Directed by Richard Fleischer
USA 1959

  When Orson Welles speaks in any of his films, he makes words sound as if they were born of lightning. It is the same in “Compulsion” where he, as Jonathan Wilk---representing Clarence Darrow in this examination of the famous Leopold-Loeb murder case in 1924 Chicago—works not to understand the young men (Dean Stockwell and Bradford Dillman) who heinously murdered a young boy, but to seek for them the justice that is deserved without resorting to the death penalty, as Darrow was known for being against.

Welles doesn’t walk in until late in the movie when, after Judd Steiner (Stockwell) and Artie Strauss (Dillman) confess, his services are obviously needed. Before him, his growing girth and his rumbling, thunderous voice, the burning questions about Steiner and Strauss rush forth in our minds when, cleverly by the efforts of director Richard Fleischer and screenwriter Richard Murphy, we thankfully don’t see the actual murder take place, but find out about it when Sid Brooks (Martin Milner, who photographed well in black-and-white and color, by way of “Adam-12”), a budding newspaperman and fellow classmate of Steiner and Strauss, is sent by one of the writers of the Globe to the morgue to see about the young victim’s body, the condition of it, and if there are any clues to give way as to how it happened.

Excerpt from Film Threat Indie Voice located HERE

Trivia: Because Orson Welles was having tax problems during the production, at the end of shooting his salary for the movie was garnisheed by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. This upset Welles so much that just before he finished looping his dialogue in post-production, he stormed off the studio and left the country. All that was left to be looped was the last 20 seconds of his end speech in the courtroom. Incredibly, editor William Reynolds fixed this problem without needing Welles. Reynolds took words and pieces of words Welles had spoken earlier in the movie, and pieced them one by one into those 20 seconds.

Poster

Theatrical Release: April 1st, 1959

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Recommended Reading in Film Noir (CLICK COVERS or TITLES for more information)

The Dark Side of the Screen: Film Noir by Foster Hirsch	Somewhere in the Night: Film Noir and the American City by Nicholas Christopher	Shades of Noir: A Reader by Joan Copjec	The Art of Noir: The Posters and Graphics from the Classic Era of Film Noir by Eddie Muller	The Little Black and White Book of Film Noir: Quotations from Films of the 40's and 50's by Peg Thompson, Saeko Usukawa	Film Noir by Alain Silver	Film Noir Guide: 745 Films of the Classic Era, 1940-1959 by Michael F. Keaney	Detours and Lost Highways: A Map of Neo-Noir by Foster Hirsch

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Distribution	20th Century Fox Home Video - Region 1 - NTSC

 

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