Opens most promisingly with sweeping tracking shots through courtroom corridors, but all too soon this courtroom drama inventiveness makes way for a more conventional weepie with mercy killing overtones. Nevertheless, it is superbly photographed by Hal Mohr, and brilliantly acted by the entire cast from the star roles so convincingly characterized by Fredric March and his real-life wife, Florence Eldridge, down to support players like Stanley Ridges and John McIntyre. As the daughter, Geraldine Brooks, gives such a warmly realistic performance, I wondered what happened to her. It seems this was her fourth film. She made her debut in Cry Wolf (1947) in which she was billed third. In Possessed, she was fourth; for Embraceable You (1948), only the number one star, Dane Clark, was billed above her. After Act of Murder, she achieved fourth billing in The Younger Brothers (1949), co-starred with James Mason and Joan Bennett in The Reckless Moment, and then played the female lead in Challenge to Lassie. Geraldine Brooks then made a far-reaching decision by accepting the lead role on TV in a Ford Theatre episode, The Farmer Takes a Wife (1949). Second-billed Dane Clark played the farmer. After making two Italian movies, including Volcano (1950), she returned to Hollywood and spent the rest of her life in TV roles – except for The Green Glove (1952), Street of Sinners (1957) and Mr Ricco (1975) – finishing with three episodes of Executive Suite (1976). She died at the young age of 51 on June 19, 1977.
Anyway, getting back to Act of Murder, the various title changes aptly convey the desperate attempts of the film's producers to sell it to an indifferent box-office. The theme is controversial enough, but hardly the right formula for postwar escapist entertainment. Of course, there was a fledgling art house circuit, but any chance it might have had with ethically committed moviegoers is somewhat negated by the way the plot neatly side-steps many of the moral, legal, ethical and medical questions it raises. Yet, despite this narrative slickness, the atmosphere of Act.../Case.../Live.../I Stand... remains uncompromisingly bleak.
Anyway, getting back to Act of Murder, the various title changes aptly convey the desperate attempts of the film's producers to sell it to an indifferent box-office. The theme is controversial enough, but hardly the right formula for postwar escapist entertainment. Of course, there was a fledgling art house circuit, but any chance it might have had with ethically committed moviegoers is somewhat negated by the way the plot neatly side-steps many of the moral, legal, ethical and medical questions it raises. Yet, despite this narrative slickness, the atmosphere of Act.../Case.../Live.../I Stand... remains uncompromisingly bleak.