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The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

I'm always pleased to catch a Fritz Lang thriller on the TV schedules and was surprised to learn from IMDb that this was in fact his last Hollywood feature. To be honest, it doesn't really compare to his best work, being quite plot-heavy and not perhaps offering him much inspiration for his customary flourishes. That said it does start very sombrely with a near-silent depiction of an electric-chair execution, before the main, convoluted plot-line kicks in with a too blatant anti-capital punishment message. There's little else for the old maestro to do but try to follow the ins and outs of the story, which is too unbelievable and predicated on coincidence to really convince with even the twist at the end just too far-fetched and under-powered to finish the film on any kind of high, plus the complete absence throughout of any other suspect makes the final denouement obvious in the extreme. It is possible to detect Lang pushing the boundaries a little a la Preminger with occasionally risqué dialogue and Dana Andrews interaction with the strippers but "Anatomy Of A Murder" this isn't. The acting is solid enough with Dana Andrews and Joan Fontaine only occasionally looking befuddled by the over-intricacies of the narrative but in the end this isn't one of the great director's finest hours and not a film he'll be best remembered for.

Beyond a Reasonable Doubt is directed by Fritz Lang and written by Douglas Morrow. It stars Dana Andrews, Joan Fontaine, Sidney Blackner, Arthur Franz and Philip Bourneuf. Music is by Herschel Burke Gilbert and cinematography by William Snyder. Plot has Andrews as a writer who hatches a plan with his future father-in-law to expose the weakness in using circumstantial evidence to send suspects to the electric chair. The ruse is to plant "evidence" that will incriminate Andrews in a topical murder and see him sentenced to death. Then the two men will reveal their own photographic evidence to prove the folly of law and the death penalty. But it's a dangerous game to play, and fate and hidden secrets may have the ultimate say on the outcome?It was Fritz Lang's last American movie, after wowing cinema fans with such excellent pictures like M, The Big Heat, Scarlet Street and While the City Sleeps, it's safe to say that Beyond A Reasonable Doubt is not the great swansong many had reason to expect. There's nothing particularly impressive about the camera work or photography, while the sets look distinctly under nourished. But veering away from our yearnings for technical smarts, film finds Lang determined to prove a bitter based point whilst enjoying dangling his protagonist above a fascinating pit of ifs and maybes.The fascination comes from the court case that underpins the movie, as we observe the law unfurling its might, privy to the dangerous ruse perpetrated by Andrews' daring Guinea Pig. It feels cold in narrative, and most certainly that is intentional because the last fifteen minutes of film pulls the rug from under everyone and finally reveals its hand. It's then, as the end card appears, that the film comes full circle and delivers on the promise of a game of human chess. Where the winner is not innocence or guilt, but something that drives many a film noir picture, that which concerns the vagaries of fate.The main cast players rightly play it sedately, with Andrews calm and understated, and Fontaine regal like and serene in dialogue delivery. Best turns come from the support slots, with Blackner most interesting as the newspaper publisher-come potential father-in-law-come the man who originated the idea for the "hoax", and Barbara Nichols who charms and entertains as the air head dancer who becomes a critical pawn in this particularly tricksy game of deceit and suspicion. It's never overtly film noir until the last quarter, and really it's a court room/legal drama sprinkled with some less than sparkly dust. Yet in spite of the undeniable contrivances that reside within the plot, this is still prime Lang for the way it observes the law and the human condition that said law brings out of the skin. 7.5/10

'Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956),' another taut thriller from Fritz Lang, takes an intriguing concept and runs with it. Tom Garrett (Dana Andrews), a writer looking for an idea, and Austin Spencer (Sidney Blackmer), an editorialist against capital punishment, contrive a bizarre scheme to expose the flaws in the American legal system. Garrett agrees to set himself up as the prime suspect in a murder, using only circumstantial evidence. Spencer agrees to withhold the evidence of his innocence until after Garrett is convicted and sentenced to the death penalty. Joan Fontaine plays Susan Spencer, Garret's fiancée, who isn't let in on the ruse. The moment when Austin Spencer is killed in a car accident, leaving our hero seemingly without any hope of reprieve, is still shocking despite its inevitability, leaving a powerful feeling of hopelessness. The film's final twist, however, I did not see coming. Regrettably, 'Beyond a Reasonable Doubt' pulls yet another twist in its final seconds; it would've been better had the film been made a decade later, free from the restraints of the Production Code, which demanded (and received) an ending that "does not lower the moral standards" of audiences.

"Beyond A Reasonable Doubt" is the last film that "M" director Fritz Lang made in Hollywood, and the theme of this intriguing but far-fetched law and order thriller concerns the morality of capital punishment. Capital punishment, crime, and murder obsessed Lang throughout his lengthy career, and this RKO release provided Lang with another opportunity to deal with an innocent man who through a fluke in the justice system may die for a crime that he didn't commit.Tom Garrett (Dana Andrews of "The Ox-Bow Incident") is a former newspaper journalist turned novelist who agrees to test the strength of the justice system when his former boss, newspaper publisher Austin Spencer (Sidney Blackmer of "Duel in the Sun"), thinks that the local district attorney is too good at his trade. Spencer loathes the idea that an ambitious District Attorney Roy Thompson (Philip Bourneuf of "The Molly Maguires") will exploit his ability to send men to the electric chair as a means to becoming the next governor. When a burlesque queen is murdered, Tom and Austin proceed with their plan to implicate Tom for the homicide.Meanwhile, Austin's daughter Susan (Joan Fontaine of "Suspicion") does not understand this secret scheme that her father and Tom are concocting until she sees a picture of her fiancée in the newspaper with another woman Dolly Moore (Barbara Nichols), who stripped at the same club with the victim. Anyway, Tom buys a grey top-coat which a witness, who could not discern the facial features of the man, said he was wearing. Tom takes a lighter that Susan gave him and throws it in a ravine near where the girl died. Eventually, Thompson takes Tom into custody and charges him with the death of the stripper. The morning of the sentencing, Austin puts all the pictures in an envelop and backs out of his garage. No sooner has he backed out than a truck collides with him, knocks his car over, and a fire erupts. Austin dies in the car and the evidence goes up in smoke. Tom reacts with shock at the death of Austin. He goes into court and explains what happened, but the jury finds him guilty and he is sentenced to die in the electric chair.The two sizzling surprises that cap this nifty 80-minute melodrama will leave you reeling. The chief difference between this version and the new Michael Douglas version is that Lang did not have the elaborate technology the director Peter Hyams takes advantage of in his remake. Furthermore, the protagonists in the Lang version were targeting the death penalty and the ease with which Thompson won convictions on circumstantial evidence. In the Hyams version, the district attorney is crooked from the get-go. Unfortunately, this threadbare, black & white production will strike contemporary attention-deficit audiences that crave explosive action-fests as boring.