TCM Spotlight: Order in the Court: ‘Murder in the First”
TCM, beginning at 7 p.m.
All rise each Wednesday this month on Turner Classic Movies when the network airs a primetime lineup of memorable courtroom-set films falling under various themes. Tonight’s theme is films featuring murder trials, beginning with the 1957 Best Picture Oscar nominee 12 Angry Men (pictured) (1957), helmed by Best Director Oscar nominee Sidney Lumet and written by Reginald Rose, who received an Oscar nomination for adapting his 1954 teleplay. Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb, Ed Begley, E.G. Marshall and Jack Warden lead the cast in this tense drama almost exclusively set in a jury deliberation room where a group of men are debating the conviction or acquittal of an 18-year-old defendant. Up next is Anatomy of a Murder, the 1959 drama from director Otto Preminger that received seven Oscar nominations, including Best Picture. Best Actor Oscar nominee James Stewart gives one of his finest performances as a small-town Michigan lawyer who takes on a difficult case: that of a young Army lieutenant (Ben Gazzara) accused of murdering the local tavern owner who he believes raped his wife (Lee Remick). Rounding out the evening are Robert Wise’s crime drama Criminal Court (1946); David Lean’s 19th-century-set Madeleine (1950), based on a true Scottish murder trial; Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956), a film noir that was the last American film directed by Fritz Lang; and Midnight Mary (1933), a pre-Code crime drama directed by William A. Wellman and starring Loretta Young as the title character, who is on trial for murder. —