For my third movie, I wanted to cover a movie where Orson Welles only acts, but despite the IMDB credits, Orson Welles did much more than act in Jane Eyre (1943). While there is less detail about Compulsion, it appears I have found my first Welles picture with him as just an actor.
Of course, he didn't want it to be this way. He wanted to direct this movie, and was passed over in favor of Richard Fleischer, who was a pretty prolific director for 40 years. Whatever you want to say about Fleischer in comparison to Welles, he was certainly more reliable.
It's not that simple though. Welles was just entering the stage where he had trouble finishing projects, and Fleischer was in the infancy of his career. Compulsion would not have required a large budget, and I don't have any reason to doubt Welles would have been able to complete this movie in his sleep.
I'm not sure what approach I should take to talk about this film, because the fact is Welles doesn't actually show up in this movie for over an hour. Before he shows up, two twisted college students want to kill to prove they are intellectually superior than everyone else, and think they can get away with it. Yes, this is the story of Leopold and Loeb.
It's based off a book by Meyer Levin, who wanted to interview Leopold, the only one of the two alive at that point, so that he could write a book about it. Leopold didn't want to do that and instead wanted help with his memoir. Levin blew him off and wrote the book anyway. Despite everyone knowing what the story is really about, all the names in the book were changed, and thus the main characters of the movie are Artie Strauss (Loeb) and Judd Steiner (Leopold).
Despite Levin having issues with Leopold's refusal to cooperate on a nonfiction book, he still comes across better here. Maybe that's because he was played by Dean Stockwell, who plays him well. Stockwell is exceptional portraying a seemingly overconfident man who secretly has no confidence at all. Bradford Dillman plays his partner in crime and he plays him like an oily worm with no remorse. Dillman's performance is good, but more broad, although the movie doesn't ask him to really attempt to play a remotely sympathetic character either.
While this movie attempts to create what happened, there is one distracting, clearly made up part of the movie, which is the inclusion of Ruth Evans. I'm not aware of any Ruth Evans in real life, so I think she's meant to create sympathy for Steiner, as a way of arguing against the death penalty. But her attraction to Steiner is completely mystifying and she just comes across as incredibly naive and dumb.
Then Welles showed up, who was apparently bitter about not being director and he threw frequent tantrums on set. I don't know how this makes sense, but it is pretty clear that Welles is barely trying in his performance and yet his performance is great. Before the closing statement, he underacts every line reading. But it works? He plays Clarence Darrow, and he looks like Clarence Darrow, and maybe it's the benefit of having no idea how Darrow acted it in real life, but he feels like Clarence Darrow.
Like Darrow and Welles are both larger than life figures, who can coast into a room and everyone pays attention even if they're barely speaking loud enough for everyone to hear. They just know they command the room and people will listen.
Speaking of, I haven't watched a Welles movie with Welles acting in it since Othello and my god has his appearance changed to the point where I'm not sure I would recognize him if I didn't know it was him. He looks like a very old 43-years-old and he is enormous. He had to have gained 100 pounds in less than the 10 years I've seen him. I'll be curious to see what he looks like in Confidential Report or Mr. Arkadin or whatever version I watch, because that's just four years after Othello and four years prior to this.
This is a solid movie, but not necessarily a must watch in my opinion.
2.5/4 stars
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