Rotten
Fritz Lang's direction does what it can to inject suspense and interest but the melodrama never really jells.
Variety Staff, Variety
Beyond a Reasonable Doubt
Put them all together they spell M-U-R-D-E-R !
1956 · 1h 20m · Not Rated
Crime, Drama, Mystery
Directed by
Fritz Lang
Overview
A newspaper publisher, wanting to prove a point about the insufficiency of circumstantial evidence, talks his possible son-in-law Tom into a hoax in an attempt to expose ineptitude of the city's hard-line district attorney. The plan is to have Tom plant clues leading to his arrest for killing a female nightclub dancer. Once Tom is found guilty, he is to reveal the setup and humiliate the DA.
Director and cast
- Fritz Lang Director
- Dana Andrews as Tom Garrett
- Joan Fontaine as Susan Spencer
- Sidney Blackmer as Austin Spencer
- Arthur Franz as Bob Hale
- Philip Bourneuf as Roy Thompson
- Edward Binns as Lt. Kennedy
- Shepperd Strudwick as Jonathan Wilson
- Robin Raymond as Terry Larue
- Barbara Nichols as Dolly Moore
- William F. Leicester as Charlie Miller
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes
Top critics, in their words
68%
Tomatometer
Fresh
Lang's most austere film, reducing the characters to pawns arbitrarily shifted in demonstration of a fascinating theorem.
Tom Milne, Time Out
Fresh
Once he's raised the standard social issues, Lang destroys them all with a shatteringly nihilistic conclusion.
Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
Rotten
While the purpose may be exemplary, the method the gentlemen employ is highly dubious as a practical exposition. And once it is revealed to prove their point, it should certainly put them in a pickle for conspiring to subvert justice and fool the courts.
Bosley Crowther, New York Times
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