Expert: Mel - 11/16/2008

Question
I am desperately seeking the title of a movie - it opens in an office. A lawyer and another man discuss an article in the paper of a girls murder. The man tells the lawyer that he can frame himself for the murder, which he does. All the clues however - the trenchcoat, the sock, point to him and he is arrested. Then the only person who knew it was all a plan, ie the barrister, dies. So we all think he is innocent but at the end we find that it was HIM all the time who killed the girl.

Answer
Hello Ali,

That was "Beyond A Reasonable Doubt" from 1956. It starred Dana Andrews and Joan Fontaine and was the last American film made by the famous German director, Fritz Lang.

STORY OUTLINE: Tom Garrett (Dana Andrews) is a writer engaged to Susan Spencer (Joan Fontaine), the daughter of wealthy newspaper man Austin Spencer (Sidney Blackmer). Spencer is firmly against the death penalty and, with Tom looking for a subject for a new novel, when a dancer is strangled and the police have no suspect, he suggests that they set Tom up for the unsolved murder using circumstantial evidence to prove how easy it would be for the courts to convict an innocent man. Once Tom is sentenced to the electric chair, Spencer will expose the failings in the system and free him. However when Spencer is killed in a car crash and none of the evidence to clear him can be found, Tom faces execution.

Here's a link........

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_a_Reasonable_Doubt


Glad to be of help. Cheers........Mel.