''Compulsion'' is a 1959 American

crime In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a State (polity), state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definit ...

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-g ...

directed by

Richard Fleischer Richard O. Fleischer (; December 8, 1916 – March 25, 2006) was an American film director whose career spanned more than four decades, beginning at the height of the Golden Age of Hollywood and lasting through the American New Wave. Though he ...

. The film is based on the 1956 novel of the same name by

Meyer Levin Meyer Levin (October 7, 1905 – July 9, 1981) was an American novelist. Perhaps best known for his work on the Leopold and Loeb case, Levin worked as a journalist (for the ''Chicago Daily News'' and, from 1933–1939, as an editor for ''Esquir ...

, which in turn was a

fiction Fiction is any creative work, chiefly any narrative work, portraying individuals, events, or places that are imaginary, or in ways that are imaginary. Fictional portrayals are thus inconsistent with history, fact, or plausibility. In a traditi ...

alized account of the

Leopold and Loeb Nathan Freudenthal Leopold Jr. (November 19, 1904 – August 29, 1971) and Richard Albert Loeb (; June 11, 1905 – January 28, 1936), usually referred to collectively as Leopold and Loeb, were two wealthy students at the University of Chicago ...

murder trial. It was the first film produced by

Richard D. Zanuck Richard Darryl Zanuck (December 13, 1934 – July 13, 2012) was an American film producer. His 1989 film ''Driving Miss Daisy'' won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Zanuck was also instrumental in launching the career of director Steven Spielb ...

. Although the principal roles are played by

Dean Stockwell Robert Dean Stockwell (March 5, 1936 – November 7, 2021) was an American actor with a career spanning seven decades. As a child actor under contract to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, he first came to the public's attention in films including ''Anchors A ...

and

Bradford Dillman Bradford Dillman (April 14, 1930 – January 16, 2018) was an American actor and author. Early life Bradford Dillman was born on April 14, 1930, in San Francisco, the son of Dean Dillman, a stockbroker, and Josephine (née Moore). Bradford's pa ...

, top billing went to

Orson Welles George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985) was an American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter, known for his innovative work in film, radio and theatre. He is considered to be among the greatest and most influential f ...

Plot

Close friends Judd Steiner (based on Nathan Leopold and played by

) and Artie Strauss (based on Richard Loeb and played by

) kill a boy, Paulie Kessler, 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 Evidence for a proposition is what supports this proposition. It is usually understood as an indication that the supported proposition is true. What role evidence plays and how it is conceived varies from field to field. In epistemology, evidenc ...

— Steiner's glasses, which he inadvertently left at the scene of the crime. Famed attorney Jonathan Wilk (based on

Clarence Darrow Clarence Seward Darrow (; April 18, 1857 – March 13, 1938) was an American lawyer who became famous in the early 20th century for his involvement in the Leopold and Loeb murder trial and the Scopes "Monkey" Trial. He was a leading member of t ...

and played by

) takes their case, saving them from

hanging Hanging is the suspension of a person by a noose or ligature around the neck.Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. Hanging as method of execution is unknown, as method of suicide from 1325. The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' states that hanging i ...

by making an impassioned

closing argument A closing argument, summation, or summing up is the concluding statement of each party's counsel reiterating the important arguments for the trier of fact, often the jury, in a court case. A closing argument occurs after the presentation of evid ...

against

capital punishment Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...

Cast

Production

Welles, whose recent thriller ''

Touch of Evil ''Touch of Evil'' is a 1958 American film noir written and directed by Orson Welles, who also stars in the film. The screenplay was loosely based on the contemporary Whit Masterson novel ''Badge of Evil'' (1956). The cast included Charlton Hes ...

'' was overlooked in America (though appreciated in Europe), was bitter at not being selected to direct ''Compulsion''. His time on the set was tense, and he threw frequent tantrums. In the early 1950s, Meyer Levin visited Nathan Leopold in prison and requested that Leopold cooperate with him on writing a novel based on the murder (the other murderer, Richard Loeb, was dead at that time). Leopold declined saying he did not wish his story told in fictionalized form but asked Levin if he could help him write his memoir. Levin was unhappy with that suggestion and wrote the novel anyway, releasing it in 1956. The novel was called ''Compulsion'', the book the film is based on. Leopold read the book and reportedly did not like it. Leopold later wrote that reading the book made him "physically sick ... More than once I had to lay the book down and wait for the nausea to subside. I felt as I suppose a man would feel if he were exposed stark-naked under a strong spotlight before a large audience." In 1959, Leopold sought unsuccessfully to block production of the film on the grounds that Levin's book had invaded his privacy,

defamed Defamation is the act of communicating to a third party false statements about a person, place or thing that results in damage to its reputation. It can be spoken (slander) or written (libel). It constitutes a tort or a crime. The legal defini ...

him, profited from his life story, and "intermingled fact and fiction to such an extent that they were indistinguishable." Eventually the Illinois Supreme Court ruled against him, noting that Leopold, as the confessed perpetrator of the "crime of the century" could not reasonably demonstrate that Levin's book had damaged his reputation.Larson EJ. ''Murder Will Out: Rethinking the Right of Publicity Through One Classic Case''
Rutgers Law Review archive
. Retrieved February 11, 2015.

Reception

At the 1959 Cannes Film Festival, Dillman, Stockwell, and Welles won the Best Actor Award. The film was nominated for the BAFTA best picture of the year, Richard Fleischer was nominated for best director by

Directors Guild of America The Directors Guild of America (DGA) is an entertainment guild that represents the interests of film and television directors in the United States motion picture industry and abroad. Founded as the Screen Directors Guild in 1936, the group merge ...

, and Richard Murphy was nominated for best screenplay by the

Writers Guild of America The Writers Guild of America is the joint efforts of two different US labor unions representing TV and film writers: * The Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE), headquartered in New York City and affiliated with the AFL–CIO * The Writers Guil ...

. In ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'',

A. H. Weiler Abraham H. Weiler (December 10, 1908 – January 22, 2002) was an American writer and critic best known for being a film critic and motion picture editor for ''The New York Times''. He also served a term as chairman of the New York Film Critics ...

gave the film a positive review, especially praising the performances of the actors: "In ''Compulsion'' they have made a dark deed into a bright and fascinating picture." The film holds a critics' approval rate of 100% on

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Compulsion 1959 films 1959 crime drama films 1950s English-language films 20th Century Fox films American black-and-white films American courtroom films American crime drama films American legal drama films Cultural depictions of Clarence Darrow Films about capital punishment Films about lawyers Films based on American novels Films based on the Leopold and Loeb murder Films à clef Films directed by Richard Fleischer Films produced by Richard D. Zanuck Films scored by Lionel Newman Films set in 1924 Films set in Chicago Films shot in Los Angeles 1950s American films