This might have been a stunning movie for 1959, but I fail to see how it holds up in the Twenty First Century. If one could get away with a murder rap using that 'irresistible impulse' argument, I think there would be a lot more murder trials today, not to mention a whole lot more killers running around loose. I mean really, a 'psychic shock' which creates an almost overwhelming tension which a person must alleviate, by KILLING SOMEBODY!!! I know there are real live cases of temporary insanity that have gotten people off the hook, but in those situations, the accused is usually deranged enough to merit the argument. I don't see how it worked here, except of course, as being a product of it's times.

Even the courtroom drama seemed a little bizarre to me. I can understand the prosecuting attorney Mitch Lodwick (Brooks West) making all those challenges to Paul Biegler's (James Stewart) questioning of witnesses, but couldn't figure out why he thought they were out of bounds. Why wouldn't the alleged rape of Manion's (Ben Gazzara) wife be relevant to the case? It's why he killed bar owner Quill! Or the photographer's pictures of Laura Manion (Lee Remick). If they could corroborate the fact that she got beat up by Quill, even if she wasn't raped, putting them into evidence should have been a no-brainer.

There's also that scene in which Mary Pilant (Kathryn Grant) rolled over so easily when Biegler asked her to get the bartender to cooperate with his investigation. Any other person would have told the attorney to take a hike if it was going to implicate her own father. That scene just didn't pass the smell test for me.

But with all that, I still thought the film was fairly compelling in the way Biegler sniffed out his opportunities and played them out for the court. Some of his over the top antics didn't seem realistic but he was putting on a show for the jurors. I liked Judge Weaver (Joseph N. Welch) by the way, I was surprised to learn he was a real life attorney during the Army-McCarthy hearings. No wonder he seemed so credible in the role of the judge.

The most surprising thing about the movie for me was the way it handled some of the era's sensitive subjects like rape, women's undergarments, and male sperm as evidence in an abuse case. Don't forget, this was the tail end of a decade when the Ricardo's slept in separate beds and topics involving sex were still taboo subjects for TV. The dialog in the film was credibly done without getting sensational, so that was a plus.

The thing that really got me though, no one even mentioned in a couple dozen reviews of the picture I read on this board. When all was said and done, and after Manion was found not guilty, Jimmy Stewart's character arrives at the trashy trailer park and gets handed that message about Manion's irresistible impulse to hit the road. The guy scammed Biegler, the court, and the jury, and got away with murder! Time to go fishing, I guess.