Number 200 on IMDb's Top 250
Since being voted out of office as local prosecutor, Paul Biegler (Jimmy Stewart) spends more time fishing than keeping up his law practice. But he does take on the defense of a lieutenant (Ben Gazzara) from the local army camp charged with murdering a bar-owner who raped his wife (Lee Remick). The lieutenant is uncooperative, the wife a floozy, the judge from out of town, and the prosecution lead by a sharp city lawyer (George C. Scott). It seems Biegler will need all his country wiles to make any sort of case of it. Hilarity ensues.
Trivia: Duke Ellington did the music and has a cameo as "Pie-Eye." The part of the judge was offered to both Spencer Tracy and Burl Ives, but instead went to Joseph N. Welch who was a lawyer in real life who had represented the U.S. Army in the televised Army-McCarthy hearings in 1954. James Stewart's father was so offended by the film, which he deemed "a dirty picture", that he took out an ad in his local newspaper telling people not to see it. Part of the controversy surrounding this movie was because it included use of the words "bitch", "contraceptive", "panties", "penetration", "rape", "slut" and "sperm".
Ah, a great courtroom drama! What a nice change of pace. Stewart is great, yet again, as "just a small country lawyer fighting against that attorney from the big city of Lansing." I had another Hey! moment in this one. Eve Arden, Stewart's secretary, is the lady that played the principle in Grease. Now I know she was in a bunch of movies, that is the one I remember her in. Okay, back to the movie. I think one reason this movie was controversial is that it deals with the manipulation of the justice system. Stewart kind of guides Lt. Manion to claim temporary insanity as a defense, he doesn't go right out and say it but works the conversation around to get Manion to think of it himself. The prosecution isn't innocent either, they manipulate the evidence for their benefit. All in all it is a good movie with a twist at the end that you can catch before it happens if you pay attention.
Up Next: La Haine, Three Young Friends... One Last Chance.
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