User reviews

"Beyond a Reasonable Doubt" is a curious film - it has the look and feel of a B movie and two stars who had seen better days - Dana Andrews and Joan Fontaine - yet it's a good script directed by Fritz Lang. A novelist (Andrews) and his future father-in-law, a newspaper magnet (Sidney Blackmer) work together to prove that the death penalty isn't justified by framing Andrews for a recent murder.

I thought the story excellent with some exciting twists, though the whole movie has an underplayed (not to mention inexpensive) feeling to it. Fontaine seemed a little old for her role. However, she does a good job as a sophisticate, and Andrews is good as well. Barbara Nichols does a fine job in a typical supporting role for her.

Lang returned to Germany after this film, his last in America. It's an effective plot but one wishes the man who made Metropolis and so many other fine films was given more of a budget for his swansong.

For his final Hollywood film, Fritz Lang decided to expose the pitfalls of capital punishment for circumstantial evidence. For this film, Lang has kept it simple; with the entire movie focusing on the central premise and not a lot of anything else going on. Filmmakers can sometimes saturate a film with lots of sub-plots, and it can have a huge detrimental effect on what the film is trying to achieve. By keeping it simple, Lang gives himself time to fully explore the implications of his plot and the film is made more compelling because of this. The story follows Austin Spencer; a person of stature that is continually campaigning against circumstantial evidence being used as a means to send someone to the electric chair. His efforts are unsuccessful, until he has the bright idea to have a man sent to death row on circumstantial evidence, only to be pardoned at the last minute by means of the evidence to prove his innocence being brought to light. Enter Tom Garrett; Austin's son in law to be, and the man that agrees to frame himself for murder...

This is perhaps Lang's best assault on the American justice system; he has created a story that is interesting and very plausible and it works a treat in that it gets you thinking about the fact that with this kind of law; someone really could be killed for something they didn't do. Of course, the chances of someone risking being put to death to expose this are unlikely, but then again; it's only a movie, so you can expect to suspend your belief a little for a point to be made. Beyond a Reasonable Doubt also features one of the most finely tuned plot twists that I've seen in a movie. Lang shows us everything about the plot; from the first ideas, to the setting up, all the way to the trial and because of this; the final twist comes as a complete surprise. It's been done and done a million times since this film, but despite this; Beyond a Reasonable Doubt still has the power to shock the viewer.

Beyond a Reasonable Doubt is one of the highlights of Lang's illustrious filmography. It has an unfairly low IMDb rating, and I hope that you will not use that as a means of deciding whether or not to see this film. It is efficient story telling at it's best and this is one of the highlights of the film noir era.

In his last film in the USA before returning to Germany where he had left to escape the Nazis in the Thirties, Fritz Lang takes up the case of capital punishment and its application, especially when the case is a circumstantial one.

Unlike the remake of Beyond A Reasonable Doubt with Jesse Metcalfe as the reporter and Michael Douglas as a corrupt District Attorney, both Sidney Blackmer as a newspaper publisher and Sheppard Strudwick as the politically ambitious DA hold each other in respect. Blackmer is not happy with Strudwick running up a string of murder convictions as a platform to be governor.

He and prospective son-in-law Dana Andrews agree to frame Andrews with a string of manufactured evidence all carefully documented with photographs to have the police arrest him for murder of a burlesque queen that the police are stumped about. It certainly works all right, but as the case is coming to verdict, Blackmer is killed in an automobile accident and the evidence burn with him. Andrews is left in quite the jackpot.

How it all works out is for you to see. Andrews is not abandoned by fiancé Joan Fontaine who is Blackmer's daughter. She does what she can and toward the end of the film her performance dominates.

Fritz Lang certainly builds the tension worthy of Alfred Hitchcock himself. One scene did have me baffled. After the police have gotten those arranged clues, Andrews makes some moves on burlesque dancer Barbara Nichols who resists his advances. I could not quite believe that one at all.

This original version is a notch or two above the Metcalfe/Douglas remake. Though it got an interesting alternative remake, this is still the one to see.

Tom Garrett is a writer engaged to the daughter of wealthy newspaper man Austin Spencer. Spencer is also firmly against the death penalty. With Tom looking for a subject for a second novel, Spencer suggests that they set Tom up for an unsolved murder using circumstantial evidence to prove how easy it would be for the courts to kill an innocent man. Once Tom is sentenced to the chair, Spencer will expose the failings in the system and free him. However when Spencer is killed in car crash and none of the evidence can be found then Tom faces the chair.

A very interesting concept still needs a good delivery to make for a good film. This not only had a good idea but it was also a fair point to be made about the death penalty. The film moves along with a good build up for the whole first half. However once Tom finds himself in real trouble then the film strangely doesn't manage to deliver as much tension as it really should have done. Conversely the film becomes more of a melodrama for a while and it loses a lot of momentum. There are some nice touches at the end but they can't completely make up for the weaknesses in the middle section.

It is quite atmospheric but not to the point that I had hoped but Lang does a good job on direction. The cast are OK. Andrews has long been one of my favourite actors from the period and he gives a solid if unspectacular show here. Fontaine is weaker and doesn't quite convince as well as Andrews but is fine. Blackmer is pretty enjoyable as Austin Spencer and Ed Binns is a familiar face as Lt. Kennedy.

It doesn't quite work as you'd hope as the tension drops off at the exactly the moment that it needs to step up a notch. It is worth watching but it is not one of Lang's better films.

This film features Dana Andrews as Tom Garrett, a novelist who is facing a deadline by his publisher to complete his next book. His future father-in-law, Austin Spencer, works has an editor for the big newspaper in town. Spencer has enough clout as an editor that he's regularly in touch with the District Attorney and local law enforcement. Spencer is also anti-capital punishment and is often at odds with the DA, who is very much pro-capital punishment. Spencer feels that the DA feels no qualms about sentencing people to death, because he wants to be seen as the man who makes someone pay for whatever crime he's prosecuting--regardless of whether he presents hard evidence or circumstantial.

An execution is presented at the beginning of the film. Through conversations between Garrett and Spencer and later, Garrett, Spencer and the DA, we learn that the DA has been thought of as taking the most inconsequential circumstantial evidence and manipulating it in court to make it seem like hard fact. Spencer feels like the DA often is grasping at straws, but because he wants to be seen as bringing justice to crimes, he is willing to manipulate any jury into a conviction. Spencer questions the DA about letting a potentially innocent man take the fall based on circumstantial evidence and not actual fact. The DA seems nonchalant about the whole thing.

For his book, Spencer suggests to Garrett that he write a book about someone who is convicted of a crime based on circumstantial evidence. 1) It will give Garrett something to write about, and 2) Spencer will hopefully be able to prove his point to the DA that innocent men could be convicted and executed based on circumstantial evidence. The plan is that Garrett and Spencer will find a crime where the police have no leads. They will then plant evidence in order to focus the police attention on Garrett as the possible perpetrator and implicate him in a crime. They're hoping that Garrett will be arrested and brought to trial. Along the way, Spencer and Garrett plan on taking photos of Garrett planting the evidence so that the photos can be presented to the court in the event that Garrett is convicted of the crime.

You just know from the get-go that something is going to go wrong. Otherwise, where's the suspense? What I did not expect was the ending of the film. What a great twist.

Joan Fontaine is rather wasted in her thankless role as Susan Spencer, Andrews' fiancee and daughter of Austin Spencer. Her finest moment in the film is towards the end, but even then, I think many other actresses could have handled the part--it wouldn't have required an Oscar winner.

This film was on TV not too long ago, and I loved it. I was watching because of the cast, Dana Andrews and Joan Fontaine are reason enough to watch it, but I was very pleasantly surprised. I knew that there was going to be some sort of twist ending, so I was expecting the unexpected - and I was still surprised! Good performances from the entire cast, a job very well done.

Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956)

An early wide screen black and white drama that marks the end of Fritz Lang's American career and also shows the winding down of two great stars, Joan Fontaine and Dana Andrews. The film is no send off, exactly, but it is slightly tired, as if the formula of movie-making needs a twist and it isn't here.

That's not the point, of course. This is now the mid-fifties, crisis time for Hollywood, and with widescreen (and widescreen color) movies making a final jab at the rise of television. The plot is sensational, and not too far from what an extended early television drama might try, with mostly interior shooting and a staged (sometimes stagey) presentation. In all it's not Lang's best, and he was a master at both noir/expressionist drama and at getting to the human dilemma of fate and murder.

Andrews and Fontaine are not a bad pair—both are matched in calm and sophistication, and beauty, even, though Fontaine seems like an accessory until the very end. Andrews rules the plot, which makes him out to be a writer desperate for a new story. So desperate he's going to pretend to commit a murder just to test the justice system.

It's all so outrageous you want to believe it, though your mind says it just wouldn't happen. It's too convenient, and one man's suggestion from the newspaper turns out to be the other man's reality. Enough said!

Oddly enough, this is an RKO distribution even after the studio's demise (I don't know the reasons there) but it might point to a less than perfect crew. Certainly the cinematographer, which Lang relied on greatly in earlier films, is no one with credentials. Likewise the editing and writing are fairly routine, even lackluster. And so if a movie that depends on some psychological intensity is really a bit of a grunt effort, whatever the star power involved, it's a bit doomed.

So watch this if you are curious about any of the parts. I'm a fan of all three of the principles here, and so had to watch it. But I didn't walk away impressed.

With Fritz Lang in the director's chair, this should have been a much tighter, more suspenseful film than it actually is. Part of the problem is the script--the characters portrayed by Dana Andrews and Joan Fontaine are poorly written. Fontaine, in particular, has little to do with the scheme of things and Andrews is so good at being an anti-hero that he makes the character even more unpleasant than he has to be. Barbara Nichols stands out in a good supporting role as a brassy blonde showgirl and Sidney Blackmer as a man who concocts the scheme that lands Andrews in prison is excellent. And by the way, contrary to what a viewer states here, Donna Reed is nowhere in the supporting cast.

Aside from that, the outcome leaves you baffled. It's a surprise, all right, but it all seems to be too patly contrived--a twist upon twist that stretches credibility to the limit. A letdown feeling is the overall result of the deceptive ending.

A tight-lipped Dana Andrews and a sophisticated Joan Fontaine (too frosty as his loyal fiancé) have both done better work. Fontaine has one of her weakest roles, but the film's biggest flaw is the way it toys with the viewer's expectations and then fails to deliver that final punch.

Definitely one of Fritz Lang's lesser works.

Sometimes, in the world of 1940s-1950s film noir, we are given a film so transparently impossible and contrived that we can see ourselves giving up on watching it half way through. But is extremely rare that we are faced with a film where the very response the viewer is having holds the key to the success, rather than the failure, of the film.

Such is the case with BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT, which has - to its credit - been completely misunderstood by many. When we reach the film's conclusion, we realize that even the title of the film itself is a joke, perhaps the ultimate prank on the viewer. Yet to offer analysis of the film would be to destroy its main and most sinister motive; you can't "explain away" the glaring plot holes and contrivances without revealing the twist the film takes in its climax, and to do would rob the viewer of a genuine experience. So... I won't.

Suffice it to say, BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT is far more than it seems and is nothing without the sum of its parts, in total. Lang tackles the story of a person who creates a fictitious role for himself in order to, essentially, pull a fast one on the legal profession for personal gain (or, as it appears on the surface, someone else's). In the world of film noir, of course, we know that such a character won't get away with it, but when Lang depicts the tragedy the viewer knows will come, he majestically turns the entire premise on its head. As a result, it's a cold slap in the face - a devastating critique of the complicity of the audience in following along, hungrily, with such contrivances in cinema.

Every part of the film fits perfectly by not fitting at all. Even the visual style of the film is a cold, rarely pleasing one, almost daring you to suspend your disbelief just a little bit longer without even granting the pleasure of emotionally charged close-ups at key moments. The editing is brutal and jarring, cutting away practically mid-sentence and moving to a similar conversation elsewhere.

As a swan song to his Hollywood career, BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT does to the audience what Billy Wilder does to the industry in SUNSET BLVD. - biting the hand that feeds. The result is a total masterpiece.

Courtroom dramas have limited appeal to me. They largely feel fake with artificial drama that would never actually happen in the setting. Sometimes a film can get past that, as in Fury, and Beyond a Reasonable Doubt actually ends up getting close. The drama isn't supposed to be within the courtroom itself, so the courtroom stuff plays out realistically. The overall situation stretches credulity, and there are some late-stage reveals that make things interesting. However, that interest only goes so far, and the film doesn't quite come together as well as it could have.

Austin Spencer (Sidney Blackmer) is the editor of a big city paper and is very opposed to the death penalty. His main target in his editorials is the district attorney Roy Thompson (Philip Bourneuf) who obviously has ambitions to use his current position to eventually run for governor. A criminal gets executed during the title sequence, a man convicted based purely on circumstantial evidence, and Austin develops an idea. If his newspaper could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that someone convicted of murder and sentenced to death after a jury convicted him based on the legal barrier of beyond a reasonable doubt, it could be the kind of thing that gets the people of the state to rethink the death penalty in general. This is actually just implied, which is a weird thing for a movie about a newspaper. Newspapers have always been known for public campaigns for social causes, so making Austin the kind of newspaperman who is dedicated to just presenting facts feels off (I wonder if Lang understood the American press at all).

Anyway, Austin enlists the help of the novelist and one of his former employees, Tom (Dana Andrews), to be the guy they frame for a murder while keeping evidence of his innocence. Tom is also engaged to Austin's daughter Susan (Joan Fontaine), both of whom Tom and Austin agree to keep out of the know of their plan. They find an unsolved murder in the paper the next morning, and they get to work. After some off-the-record investigation with the police, they know that there is no possible suspect, so they set out on framing Tom. They get him talking to the girl's dancing partners that shared her dressing room, most notably Dolly Moore (Barbara Nichols) with whom Tom ends up taking out (a situation discovered by Susan very quickly which leads to her calling off their engagement). They plant evidence around the crime scene, and get Dolly so worked up that she calls the police who take Tom up on suspicion of the murder.

Now, for anyone who's ever watched a movie before, one should know that the plan isn't going to follow through easily. Something is going to happen that prevents the evidence from coming to the attention of the DA at the right moment, and that something does happen. It creates some nice tension, even if the actual turn of events was predictable, as Tom and Susan struggle to find any evidence that will support Tom's last-second story change that not only is he innocent but that he intentionally framed himself. We get a host of twists and turns as it eventually gets to its Hays Board approved conclusion (it would have been better had it been made a decade later without that restriction).

What's kind of interesting is that the movie starts out feeling like an issue movie, but there's a key line near the beginning that I should have picked up on. "You can't prove that the death penalty is bad with fiction," Austin says (paraphrased) to Tom, and it's said in a fictional piece. Is this going to be a serious take on the death penalty? Well, if you believe the movie: no, it's not. And it turns out to not be. It's a twisting tale of murder that uses the death penalty almost like a McGuffin.

Where the movie stumbles is in its treatment of the press ("we only present the facts" is a complete myth and always has been), the rather mundane nature of Dana Andrews as the main character, and the overstuffed finale. It's a push and pull of revelations, the biggest of which really should have been the ending point that would have offered the tale the kind of ironically depressing ending one would expect from a noir. However, because there's so much, there's little time for the movie to dedicate itself to the ideas they present, so it's just a quick progression of events without any real development or consideration. I wouldn't go so far as to say it ruins the ending, but it doesn't help.

It's better than While the City Sleeps, but this is Fritz Lang ending his career in Hollywood on a minor note, at best. Beyond a Reasonable Doubt is somewhat clever, but it doesn't have the depth of something like Scarlet Street or The Big Heat. The small budget is unfortunate, but it doesn't matter when your main actor is largely a non-entity and the ending is something of a mess.

Dana Andrews was never more attractive or earnest. The script is imaginative, and the twists and turns it takes in the last half hour will leave you bedazzled. An excellent supporting cast, featuring Donna Reed, keeps things moving along in interesting fashion. More honest about legal system than one would expect in 1956.

... and I highly recommend it. The implausible plot has a few large potholes and implausible events but it has a heck of an ending. It is clever enough to be entertaining while being complete and utter glossy trash. They couldn't possibly believe this film made any points against capital punishment.

Barbara Nichols is priceless as always.

Many years ago I saw this film at the movies, and remembered it as a good thriller but with many shortcomings - and I have just seen it on TCM, and now fully realise what a good idea Fritz Lang had in this story, but the story line did not live up to the idea. When one looks at the actors involved, and considering their prestige at the time of its making, it is obvious that there was some miscasting. For example, Joan Fontaine was not a good choice as the fiancée of the hero played by Dana Andrews - she acted poorly in all her scenes, and somehow this took away from the suspense. Arthur Franz had perhaps one of his better roles in a supporting part, and Sidney Blackmer was very good, but overall this film fell way short of what it should have been.