One Paragraph Movie Review: Anatomy of a Murder

Sixteenth film: Anatomy of a Murder. Only a couple of film genres are allowed to be more than two and a half hours long, and courtroom dramas definitely qualify. Tense, well-acted and articulate, the only thing this movie isn’t is an anatomy of a murder — most of the arguing has nothing to do with the actual murder. I think we’re supposed to be suspicious of the unfairly attractive people James Stewart is directly and indirectly defending, all while listening to the word ‘panties’ over and over. It throws up some fairly retro questions about rape — whether a girl is ‘asking for it’ and whether a husband is justified in murdering his wife’s rapist, and I learned the word ‘spermatogenesis’ which I shall try to use in a sentence tomorrow. Good. Three and a half swishing Lee Remick pinball hips out of five.