This straightforward 1959 treatment of the Leopold & Loeb case, based on the book of the same name, stars Brad Dillman as Richard Loeb ("Artie Strauss") and an incredibly young Dean Stockwell as Nathan Leopold ("Judd Steiner"). Orson Welles plays Clarence Darrow ("Jonathan Wilk").
Most of the faces in this story, in fact, are as familiar as the back of your hand.
The main piece left out of this story is poor Bobby Franks, the victim of the crime, renamed Kessler here; he never appears in the film except as a body on a slab, carefully placed out of shot. Nobody ever tells us that the victim is the young cousin of one of the killers, which would have to mean that he was there at the funeral, maybe spending time with his aunt and uncle comforting them even though he was one of the guys who killed their son, destroyed his face with acid and left him naked in a ditch.
In fact, most of the details of the crime are left completely out of the story. But it does a great job of giving us a picture of the relationship between the killers, off in their own world, a community of two threatened by others and secretly making up their own set of rules. Why? Because they're better than you.
This was a really good movie and I can recommend it warmly. Not just because it has Brad Dillman in a starring role. Although that is a factor.
This straightforward 1959 treatment of the Leopold & Loeb case, based on the book of the same name, stars Brad Dillman as Richard Loeb ("Artie Strauss") and an incredibly young Dean Stockwell as Nathan Leopold ("Judd Steiner"). Orson Welles plays Clarence Darrow ("Jonathan Wilk").
Most of the faces in this story, in fact, are as familiar as the back of your hand.
The main piece left out of this story is poor Bobby Franks, the victim of the crime, renamed Kessler here; he never appears in the film except as a body on a slab, carefully placed out of shot. Nobody ever tells us that the victim is the young cousin of one of the killers, which would have to mean that he was there at the funeral, maybe spending time with his aunt and uncle comforting them even though he was one of the guys who killed their son, destroyed his face with acid and left him naked in a ditch.
In fact, most of the details of the crime are left completely out of the story. But it does a great job of giving us a picture of the relationship between the killers, off in their own world, a community of two threatened by others and secretly making up their own set of rules. Why? Because they're better than you.
This was a really good movie and I can recommend it warmly. Not just because it has Brad Dillman in a starring role. Although that is a factor.