Compulsion (film)
| Compulsion | |
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| Directed by | Richard Fleischer |
| Produced by | Richard D. Zanuck |
| Written by | Richard Murphy |
| Starring | Orson Welles Diane Varsi Dean Stockwell Bradford Dillman |
| Music by | Lionel Newman |
| Cinematography | William C. Mellor |
| Editing by | William H. Reynolds |
| Distributed by | Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation |
| Release date(s) | April 1, 1959 |
| Running time | 103 mins/ 99 mins (FMC Library Print) |
| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $1.8 million (US rentals)[1] |
Compulsion, directed by Richard Fleischer, was a film made in 1959, based on the 1956 novel Compulsion by Meyer Levin, which in turn was based on the Leopold and Loeb trial. It was the first film Richard D. Zanuck produced.
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[edit] Plot
Artie Strauss and Judd Steiner (Bradford Dillman and Dean Stockwell) kill a boy on his way home from school in order to commit the "perfect crime". Strauss tries to cover it up, but they are caught when police find a key piece of evidence — Steiner's glasses, which he left at the scene of the crime. Famed attorney Jonathan Wilk (Orson Welles) takes their case, and saves them from hanging by making an impassioned closing argument against capital punishment.
[edit] Cast and crew
- Orson Welles - Jonathan Wilk
- Diane Varsi - Ruth Evans
- Dean Stockwell - Judd Steiner
- Bradford Dillman - Artie Strauss
- E. G. Marshall - District Attorney Harold Horn
- Martin Milner - Sid Brooks
- Richard Anderson - Max Steiner
- Robert F. Simon - Police Lt. Johnson (as Robert Simon)
- Edward Binns - Tom Daly
- Robert Burton - Charles Straus
- Wilton Graff - Mr. Steiner
- Louise Lorimer - Mrs. Strauss aka 'Mumsy'
- Gavin MacLeod - Padua - Horn's Assistant
[edit] Awards
The film was entered into the 1959 Cannes Film Festival, where Dillman, Stockwell and Welles won the Best Actor Award.[2]
[edit] References
- ^ Aubrey Solomon, Twentieth Century Fox: A Corporate and Financial History, Scarecrow Press, 1989 p228
- ^ "Festival de Cannes: Compulsion". festival-cannes.com. http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/archives/ficheFilm/id/3423/year/1959.html. Retrieved 2009-02-14.
[edit] External links
- Compulsion at the Internet Movie Database
- Compulsion at Rotten Tomatoes
- Compulsion at the TCM Movie Database
- Compulsion at AllRovi
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