Trying to boost DR. KILDARE tv sensation Richard Chamberlain into full-fledged movie stardom on the cheap, M-G-M skimped in making this low-rent ANATOMY OF A MURDER/’59 courtroom drama ripoff. Nothing wrong using small screen pros below the line/behind the camera (lenser Philip Lathrop had largely transitioned to features), but this has the feel of secondhand goods. Nick Adams & Joey Heatherton (aping Ben Gazzara & Lee Remick in AoaM) play troubled soldier boy & slutty wife in another murder trial; Chamberlain’s the tyro lawyer assigned to defend, with ailing sly puss/mentor Claude Rains as sounding board and his daughter (low-wattage Joan Blackman) as assistant/love interest. Supposedly set in New Mexico, everyone whoops it up with Alabama accents, occasionally stopping to shock us with envelop-pushing sex references. Impotence! Orgasm! Chamberlain, who deserved better, never did breakthru as an A-list movie star, but had better luck as second lead villains, before scoring big time, again and again, in major tv mini-series.
WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Otto Preminger’s ANATOMY OF A MURDER, with a great star turn from James Stewart, completely outclasses this.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Infinitely better title on our French poster: MOTEL CRIME!
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