and Judd Steiner (Dean Stockwell) are two highly intelligent and privileged law students. Artie also happens to be a psychopath and Judd gets his kicks from playing at a master-slave relationship with him. They decide to commit the “perfect murder” simply to see if they can get away with it. Their crime of choice is kidnapping a child, murdering the boy, and throwing his body into a ravine. They follow up by sending his parents a ransom note.
The boys are not as smart as they think they are and the body is found before they can collect on the ransom. Artie has more fun by insinuating himself with the police and sending them on wild goose chases after teachers, servants, etc., ruining several careers in the process. D.A. Harold Horn has strong suspicions about some glasses found at the scene though and eventually the killers are brought to justice. The remainder of the film is devoted to their trial at which liberal defense attorney Jonathan Wilk (Orson Welles) – a stand-in for Clarence Darrow who defended Leopold and Loeb – admits their guilt but makes an impassioned argument against the death penalty.
Orson Welles does not make his appearance until the last third of this film. The first part of the story is devoted to the awful but fascinating characters of the murderers, compellingly played by Dillman and Stockwell. Dillman’s is a fairly straightforward psychopath but Stockwell gets to show a more rounded portrayal as a twisted young man who just might have a conscience buried somewhere inside. Welles’s anti-death penalty monologue ending the film was the longest in film history and is very moving. Fleischer also makes this compelling to look at. Highly recommended.
Dean Stockwell, Orson Welles, and Bradford Dillman jointly won the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival. The film was nominated for the Palme d’Or.
The story has also been made into the movies Rope (1948), Swoon (1992) and Murder by Numbers (2002)
Trailer – cinematography by Willaim C. Mellor
