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Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956 film)

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Not to be confused with Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (2009 film).

Beyond a Reasonable Doubt
Theatrical film poster
Directed byFritz Lang
Screenplay byDouglas Morrow
Story byDouglas Morrow
Produced byBert E. Friedlob
StarringDana Andrews
Joan Fontaine
CinematographyWilliam Snyder
Edited byGene Fowler Jr.
Music byHerschel Burke Gilbert
Production
company
Bert E. Friedlob Productions
Distributed byRKO Radio Pictures
Release date
  • September 13, 1956 (1956-09-13) (US)[1]
Running time
80 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Box office$1.1 million (US rentals)[2]

Beyond a Reasonable Doubt is a 1956 American film noir legal drama directed by Fritz Lang and written by Douglas Morrow. The film stars Dana Andrews and Joan Fontaine, with Sidney Blackmer, Philip Bourneuf, Shepperd Strudwick, and Arthur Franz in support. It was Lang's second film for producer Bert E. Friedlob,[3] and the last American film he directed.[4]

Plot

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Austin Spencer, a wealthy newspaper publisher who opposes the death penalty, wants to prove a point about the inadequacy of circumstantial evidence. He talks his daughter Susan's fiancé, successful novelist and former employee Tom Garrett, into participating in a hoax in an attempt to expose the city's overzealous district attorney.

The plan is for Tom to plant clues that will lead to his arrest for the recent murder of a female nightclub dancer, Patty Gray. Once Tom is found guilty, Spencer is to reveal the setup, curb the District Attorney, and strike a blow for restraint.

Tom agrees to cooperate, and is convicted on an entirely circumstantial case. En route to present exonerating evidence the pair had meticulously preserved, Spencer then is killed in a car accident. Staged photographs and a paper trail of receipts for purchases of clothes and incidentals used in the frame-up all are burned into unrecognizability in the fiery wreck. Tom ends up in prison on death row.

However, a few hours before his scheduled execution and in time to prove the two men's well-planned ruse, a handwritten statement made by Spencer to be read in case of his death before Tom was cleared is discovered by his executor. It is sufficient to clear the way for Tom‘s pardon.

However, while talking to his now-ex-fiancée Susan shortly before the Governor can sign the pardon, Garrett inadvertently reveals he knows the murder victim's real name, which had never been brought out during the trial. Cornered, but hopeful Susan will sympathize with his rational, he confesses that the murder victim was actually his long estranged wife, Emma Blucher, who had tricked him into marriage back in college days then unbeknownst to him had reneged on her subsequent promise to divorce him. The sweeping success of his recently published first novel had brought her out of the woodwork. Determined to blackmail her way to an unfair share of his newfound prosperity, and still refuse to grant him a divorce, she was an obstacle to their future marital bliss. He recognized that Spencer's proposed hoax would be the perfect cover for a real murder.

After hashing it out with a friend on the police force who had been supporting her effort to clear Tom, Susan has him notify higher authorities and the pardon is canceled before the double jeopardy rule can permanently save Tom. He is led solemnly back to his cell pending his imminent execution.

Cast

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Reception

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Critical response

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Reappraisal of the film in modern times has been mixed.

Keith M. Booker wrote in 2011 that Beyond a Reasonable Doubt is "perhaps the bleakest of his [Lang's] American noir films".[5] Dennis L. White described the film in 1992 as having "considerable impact, due not so much to visual style, but as to the narrative structure and mood and to the expertly devised plot, in which the turnabout is both surprising and convincing."[6] Stella Bruzzi, author of Men's Cinema: Masculinity and Mise en Scène in Hollywood, felt in 2013 that the film plot was "overly schematic" and "motivated by a paradox", affecting "an invisible, transparent style while, at the same time, being all about surface and performance". She adds that Lang "deploys an ostentatiously unintrusive 'classical' style", which he "purposefully reduces down to its minimalist bare necessities".[7] Writer James McKay noted in 2010 that Fontaine as Susan Spencer is "a little bit more forward than we normally expect, in a role that requires her to do all the running where her man's concerned".[3]

Film critic Dennis Schwartz wrote a mixed review in 2007, but appreciated Lang's efforts: "Cheerlessly written with many plot holes, implausible contrivances and legal absurdities by law school graduate Douglas Morrow, though ably directed by film noir maven Fritz Lang (M/While the City Sleeps/Scarlet Street). Lang's last American film is a low-budget twisty courtroom drama about the dangers of capital punishment that ends up being about something more intangible--the unpredictability of fate ... But in this subversive film a perverse atmosphere of subliminal uncertainty prevails over the established surface reality, and the surprise ending comes as more of an emotional shock than as a real surprise--allowing the filmmaker to pass on his cynicism and disillusionment over the human condition. The stark, alluring and unconventional film is worth seeing for the ingenuous way it resolves the brain-teasing dilemma it raised."[8]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Beyond a Reasonable Doubt : Detail View". American Film Institute. Retrieved June 2, 2014.
  2. ^ 'The Top Box-Office Hits of 1956', Variety Weekly, January 2, 1957.
  3. ^ a b McKay, James (26 April 2010). Dana Andrews: The Face of Noir. McFarland. p. 147. ISBN 978-0-7864-5676-5.
  4. ^ Beyond a Reasonable Doubt at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films.
  5. ^ Booker, Keith M. (17 March 2011). Historical Dictionary of American Cinema. Scarecrow Press. p. 214. ISBN 978-0-8108-7459-6.
  6. ^ White, Dennis L. Beyond a Reasonable Doubt article/entry, in Film Noir An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style, eds. Alain Silver and Elizabeth Ward (Woodstock, N.Y.: Overlook Press, 1992), p 21–22. ISBN 0-87951-479-5.
  7. ^ Bruzzi, Stella (30 September 2013). Men's Cinema: Masculinity and Mise-en-Scene in Hollywood. Edinburgh University Press. p. 41. ISBN 978-0-7486-7619-4.
  8. ^ Schwartz, Dennis. Ozus' World Movie Reviews, film review, February 2, 2007. Accessed: August 6, 2013.
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