Anatomy of a Murder

Director Preminger has worked out his canvas with minute thoroughness. The film is two hours and 40 minutes long, but so absorbing is it that it seems short.

The film is lengthy, with an ending that is both enigmatic and ironic, but presented with such finesse and pace that it is guaranteed to hold your interest from start to finish.

At 160 minutes, Anatomy is longer than the subject warrants, but the pace seldom slackens -- thanks to the competence of Director Otto Preminger.

To me Remick's damaged, dysfunctional presence is the really subversive thing about the picture. And Stewart's grandstanding attorney propels this long film to its final verdict.

Preminger purposely creates situations that flicker with uncertainty, that may be evaluated in different ways. Motives are mixed and dubious, and, therefore, sustain interest.

As an entertaining look at legal process, this is spellbinding all the way, infused by an ambiguity about human personality and motivation that is Preminger's trademark, and the location shooting is superb.

There’s a fresh thrill in seeing the conventions of the courtroom drama trotted out for the first time, and its lingering sense of moral ambiguity is still jarring.

The questions, like the suspense, mount explosively... And even as movie-goers file out of the theater, some of the issues remain in doubt.

... crackles as Stewart and Scott spar with witnesses and one another: the cagey country lawyer hiding his endgame behind a folksy manner versus the smart, sarcastic, thoroughly urban legal eagle who makes a show of his intelligence and showmanship.

With no character shown to be faultless, the movie's real masterstroke is to expose the messiness of criminal trials and America's divides.