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Compulsion

7.2

2,537

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Rope

Original title

Compulsion

Year

1959

Running time

103 min.

Country

United States

Director

Richard Fleischer

Screenwriter

Richard Murphy. Novel: Meyer Levin

Cast

Music

Lionel Newman

Cinematography

William C. Mellor (B&W)

Producer

20th Century Fox

Genre

Thriller. Mystery. Drama | Crime. Courtroom Drama / Lawyers. 1920s. Based on a true story

Synopsis

It's Chicago and the year is 1924. Two young men are driving recklessly at night, and almost hit a drunken pedestrian. They are wealthy law students, the flamboyant Artie Straus (Bradford Dillman) constantly goading the intensely introverted Judd Steiner (Dean Stockwell) to still more outrageous escapades. Smugly feeling safe in their own superiority, the pair commit murder--just to show they can. So starts this gripping fictionalized version of the Leopold-Loeb case which shocked Americans and provoked Clarence Darrow, here fictionalized as Jonathan Wilk (Orson Welles), to make an impassioned plea that even these cold killers should not be hung.

Rankings Position

#97 Best Movies Based on a True Story

Awards: 1959: Cannes Film Festival: Best Actor (Welles, Stockwell, Dillman)

1959: BAFTA Awards: Nominated to Best Film

1959: Directors Guild of America (DGA): Nominated for Best Director

1959: Writers Guild of America (WGA): Nominated for Best Drama Screenplay

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User history

Compulsion

1959

Richard Fleischer

7.2

(2,537)