MusicChat It's complicated... I really like the directing, acting and writing but, there are issues with the way it's shot that I just can't deny. As much as I love the storytelling and the fantastic performance but, there are also certain scenes that didn't need to exist.

Orla Zuniga It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

Jakoba True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

Yazmin Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

cjs6547 I have been duped into watching this twice, having forgotten its plot from the first viewing, seeing the incredibly high rating on IMDB and viewing it again. Even during my second viewing, before recollection hit, I expected something genius, satisfying and powerful like Witness for the Prosecution. What I got was of course a drama too ambitious for its current capabilities that feels sometimes cheap and sometimes offensive.It should not be too much to expect a courtroom drama to be able to put together a coherent opening and closing statement. However, neither the defense or the prosecution are able to summarize their arguments in the beginning or the end. The beginning is especially important, as it leaves us guessing as to why the prosecution is hellbent on hiding the rape, and leads to more than one loud outbursts from James Stewart. At some point you think it is all done to build up to some great reveal or genuis law trick but its not. It just sort of fizzles every now then in a row between the benches. Coherence is really the main flaw of this not-so-little drama. It is never certain if the point of contention is whether the rape really happened or whether they seriously want to consider if Remick was too drunk and sleazy to even be 'rapeable'. This is now offensive territory. It was sort of unnerving watching a whole room of ADULT men and women snickering when the judge refers to the 'panties' of the raped woman, and the judge chastisizing them because the panties are connected to the fate of two MEN. Not unlike this scene, the whole movie lacks a noble ambition, a moral highground, a sense of comfort if not in the system then in the judgement of the protagonist. James Stewart's role in this movie of an attorney who quite blatantly doesn't care about setting a guilty man free feels like a betrayal of sorts. And this is not in appearance an artsy film that is meant to convey cynicism or bare-bones chaos. It is shot as a well put together, serious drama that has a brilliant story to tell. The story is not so brilliant however. The same dead horse is beaten for a good 160 minutes. Gazzara is vaguely a violent man. Remick is definitely a tempting woman. The victim's honor has to be defended fiercely by the prosecution for some reason, and they fail to see that he was the other half of that bingo date. At some point it feels like they could not possibly be going on about if for so long without making a point about the injustice of justifying rape, but no, the raped wife says she will be happy to have her arse kicked to kingdom come by her husband once he gets off. I mean why make me sit through scene after scene of undermining Remick for that line? Maybe housewives in the 50's loved every minute of the then saucy drama, but I would rather sit through almost three hours of an actual class on anatomy. It would both be more enjoyable and useful.Some antiquated films are still indispensible cinema to this day. Others are just mediocre. All that's black and white isn't gold.

Ivan Lalic James Stewart was one of those everlasting good guys of classic Hollywood, portraying honest and slightly naive characters fighting the system. His role as a inexperienced young lawyer that has to crack a murder case that doesn't seem to look as easy and straightforward as it did when the trail began. Director Otto Premminger isn't letting anything slip by unnoticed, dissecting the trail process to the very smallest details with discreet, but fanatical persistency. Stewart and Remmick are dancing their dance of hunter and the hunted with ease, while the cross examinations flawlessly manage to raise the temperature of the plot until the very climax and the not so anticipated ending. "Anatomy of a murder" laid down the foundation for many trail movies while simultaneously enthroning the cross examination as a foundation of the Anglo-Saxon law system.

gizmomogwai Anatomy of a Murder (1959) is described by critic Nick Pinkerton as "maybe more universally loved by law students than by cineastes." It is also enjoyed by people who are both film aficionados and former- law students. The film dramatizes the trial of an army lieutenant who shot and killed a resort owner after he raped his wife. We see none of this violence, so the action is in the dialogue and the emotions. Here, the film is a success- the acting and dialogue is smooth and believable, heavy but eased with occasional wisecracks. I watched Witness for the Prosecution (1957) at about the same time and thought the ending lacked these qualities; I was quite satisfied with Anatomy of a Murder.Not showing us any of the violence, the film allows the viewer to piece together what happened along with James Stewart's character. We meet the lieutenant, described by Stewart as hostile and insolent, not very likable. We meet his wife, a "free and easy" type, attractive and friendly. The film teases us with possibilities- the prosecution suggests sex between the woman and victim was consensual, that her injuries were inflicted by her husband. But we know she passed a lie detector test and other evidence supports her story. Generally, the film makes us question whether the lieutenant really was under irresistible impulse- we get the feeling he wasn't, and it's debatable as to how much Stewart's character believed this himself, as he was coaching him on defence strategies in an early scene. As we piece together the mystery, the attention to detail is commendable- the lawyers press for details, addressing inconsistencies, as we see when Stewart wants to know if the dog was in or out of the truck during the sexual assault. This is, as the title suggests, where the anatomizing factors in.Some of that detail gets rather personal- when George C. Scott's prosecutor grills the lieutenant's wife on whether she always wears underwear, and relentlessly demands another female witness to say the victim was her lover. From one perspective he's doing his job, from another he is prosecuting women in general; with extensive testimony on how the wife was dressed and behaved, we see the old stereotypes and the old attitude that it was either consensual or that she was asking for it. Interestingly, Anatomy of a Murder dramatizes not only a murder trial but an old-fashioned rape trial, a sort of two-for-one affair. In doing so, it uses blunt and courageous language defying censorship- sexual details, use of words like "slut" and "bitch." The result is a powerful film, a trailblazer of sorts that retains its impact.

Tss5078 One night in 1959, Laura Manion (Lee Remick) returns home and tells her husband that she's been raped. Enraged, he husband grabs a gun and kills the man she accused of the crime. When arrested, Frederick Manion (Ben Gazzara) claims that he didn't remember any of it, but nobody really believes his story. His wife turns to a relatively unknown country lawyer for help, and after meeting with the Manion's, Paul Biegler (Jimmy Stewart) agrees to take the case. It's never clear whether or not even he believes his client's story, but either way, Biegler is determined to get the man exonerated. Many law professors consider this film to be the most accurate depiction of a trial ever fictionalized on film. Likewise, the Academy was also very impressed, giving Anatomy of A Murder seven Oscar nominations, but does the film really stand the test of time? For 1959, the Manion's were as promiscuous and dysfunctional a couple as could be on film, however in 2015, they are rather tame. That's not the only thing that gets lost in time, as the laws surrounding the insanity defense have also changed, making the whole premise around this trial more than somewhat outdated. This film simply doesn't have the impact in 2015, that it did in 1959, but that doesn't mean it's not entertaining. Jimmy Stewart stars as Defense Attorney, Paul Biegler, who unfortunately isn't the most interesting man in the world. He's a very bland character, without much depth, but he is an intelligent lawyer, who finds every trick and loophole in the book to defend his client. Jimmy Stewart was a tall lanky man with a strange voice, who I thought was a natural when it came to physical comedy, but Stewart preferred to play a more intelligent character, especially later in his career, and Paul Biegler is a textbook example of that. Anatomy of A Murder is on almost every top 100 list you can find, and in it's time it absolutely belonged there, but by 2015 standards, it's very long, tame, and outdated, despite the excellent story and depiction of a courtroom.