RESTORED 35MM PRINT!

Get your ticket now: the work many consider Preminger’s masterpiece – “one of the most extraordinary films ever made” (Los Angeles Times) – beautifully restored by Grover Crisp at Sony Columbia. “Preminger’s best and most personal film, with undiminished power and astonishing freshness” (Peter Bogdanovich), Anatomy of a Murder is just what the title says: a probing investigation of a killing in which, true to Preminger, the motives of many characters remain debatable, even after the jury’s verdict has been rendered. James Stewart plays a languishing lawyer in backwoods Michigan hired to defend an army lieutenant (Ben Gazzara), charged with the murder of a bar owner who allegedly raped his wife (amazing Lee Remick). Filmed in the actual locations where the real-life crime on which the film is based took place, shot in prowling long takes, Anatomy deserves its reputation as “one of the most accomplished and ambiguous courtroom dramas ever filmed in America” (Andrew Sarris). Preminger’s steely- eyed examination takes in everyone, including the violent soldier and his flirtatious wife, the self-described “humble country lawyer” and his alcoholic associate, and suggests that everyone is ultimately unknowable. The film’s famous courtroom scenes provide high drama, but it’s in the “off” moments – the banter between Stewart and his sardonic secretary (Eve Arden), the car drives through the Upper Peninsula, the enjoyment of jazz – that Anatomy exerts its memorably genial charm. From George C. Scott’s career-making performance as a walking shiv of a prosecutor from the “big city” of Lansing to Duke Ellington’s infectious score, Anatomy of a Murder remains “a prime contender for Preminger’s greatest film” (Jonathan Rosenbaum).