Paul Biegler, a small-town lawyer, takes on the defence of a soldier accused of murder — and finds that the truth in a courtroom is rarely simple.
In Anatomy of a Murder (1959), directed by Otto Preminger, James Stewart plays Paul Biegler, a former district attorney in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula who is asked to defend Frederick Manion, played by Ben Gazzara, a soldier accused of killing the man who allegedly assaulted his wife Laura, played by Lee Remick. Biegler, with the help of his friend Parnell McCarthy, played by Arthur O’Connell, builds a defence based on temporary insanity.
Stewart is at his most quietly persuasive as Biegler. He is folksy and unassuming, but he is also sharp, and he uses humour and patience to win over the jury. The film’s courtroom scenes are long and detailed, and Stewart holds them with a performance that feels like real lawyering rather than movie heroics.
Anatomy of a Murder is regarded as one of the great courtroom dramas, and Stewart’s Biegler is one of his finest later performances: a man who believes in the law, and in giving a difficult client a fair hearing.