Twilight of Honor [The Charge Is Murder] *** (1963, Richard Chamberlain, Claude Rains, Joey Heatherton, Nick Adams) – Classic Movie Review 4630

Richard Chamberlain, a TV superstar as Dr Kildare, gives a smooth acting turn in his first movie starring role as a young lawyer who defends a suspected murderer, in the 1963 courtroom thriller Twilight of Honor.

The 29-year-old Richard Chamberlain, a TV superstar as Dr Kildare (1961–66), gives a smooth acting turn in his first movie starring role here in Boris Sagal’s 1963 courtroom thriller Twilight of Honor. He plays a bold young lawyer who defends a suspected murderer and gradually comes to believe that his client has been framed.

Nick Adams was Oscar nominated (apparently allegedly after a costly campaign that he paid for) as the rebellious suspect. But it is shrewd old Claude Rains who really brings class to the film as the canny older lawyer.

Callow defence attorney David Mitchell (Chamberlain) is helped by his old ailing friend, the experienced, astute and sharp-witted Art Harper (Rains), as his consultant as he battles to get Ben Brown (Adams) out of Death Row in a homicide case in New Mexico. There it is legal for a husband to murder a man whom he finds in flagrante delicto with his wife. Unfortunately Brown killed a highly admired town dignitary who was having sex with his trashy, duplicitous wife, and the entire town is against Adams.

There are no real eye-opening shocks in Boris Sagal’s 1963 courtroom thriller – it could easily have been a TV movie, except for its grown-up descriptions of topics not allowed on TV and never mentioned previously in American cinema  – and it is the good cast that is its main recommendation, though the story, based on the novel by Al Dewlen, is good, too.

The familiar but more than tolerable story, developed with some surprises and special imagination, is very well written with neat dialogue and plotting in the screenplay by Henry Denker. And the film is played with considerable conviction by a very useful, hard-working cast. The court scenes are, as always, a sure-fire hit and the setting and New Mexico atmosphere gives it the different slant it needs.

Oscar nominations went to Adams for Best Supporting Actor and to George W Davis, Paul Groesse, Henry Grace and Hugh Hunt for Best Black and White Art Direction-Set Decoration.

It features Joey Heatherton and Linda Evans in their film debuts. Also in the cast are Joan Blackman, James Gregory, Jeanette Nolan and Pat Buttram.

Nostalgia buffs will be in heaven at this rarely screened item.

It was released in the UK as The Charge Is Murder.

Times were changing and American cinema was growing up. It follows the 1959 courtroom drama Anatomy of a Murder in relishing American cinema’s new freedom to discuss previously taboo topics such as sexual assault, adultery and prostitution.

Filming took place in May 1963, while Chamberlain was taking a break from filming Dr Kildare, in a controversial casting move because his clean-cut image was seen at odds with the novel’s strong material.

Boris Sagal was best known for his work in TV, though he did direct the 1965 Western film Guns of Diablo starring Charles Bronson, the 1965 musical romantic comedy film Girl Happy starring Elvis Presley, the 1969 war film Mosquito Squadron starring David McCallum, and notably the 1971 science fiction film The Omega Man starring Charlton Heston,

The cast are Richard Chamberlain as David Mitchell, Nick Adams as Ben Brown, Claude Rains as Art Harper, Joan Blackman as Susan Harper, James Gregory as Norris Bixby, Joey Heatherton as Laura Mae Brown, Pat Buttram as Cole Clinton, Jeanette Nolan as Amy Clinton, Edgar Stehli as Judge James Tucker, James Bell as Charles Crispin, George Mitchell as District Attorney Paul Farish, Don ‘Red’ Barry [Donald Barry] as Judson Elliot, Bert Freed as Sheriff B L ‘Buck’ Wheeler, Robin Raymond as Therese ‘Tess’ Braden, June Dayton as Vera Driscoll, and Linda Evans as Alice Clinton.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 4630

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