home cinema Anatomy of a Murder: A retrospect

Review by Leonard Heldreth

Leonard Heldreth has been penning movie reviews for Marquette Monthly since it’s very first edition, in October, 1987. Below, is his first-ever MM review, in its entirety, as is it was published 36 years ago. The review has not been changed, however some pictures are different from what originally ran with his review.

Among the few events that have drawn national attention to the Upper Peninsula, the two most famous were Teddy Roosevelt’s libel suit against George A. Newett and Otto Preminger’s filming of Anatomy of a Murder. Roosevelt took six cents and court costs out of the U.P. as settlement for his suit, but Preminger’s film, budgeted at two million dollars, pumped half a million into the local economy. Now, over twenty-five years later, local residents still remember and tell newcomers about those hectic days in the spring of 1959 when reporters from Look, Life, Newsweek, and Family Circle, as well as representatives of many major newspapers, descended upon Marquette County to chronicle the daily activities of celebrities such as James Stewart, Lee Remick, and Joseph Welch.

One reasonable starting point for this story of murder is 1952, the year when Lt. Coleman A. Peterson was tried in the Marquette County courthouse for shooting Mike Chenoweth, the proprietor of the Lumberjack Tavern in Big Bay, who had allegedly raped Peterson’s wife. Defending Peterson was John Voelker, 49, who for fourteen of the sixteen years between 1934 and 1950, had served as Marquette County prosecuting attorney.

During this same period, Voelker had developed a second career as a writer, publishing a number of articles and three books. Among the articles were a piece of literary detective work and a prophetic discussion of ways of preventing nuclear war. The first argued that Hemingway’s hero, Nick Adams, had actually fished the Fox River instead of the Big Two-Hearted, while “Blueprint for Survival,” published in The Saturday Review of Literature (7/13/46) advocated a method of mutually assured destruction similar to the condition that now exists between the super powers. He also published articles on fishing and one on his schoolmate, Glenn Seaborg.

The Ishpeming Historical Society is hosting a free screening of Anatomy of a Murder at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, June 29 at the W. C. Peterson Auditorium in Ishpeming High School, at 319 E. Division Street. Admission is free of charge; donations will be accepted to help defray costs.

Under the name of Robert Traver, taken from his mother’s maiden name, Voelker published his first book, Trouble Shooter, 1943. In 1951 he published Danny and the Boys, a collection of humorous stories about the U.P. Small Town D.A. followed in 1954, and a book on trout fishing, Voelker’s favorite subject, was written but consigned to a drawer after a number of publishers turned it down. Although these books had received positive notices, none had sold big numbers. According to legend, Small Town D.A. was partially responsible for Voelker’s being named to the Michigan Supreme Court: one of Governor Williams’ aides read the book and sent a note to the governor that said, “He’s your man.” On January 1, 1957, Voelker was sworn in as a member of the Michigan Supreme Court.

On January 6 Anatomy of a Murder, which originally covered 840 legal-sized pages and had been rejected by three publishers, was published by St. Martin’s Press. The Book-of-theMonth Club chose it as a main selection, and it remained on the national best-seller list for sixty-five weeks. Plans were made to turn the novel into a play, and a number of directors seemed interested in adapting it to film.

Otto Preminger heard about the book in August, 1957, six months before it was published, when his story editor read the manuscript and sent him a favorable report. Preminger, who was in France filming Bonjour Tristisse at that time, thought the screen rights had been sold. After returning to the United States, he read the novel, and its intense reality and vivid picture of the law reminded him of his own days as a law student. A subsequent trade newspaper article indicated the rights had not been sold, and Preminger, through legal maneuvers and the settling of three lawsuits, finally acquired film rights to the novel from Voelker in 1958 for $150,000.00 and 5% of the gross rev- enue of the film.

At the time he began the pre-production plans for Anatomy of a Murder, Preminger had been producing films with his own company, Carlyle Productions, for five years. Born in Vienna in 1906, he had become a U.S. citizen in 1943, and he worked for Twentieth Century-Fox as a producer-director from 1943 to 1953, directing films such as Laura (1944), Forever Amber (1947) and Where the Sidewalk Ends (1953). He also played the Nazi commander in Stalag 17

(1953).

Preminger then formed Carlyle Productions, but his first film, The Moon is Blue (1953), was denied a seal by the Motion Picture Producers Association of America (MPPAA) because of its racy dialogue and its use of the word “virgin.” By standards of the eighties, the film is extremely tame: more sexual innuendoes occur in almost any prime-time television comedy.

Preminger directed Carmen Jones (1954), an adaptation of Bizet’s opera transferred to the southern states with a black cast, and The Court Martial of Billy Mitchell (1955). The Man with the Golden Arm (1955) brought the director back into conflict with the MPPAA because he used drug addiction as a subject for film. In 1957 he cast Jean Seaberg in the title role of his adaptation of George Barnard Shaw’s Saint Joan and a year later he starred her in Bonjour Tristesse.

Preminger hired Wendell Mayes to write the script of Anatomy of a Murder and worked closely with Mayes to shape a screenplay that pleased both of them. When Preminger was offered the opportunity to direct Porgy and Bess, he took Mayes to Hollywood, where Preminger directed during the day while Mayes wrote, and then they conferred at night. In the spring of 1958, Preminger visited Voelker in the Upper Peninsula and decided to shoot all the exteriors on location; on a later visit in early January, 1959, he decided to shoot the entire film on location.

On January 15, 1959, James Stewart and Lana Turner were announced as the stars of the film, but in early March Turner quit the part, charging that it was “impossible to deal with his (Preminger’s) unpredictable temper.” Preminger replied that the dispute was over wardrobe: Turner wanted glamorous costumes while Preminger wanted her in realistic clothes to fit the documentary style he envisioned for the movie. The director announced, “I’ll get an unknown and make her a new Lana Turner,” but twelve hours later he signed Lee Remick, described in the press release as “a sensational stage and screen actress.”

While Turner was the right age for the part of Laura Manion, whom the book described as forty-one and extremely attractive, Remick at twenty-three was young for the part. In the film, however, the change in age is not noticeable since the husband is also younger. Remick had debuted in A Face in the Crowd (1957), playing a majorette, and had acted in two other films, The Long Hot Summer (1958) and These Thousand Hills (1959).

Eve Arden was cast as Maida, Paul Beigler’s secretary. While Arden had appeared in a number of films, including Stage Door (1937), Cover Girl (1944), Mildren Pierce (1945), and We’re Not Married (1952), she was best known for her television series, Our Miss Brooks, which ran from 1952-1955. The part of Mitchell Lodwick, the prosecuting attorney, was given to Brooks West, Eve Arden’s husband. Ben Gazarra was signed to play Lt. Frederic Manion, the defendant, and Arthur O’Connell played Parnell McCarthy. George C. Scott, who played the assistant to the prosecuting attorney, was hired by Preminger after two interviews although Preminger had never seen him act.

The casting that most fascinated Preminger was hiring Joseph Welch, the Boston attorney who had become famous for his opposition to Senator Joseph McCarthy in the Army-McCarthy hearings. Anatomy of a Murder was Welch’s only film, and Preminger was so eager to have him that he gave Welch one of the highest salaries in the film. He further sweetened the pot by casting Mrs. Welch as a juror. Premingers ploy paid off, however, because he received far more free publicity from casting Welch than he could have bought with his salary.

For the part of Mary Pliant, Preminger had planned to cast “an as yet unknown aspiring actress,” but his final choice was Kathryn Grant, wife of Bing Crosby. Lloyd LeVasseur, County Clerk of Marquette, was cast as Clovis Pigeon, the county clerk, an appropriate choice since Pigeon was probably modeled on LeVasseur, and Voelker said that LeVasseur had been rehearsing the part for twenty-three years.

On January 21, the County Board of Supervisors gave permission to use the courthouse and to paint it a rosy tan because the original color would appear too light in the film. Other changes to the courthouse entailed bracing the second floor to support the heavy movie equipment and adding further ventilation to deal with the heat generated by the lights.

While the filmmakers attempted to use existing structures, such as the courthouse, Voelker’s home, the Ishpeming Railroad depot and the sheriff’s office, some construction was necessary. A hot dog stand was constructed near the lake at the end of Washington Street, theoretically to take advantage of the beauty of the shoreline, but the old coal loading equipment operated throughout the scene and distracted viewers from any natural beauty. An addition was added to the Big Bay Inn, as well as a new sign, and a beauty parlor was constructed in an empty building in Michigamme.

Over 300 Marquette residents tried out for parts as extras, and about 160 were selected for bit parts. The casting director tried to pick women who were middle-aged or older and men who were retired or elderly because he felt these types would be hanging around a courthouse. The extras were paid $10.00 per day, and $15.00 if they used their cars.

The arrival of the major cast members on March 22 via train – Lee Remick brought her seven-weekold daughter – was filmed and later broadcast on the Ed Sullivan show on March 30. Shooting began on March 23 and proceeded almost exactly on schedule. The courtroom scenes were filmed first over a period of four weeks, with a break on April 20 for filming two scenes at the train depot in Ishpeming where Arthur O’Connell greeted Orson Bean while a hired train chugged away at $100.00 per hour. O’Connell had caught a virus in New York and had been hospitalized at Bell Memorial Hospital.

By April 24, the courtroom scenes were finished except for some hall shots, and filming moved to St. Mary’s Hospital, then to the county jail, and then on to Big Bay. The filming in the Lumberjack Tavern was said to be the first time scenes from a murder movie were actually filmed at the site of the murder. Voelker declared his work “pure fiction” and later remarked, “Of course, there are real people who can be compared to the characters in the book, but this was creative fiction of the highest order because I changed their names.” Preminger said he picked the Lumberjack “in the interest of realism and authenticity,” while locals pointed out the authentic bullet holes in the wall.

On May 2 Duke Ellington arrived to work on the film score and to play the leader of the roadhouse band. De- spite an early May snowstorm, filming continued at Voelker’s former home in Ishpeming, at the Carnegie Public Library, and Nault’s Bar. Then the crew moved to the Mt. Shasta Lodge, which functioned as a roadhouse in the film, to Perkins Park trailer court, and to two days of shooting in Michigammee for street scenes and a beauty parlor sequence. By May 15, almost exactly on schedule, shooting was completed, and a mass exodus began.

Anatomy of a Murder achieved at least two firsts and provided some interesting production facts. In addition to being the first film shot at the sight of the murder it depicted, it was also the first film produced entirely on location, even to the editing. It used more dulling spray than any other film–over thirty cans– because of the polished woodwork in the courthouse, which reflected into the cameras. The dog who appeared in the film was actually two different cairn terriers, Snuffy and Danny. James Stewart used Voelker’s rods and lures in the film and smoked the short black imported Italian cigars which Voelker and his hero smoked. Voelker asserted the cigars were “not as bad they appear to be; they are infinitely worse,” so at a testimonial dinner, he gave Stewart an award for enduring them.

As most films do, Anatomy of a Murder played loose with the architecture of the area. In a scene where Stewart and O’Connell are searching through books in the law library, Welch comes down the corridor, peeks into the room, sees the two, smiles, turns, and leaves. The “law library” was fabricated in the Ishpeming Carnegie Public Library using law books moved there from Northern Michigan College. When Welch walked down the hall at the court house and appeared to peek into the library, he actually looked into the men’s room. Creative editing connected the two locations into one building.

One of the more curious sequences said to be in the film is not apparent in the current videotape version. In the 4th edition of Leslie Halliwell’s The Filmgoer’s Companion, he cites Anatomy of a Murder as providing one of the best examples of “Boo-boos” in film: the scene is the one in which Lee Remick dances at the roadhouse while her husband is in prison, and Stewart tracks her down and sends her home. According to Halliwell (p. 97), “Lee Remick in the cafe scene wears a dress, but when she walks outside she is wearing slacks.” Of course, the scenes may have been shot at different times, and the continuity person might have been dozing. The videotape version does not demonstrate this discontinuity. Was Halliwell asleep or was the film re-edited to eliminate the embarrassing error? I suspect the latter.

In April the Michigan Week Group selected Anatomy of a Murder as Michigan’s “Product of the Year,” and at the dinner, Preminger announced the film’s world premier would be held simultaneously in Marquette and Ishpeming on Monday, June 29, John Voelker’s 56th birthday. Proceeds from the premier would go to Bay Cliff Health Camp for physically handicapped children. Ticket prices were $10.00, $7.50, and $5.00. The premier at the two theatres was a sell out– 889 tickets – and Bay Cliff received $9000.00 in contributions. The Detroit premier on July 2 was held as a benefit for the United Nations Association.

Not everyone was impressed with the film and its designation as Michigan Product of the Year. The Rev. Paul Ward wrote to the Mining Journal to attack the award and to label Anatomy of a Murder “one of the most immoral books to be published in recent years” because it shows a lawyer more interested in having his client acquitted than in seeing justice done: “That a Michigan Supreme Court Justice should be the author is about unbelievable.”

A few people agreed with Ward, but reaction to the film was generally positive. A Milwaukee review noted, “if Miss Remick hasn’t been recognized as a star previously, this vehicle should make her one.” But the film was also called “an earthy movie,” and reviews noted, “Some eyebrows will be lifted by the frank dialogue included in the courtroom scenes.” In Chicago a police commissioner, who felt certain phrases and dialogue were obscene and immoral, tried to keep the film from being shown, but he was overruled by the courts. In a July 13 article, a journalist wondered if there would be “amusement in 1979 about today’s eyebrow-lifting ‘Anatomy of a Murder’ dialogue.” Of course, after recent films as different as Full Metal Jacket and Summer School, whose only common element is their extensive use of obscenities and profanities, one can only laugh in bemusement at the changes accepted in language in twenty-five years.

In the eighties Anatomy of a Murder is still suspenseful and amusing, and it keeps its feeling of authenticity. The acting remains effective, with Stewart, Remick, and Scott as the standouts. Indeed, one of the film’s most impressive characteristics is the amount of talent, much of it then relatively unknown, that Preminger assembled. Duke Ellington’s jazz score seems even better today than critics thought at the time, although he is scarcely believable as the roadhouse band leader.

If I were forced to find a fault with the film, I would have to choose Preminger’s rather static direction. Preminger likes the long shot – a scene running for more than three minutes – often with camera movement, such as pans or dolly shots. Such a technique, often referred to as mise-en-scene editing, contrasts with the montage technique of assembling a film from a number of short shots, usually with no camera movement in individual shots. On the positive side, mise-en-scene method gives the actors time to build their emotions in the scene. Preminger felt that this method gave the film more vitality, and he also tried to film the scenes as much in chronological order as possible to help the actors keep a better sense of the action. He planned the film carefully and often shot from only one angle, rather than shooting from a number of angles and then picking the best one in the cutting room. When this approach works, it saves money, often helps the actors perform more effectively, and gives more continuity to the action than would a series of short, choppy shots. On the negative side, the technique, used too much, can lead to a stagey quality that often causes the action to look too much like a filmed play. The montage method tends to exploit the film medium more. Often, the choice is simply a personal one, and Preminger chose the method he preferred.

Nevertheless, at times I wished Preminger had been more daring in the staging of scenes, in the editing, and in using the unique characteristics of film. The camera work is sometimes static, and the visuals of the film are often predictable. This quality is less apparent in Anatomy of a Murder than it is in some of Preminger’s other films, but it still somewhat distracts from the film.

Anatomy of a Murder is a solid film, but it lacks the original edge or style that a top-flight director–a Hitchcock, a Ford, a Houston, or even a De Palma–might have given it. Voelker’s novel, through its point of view, char- acterization, and use of setting, has a depth that the film lacks. Nor is this difference simply a matter of length: the novel has an original voice and a verbal style that give it a distinctive edge. The subject material, however, is strong enough that it carries the film through its awkward stretches, and overall it’s good entertainment that obviously pleased a lot of people. continued making such films such as Exodus (1960), Advise and Consent (1961), and The Cardinal (1963); he died in 1986 at age 79.

The film concludes with a number of questions left unanswered. Was Lt. Manion guilty of cold-blooded murder? Had Barney Quill beaten and raped Laura Manion, or did her husband give her the bruises and black eye? Where did the Manions go after leaving the area? Did Paul Biegler ever locate them and collect his fee? The last scene ends with a shot of Laura’s shoe hanging on the edge of a garbage can, and the answers are as impossible to track down as the Manions.

Critical response to the film at the time of its release was quite positive; it received four Oscar nominations: Best Picture, Best Actor (Stewart), and Best Supporting Actor (Scott and O’Connell).

Reality intruded into the fiction in July of 1960 when Mrs. Hazel Wheeler, the forty-seven-year-old widow of Mike Chenoweth, filed a nine million dollar lawsuit against Dell Publishing Co. and Columbia Pictures. Joining her in the suit was her daughter, Terry Ann Chenoweth. In April of 1962, a U.S Appeals court upheld the lower court’s ruling that the suit be dismissed: the discussion indicated that while identification of Mrs. Chenoweth was possible, her privacy was not invaded since it was obvious the author had made the character different from the actual individual.

John Voelker resigned from the Michigan Supreme Court at the end of 1959 because, “while other lawyers may write my opinions, they can scarcely write my books. It is as simple as that.” He continues to live in the Upper Peninsula and to write interesting articles and books about it: Trout Madness (1960), Horstein’s Boy (1962), Anatomy of a Fisherman (1964), Laughing Whitefish (1965), Jealous Mistress (1968), Trout Magic (1974), and People Versus Kirk (1981).

What about the lingering effect on the area of all that excitement? Marquette County is still more easily identified to more people as “the place where Anatomy of a Murder was filmed” than through any other means. And while the immediate economic effect of half a million dollars was beneficial, the follow-up publicity was probably worth even more. People still read the novel, and a 25th Anniversary Edition was released in 1983. Readers as different as Walter Mondale and Geoffrey Ashe, the Arthurian scholar, admire the book and are eager to meet Voelker. John Vandezande, a local writer, published a short story entitled The Story, which traces one old man’s memories of the filming in Big Bay. Anatomy of a Murder was first shown on television in the U.P. in November of 1966 and is now available on videotape.

What is not clear is why none of Voelker’s other novels has been as popular as Anatomy of a Murder and why none of them has been made into films. Few people are around who remember Teddy Roosevelt’s visit, and the younger generation knows about Preminger’s visit only second hand. It’s about time the U.P. was put to good use as a sound stage again, this time with more outdoor sets. Has anybody sent Stanley Kubrick a copy of Laughing Whitefish?

(Facts for this retrospect were drawn from materials in the John W. Longyear Research Library at the Marquette County Historical Society and in the Peter White Public Library.)

Otto Preminger

After the filming of Anatomy of a Murder ended, its stars moved on to other projects. James Stewart traveled to the desert to make The Mountain Road, the next film in his long, distinguished career. Lee Remick became the star everyone was predicting she would be, appearing in films such as Days of Wine and Roses (1962), The Omen (1976), and The Europeans (1979), as well as numerous television movies. Eve Arden continued with films such as The Dark at the Top of the Stairs (1960) and Grease (1978). Arthur O’Connell appeared in 7 Faces of Dr. Lao (1964), Bus Stop (1956), Fantastic Voyage (1966), and others. Joseph Welch, who later admitted that he paid little attention to the script and changed the lines to “make them as real as I could,” died in October of 1960; at the time of his death he and Voelker were considering collaboration on a book.

Leonard Heldreth became interested in films in high school and worked as a movie projectionist in undergraduate and graduate school. His short “Cinema Comment” aired for some years on WNMU-FM. In 1987, he started writing reviews for Marquette Monthly. He taught English and film studies at NMU for more than 30 years.