Having been raised by wealthy, stuck-up families Artie Straus (Bradford Dillman) is a sadistic bully and Judd Steiner (Dean Stockwell) a timid introvert. The two college friends concoct the "perfect crime," the murder of a young boy, but their arrogance and conceit leads to their arrest. The inimitable Orson Welles plays the criminal defence lawyer, based on the famous Clarence Darrow, who takes on their almost impossible case.
Compulsion (1959) was directed by Richard Fleischer and adapted by screnwriter Richard Murphy from the novel by Meyer Levin, which was loosely based on the notorious 1924 murder trial of thrill-killers Leopold and Loeb and was nominated for a BAFTA and garnered the Cannes Film Festival Best Actor Award for Stockwell, Dillman and Welles, as well as a Palme D'Or nomination.
Compulsion will be released on UK DVD on 20th September 2010 by Second Sight at the RRP of £15.99. No extra features have been detailed as yet. |