Compulsion (1959)

Directed by: Richard Fleischer
Written by: Meyer Levin; Richard Murphy
Starring: Dean Stockwell, Bradford Dillman, Orson Welles, Diane Varsi, E.G. Marshall, Martin Milner, Richard Anderson, Gavin MacLeod

In this dramatization of the infamous 1924 Leopold and Loeb murder case, Dean Stockwell and Bradford Dillman play a pair of rich college students who decide that they can commit the perfect murder and get away with it. They kill a young teenage boy, off screen, but are soon arrested when police match a pair of glasses left at the crime scene to one of the men. Their wealthy parents hire renowned defense attorney Jonathan Wilk (Welles,) who is known for his passionate arguments against the death penalty. Both of the killers confess to the crime but Wilk pleads them not guilty. At the trial, they change the plea to guilty and Wilk argues passionately in favor of a life sentence rather than execution.

The first half of the film is great. We meet the two killers, see how they live, what makes them tick. It's all truly fascinating stuff that is acted very well by the leads. But the second half turns the movie into a shallow ad against capital punishment.

Firstly, we do not see the crime being committed. Perhaps seeing two grown men taking a child, killing him basically for fun, and then discarding his body like a bag of garbage would make a viewer think less of the two poor lads who go to trial.

Second, the little boy is treated more as a mentioned aside, rather than a real little boy. We do not see the huge impact that the murder has upon his family. We never even see the body. There are even subtle, basically unchallenged, references to him being a brat. Thus putting a little negative spin in the viewer's mind that the boy brought this evil upon himself!

Third, In the courtroom scenes, the audience is asked to question their beliefs if they happen to think the killers deserve to be executed for their cold blooded crime. During a long-winded speech made by Orson Welles (taken largely from actual courtroom transcripts) he goes on an on about how the two 'boys' shouldn't be put to death. I'm not going to get into what my beliefs on capital punishment are, but to ask an audience to feel some pity on two callous young men who murdered a boy for fun is absolutely ridiculous!

And we don't even hear any type of closing argument from the Prosecutor. As a matter of fact, everyone, even the judge, looks shamed by Orson's 'wonderful' speech about love, mercy, kindness, blah blah blah... It's a big fat cop out.

The acting and cinematography in 'Compulsion' is great, but the screenplay is just shallow liberal propaganda. (<-- And it really hurts me to say that.)



Final Verdict: See it for everything but the message.