Compulsion (1959) [w/Commentary]

In 1924 Chicago, two rich college students, Judd Steiner and Arthur Strauss, decide they can commit the perfect murder and get away with. They kill a young teenager, Paulie Kessler, but through the efforts of part-time reporter and fellow student Sid Brooks, a pair of glasses left at the scene is traced to the murderers. For their trial, the families hire renowned defense attorney Jonathan Wilk known for his passionate arguments against the death penalty. Both men confessed to the crime but Wilk pleads them not guilty. At the trial, they change the plea to guilty and Wilk argues passionately in favor of a life sentence rather than execution.

If "Compulsion" is still such a powerful film is, totally, Dean Stockwell's merit. What a sensational actor! I'm writing this the day after the announcement of Dennis Hopper's death and while I was looking for a Dennis Hopper movie to watch a came across "Compulsion" Not Hopper but Stockwell and I settled for that anyway. I was riveted by Stockwell's performance because everyone else (with the natural exception of Orson Wells and E G Marshall) seems so dated and acted that Dean's every moment is sheer magic. He doesn't shy away from the awfulness but makes his young monster totally human, provoking in us that element that Orson Welles's closing argument tries to bring to the forefront. If you love great acting, you can't afford to miss Dean Stockwell in "Compulsion"

Commentary track includes:
– The Guardian Interview with Richard Fleischer (1981). Recorded at the NFT, Fleischer is interviewed by Adrian Turner. The interview is presented as an audio recording which accompanies the main feature, in the manner of an audio commentary. Conducted around the time of the release of The Jazz Singer (1980), which Fleischer co-directed, the interview begins with a discussion of the diversity of Flescher’s work and the methods by which he selected projects (‘the selection process is a matter of somebody offering me a job’, Fleischer quips). Turner observes that much of Compulsion is shot elaborately, in a style similar to that which characterised Fleischer’s films noir, whilst the sequences featuring Orson Welles as Jonathan Wilk are shot in a more ‘flat’ and restrained manner; Fleischer suggests that this was simply owing to the fact that Welles’ sequences were shot in a hurry, in ten days, ‘and I didn’t have much time to screw around with a lot of angles’ (~93 min).
– Orson Welles in the Courtroom Scene from Compulsion (10 min). Here is an audio recording of Welles’ pivotal scene from the picture, which was released as a recording on a 45 rpm disc.