Criterion Blu-ray Film Review

Anatomy of a Murder (1959) • Blu-ray [Criterion Collection]

In a murder trial, the defendant says he suffered temporary insanity after the victim raped his wife. What is the truth, and will he win his case?

I’m not saying this is the best courtroom drama ever made. It’s not a genre that I’m usually attracted to. I’m no aficionado and, scanning down the American Bar Association’s list of the 25 ‘Greatest Legal Movies’ of all time, there were only half a dozen I could recall seeing. But there’s a good reason why Otto Preminger’s Anatomy of a Murder remained at number four more than half a century after its release. To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) is the chart-topper, with 12 Angry Men (1957) and My Cousin Vinny (1992) taking the number two and three slots respectively. But it’s Billy Wilder’s classic courtroom drama, Witness for the Prosecution (1957), lagging just behind at number six in that chart, to which Preminger owes a debt.

On the night of 30 July 1952, something happened between a former police officer called Maurice Chenoweth and…