BEFORE: Speaking of Orson Welles, he's in tonight's film somewhere... Now I know there was a way to link from "Ten Little Indians", what was it? Ah, Hugh O'Brian was in a film called "The Brass Legend" with Robert Burton, who's got a role in "Compulsion". A compulsion is an overwhelming, uncontrollable urge, like the need some people have to find links between things.
THE PLOT: Two wealthy law-school students go on trial for murder in this version of the Leopold-Loeb case.
FOLLOW-UP TO: "Murder By Numbers" (Movie #175)
AFTER: This is a great opportunity to learn who Leopold and Loeb were - two law students from the University of Chicago who killed a 14-year old boy in 1924, with the apparent motivation to commit the "perfect crime". That is, to leave no evidence to connect back to them - how did that go? Since the world knows their identities, I'm guessing not so well.
Both were child progidies, both seemed exceptionally intelligent, both came from affluent families - all of which didn't seem to add up to "murderer" in most people's eyes. But they got their thrills from committing crimes, starting with petty thefts and working their way up. Er, down.
Their trial caught the attention of the country in the 1920's, along with the Lindbergh kidnapper and I think the Sacco and Vanzetti case, it was one of those "trial of the century" deals - and they were defended by Clarence Darrow (see also: "Inherit the Wind" and the Scopes monkey trial), famous for his opposition to capital punishment.
Darrow took advantage of a strange quirk of the law - by advising his clients to change their pleas to guilty, he avoided trial by jury (which they probably would have lost) and forced the judge to hear the case and take their mental conditions into account.
Richard Loeb died in prison, killed by an inmate who claimed he was fending off a sexual advance. This led Ed Lahey of the Chicago Daily News to create this great obituary line: "Richard Loeb, despite his erudition, today ended his sentence with a proposition." (This joke KILLS among historical grammarians, or grammatical historians...) Leopold was released on parole after 33 years in jail.
The film seems to stay pretty true to the real-life story, with Orson Welles in the Clarence Darrow role, while looking a lot like Benny Hill. And by changing only the names of the parties involved they pull the same duplicity that was later made famous by the "Law & Order" franchise - which promotes their shows by claiming the stories are "ripped from the headlines", but then also run a disclaimer stating that the story is not based on real events. Huh? Which is it - you can't have it both ways!
As for the motivation of the killers, I'm not sure if I'm buying it. If their goal was to experience everything in life, including the feeling of killing someone, why not save that one for last? There are so many other good things to experience - great deli sandwiches, the love of a good woman, cruises to exotic locations. But if you get caught for murder, you don't get to experience all the other things. If these guys were so smart, why didn't they realize that?
Also starring Dean Stockwell (last seen in "The Manchurian Candidate" (2004)), Bradford Dillman (last seen in "The Way We Were"), E.G. Marshall (last seen in "Call Northside 777"), Martin Milner (last seen in "Desk Set"), Richard Anderson, Gavin MacLeod (last seen in "Kelly's Heroes").
RATING: 4 out of 10 typewriter keys
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