Alec Mouhibian

Rumor has it this film was originally titled “Anatomy of a Murderer” and intended to settle long-running bar-bets in Chicago over Al Capone, but the Hollywood censors forced them to change the title and with it the entire story. What resulted is widely considered to be the best courtroom drama ever.

Raise your hand if you’d like to see James Stewart and Duke Ellington playing side-by-side at the same piano! If you’re not raising your hand, that better be because it’s stuck between someone’s cheeks. Ellington’s sassy score and priceless cameo are two big treats in a film that proves it’s possible to compel an audience for 160 minutes on nothing but wit, charm, and authentic presentation.

If the Tennessee Williams style is considered Southern Gothic, then Anatomy of a Murder is Midwestern Ambivalent. Set in small-town Michigan, the film was shot on location in Marquette County. The judge is played by Joseph N. Welch, a real lawyer who defended the Army in the McCarthy hearings. And with an earthy sexual tension throughout, it lacks any of the maudlin preachiness that moistens modern trial-dramas like a Johnson & Johnson baby-wipe.

Above all is James Stewart, the defense attorney, with the best performance of his career. Those pseudo-romantic roles he did for Alfred Hitchcock were always part of the cheeky director’s running joke. Here, having shed the nasal geekiness of his youth, Stewart is truly in his element—a slightly mischievous, middle-aged, consummate bachelor who spends his free time on fishing and jazz. He’s your perfect uncle, if you don’t mind the lack of pedophilia.

AM is so authentically depicted that it was possibly the first major Hollywood picture to sound the words bitch, penetration, rape, slut, and sperm. Meeting major controversy, the film was actually banned in Chicago upon its release, supposedly for the raciness. More likely, however, it was out of sheer spite at Hollywood for leaving those bar-bets out to hang.