I enjoy watching the occasional old movie. Pre-1960s movies seem to come from an entirely different planet, a place that is technically more primitive, morally more nuanced, and temporally more phelgmatic.
We netflixed Witness for the Prosecution, a suspenseful courtroom drama from 1957 based on an Agatha Christie story, directed by Billy Wilder and starring a sultry Marlene Dietrich. Witness for the Prosecution enthralled me all the way to the surprise-twist ending, which had stunned and delighted audiences when it was released. The advantage of watching it 50 years later is the ending wasn’t ruined for me by an overly-talkative friend. I’m surprised Witness for the Prosecution hasn’t been remade. It does lack any sustained action, violence, sex, or mobsters, but I’m sure the magicians of Hollywood could fix that.
I decided to see what else Netflix had to offer in the classic courtroom drama category. Since I liked Witness for the Prosecution, Netflix was positive that I’d also like Anatomy of a Murder, a 1959 drama starring Jimmy Stewart as an aw-shucks country lawyer who is defending a local army man charged with murdering the barkeeper who raped his alluring, flirty wife.
Anatomy of a Murder moved slow, so slow that I had plenty of spare brain cells to simultaneously follow the plot and analyze how different the movie would be if it were being filmed in 2009. She’d be using a computer… he’d be carrying a cell phone… the train station wouldn’t exist… there would be numerous flashbacks both to the rape and the murder… the jury would have at least 6 black people on it despite taking place in rural Minnesota… instead of having the soundtrack and cameo by Duke Ellington, we’d get Usher.
Every scene featured long conversations with cigarettes and cigars in hand. There were typewriters, bottles of milk by the doorsteps, pinball machines as a town’s sinister entertainment, casual drink driving, and worst of all, a young wife’s tight clothes, sensuous hip movements, and bouncy hair style as justifications for her being raped. How quaint… quaintly barbaric.
I didn’t dig on Anatomy of a Murder as much as Newtflix though I would, and I think the difference may be Marlene Dietrich, whose beauty and poise is truly timeless. Jimmy Stewart doesn’t hold up as well.
