Compulsion
1959
***½
Director: Richard Fleischer
Cast: Orson Welles, Dean Stockwell, Bradford Dillman, Diane Varsi, E.G. Marshall, Martin Milner, Richard Anderson, Gavin MacLeod, Robert Burton, Edward Binns
Two young law students from wealthy families murder a boy in an attempt to commit the perfect crime, but their arrogance is their undoing. Like Rope (1948), this somewhat static but compelling crime drama tells a fictionalised version of the Leopold and Loeb 1924 murder case. Alfred Hitchcock's film skipped the trial, but here it's the main thing. Orson Welles, who plays the passionate defence attorney, steals the show with his long and powerful monologue.
