Has it been another year already? I certainly feel 365 days closer to death, but then that just me getting character for the season. That's right, it's October again here in the Thunderbird estate, as well as the rest of the world, which means it's time for another 31 movie reviews/impressions/musings. You're gonna see horror, you're gonna see sci-fi, you're gonna see a whole bunch of weird shit I watched that can loosely relate to the celebration of Halloween. There's a couple clunkers, quite a few gems, and everything in between. Check them out, you just might find your next favorite movie.
Before the advent of psychology and psychiatry, humanity had a very limited understanding of itself, why we act we do. Before we knew what epilepsy was, we assumed that person was possessed by demons. Before we knew what post traumatic stress disorder was, we assumed that those people had shellshock or were even cowards (the British army in WWI even had a habit of shooting those they believed to be ‘cowards’ and ‘deserters’ in fact). Before we knew that the lack of certain chemicals in the brain could severely impact human behavior, we assumed that those people were evil, or monsters, rather than those in need of medical attention. To be fair, since ‘medical attention’ in those days could mean ‘get a hole drilled through your skull’ or any other sort of horrific bullshit you could imagine (amputating limbs and infecting people with tuberculosis was also pretty popular), maybe they were better off being left alone.
Then again,just because we understand something, or believe we understand it, doesn’t mean we can’t make assumptions. In fact it is that arrogance, that belief that we know more than others and are better than them, that has lead to the biggest blights on our record as a species. Colonialism, holy wars, genocide, corruption, all the way down to plain old simple murder, it all boils down to ‘I’m better than you, so submit’. Even if we don’t believe in witchcraft and demons anymore, even if we’re now ‘genre-savvy’ in regards to the universe, in many ways it’s like we never left the trees.
Arrogance is the name of the game for 1959’s Compulsion, directed by film great Richard Fleischer (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Fantastic Voyage, and so on), and starring Orson Welles, Diane Varise and a very young Dean Stockwell, decades before he played a cigar-chomping hologram on Quantum Leap. Based on a novel by Meyer Levin, which was itself based on a 1924 Chicago court case, Compulsion centers around two rich college students: Arthur Straus, a charming yet domineering extrovert and compulsive liar and Judd Steiner, an antisocial wunderkind with an obsession for all things Nietzsche (this was before douchebags flocked to the works of Ayn Rand, you see). Possessed of wealth, status and popularity, convinced of their own innate superiority to their fellow man through modern philosophy, Artie and Judd engage in a series of crimes based on the desire for ‘experiences’, or in the case of Artie, ‘shits and giggles’. Breaking and entering, robbery, attempted hit-and-run, attempted rape, culminating in the kidnapping and violent murder of a young boy named Paul Kessler. The perfect crime, or so they think, until a pair of glasses is discovered on Kessler’s body. Glasses that happen to belong to Judd Steiner.
When the case eventually reaches court, which it must as a movie based on a court case, and threat of capital punishment seems less a possibility and more a reality, the wealthy parents of Straus and Steiner retain the services of Jonathan Wilk (Welles), a well-known and talented attorney. A noted atheist and humanitarian who champions causes rather than bank accounts, Wilk decides to tackle the case, building a case that Artie and Judd are mentally ill, and should be imprisoned rather than being put to death. However, two prominent state psychiatrists have already dubbed the two ‘completely sane’, and so are fit to stand trial. Sane or insane? The answer to that question holds two lives in the balance, and would set a precedent for the years to come.
In a lot of ways, Compulsion is very similar to another film that’s been discussed on this blog, to the extent that they might have been based off of the same case: Rope, by the great Alfred Hitchcock. Both featured two young high-society men, the affable mastermind and the silent genius who decide to murder someone because they can, and much of the movie is centered around the unraveling of that so-called perfect crime. Both feature the affable character egging people on, playing fast and loose with the victims and the investigators, while the genius character slowly cracks under the pressure. Both deal heavily on Nietzsche's idea of the superman, of not being bound by the laws of other men in a postwar society. Hell, the actors in Rope even look a bit like Artie and Judd, albeit in color. It can’t be a coincidence.
Were I to compare the two though, I’d have to go with Rope as the better film, in large part because it feels like you’re only getting half of a movie in Compulsion. You find out that Artie and Judd murder Kessler but you never see it happen, you get a hint of the investigation but not all that much, you see a glimpse of the trial but mostly the end of it, it all goes by the wayside to focus on Artie and Judd’s rocky relationship. Which is fine to a degree, because the actors do a terrific job of highlighting Artie and Judd’s personality disorders, making them definitely seem capable of the act of murder, but it all feels like a lost opportunity in retrospect. I mean the driving force of the film is this murder, you’d think it would be more than a footnote in the film. I could understand why Fleischer wouldn’t show the act or the body, this was still the 50s after all, but couldn’t there be a scene at least hinting it? Showing them case out the area perhaps, choosing Kessler as the one they would kill? Wouldn’t be much, but it would keep the film from feeling truncated.
Orson Welles puts on a subdued but excellent performance as you’d expect but his part of the film, in particular his closing statements at the end of trial, ends up feeling incongruous with the first half of the film. It’s a great monologue, and were I in the courtroom that day I would certainly been affected, but that speech came after an hour of seeing Artie and Judd living it up. Not once do they appear remorseful of what they did or worthy of sympathy, although Fleischer tries to claim it by mentioning absentee parents and how Judd seems ‘so sad’, neither of which are ever really addressed all that much. They don’t even appear insane, which is the crux of the case for and against them, so by the time that Wilk appears in the story you’re kind of already rooting for them to get what they deserve. Which might have been the point all along, maybe Fleischer was making us root for the death penalty like the public in the film (again, implied not shown) and then having Wilk pull us back from the brink. Which I appreciate, but for me it wasn’t all that effective. Artie and Judd were too good at being unlikable, and I’m a guy who is already completely unsympathetic to rich assholes trying to get away with blatantly ignoring the law.
That being said, it is a very well-made film with some equally great performances, so I’d say it’s worth a watch. Perhaps in a double feature with Rope, so you can compare and contrast at your leisure. Just don’t get it into your head that you could get away with it, that you could find a way around the law, where these characters failed. If you learn anything from this film, it’s that being an ubermensch just isn’t worth the hassle.
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