They did it because they felt like it!

Compulsion 1959
Set in Chicago of 1924, this is another film noir starring Orson Welles, Dean Stockwell (the guy on TV series 'Voyagers!' with the time gadget), Bradford Dilman, Richard Anderson (Oscar Goldman of TV series $6million dollar man) and others.
Artie Strauss (Dilman) and Judd Steiner (Stockwell) are two intelligent wayward rich university law students who go around with a chip on their shoulder (thinking that they are of superior intellect) doing mischief and hit-and-run a drunk off a road because they felt like it!
Richard Anderson (Max) is Judd's brother who despises his brother's association with Artie.
The deranged duo kills a boy but for a perfect murder but Judd inadvertently dropped his glasses at the crime scene.
Judd is a loner and child prodigy speaking 14 languages who lost his mother at 8. Artie is always abandoned by his aristocrat parents. The police finally pinpoint the murder to the duo. By that time, I was wondering when Welles was going to manifest.
The weary and clearly obese Welles (Jonathan Wilk) walks in only 1 hour into the movie as the flamboyant and sarcastic atheist defence lawyer for both Artie and Judd.
The second half of the movie focuses on the court proceedings and its drama. The outcome of the case is somewhat predictable but the pull factor is the compelling powerful dialogue. Wilk, who opposes capital punishment manages to get life imprisonment for them with his heart wrenching persuasive 15 minute submission at the end of the movie, leaving a bad aftertaste of life, hatred and killing amongst man as well the the question of religious belief and the Hand of God which dropped the pair of spectacles at the scene of crime!
It is alien to see university students dressed to the nines with suits and ties here. The story is based on hate crime killing of a Jewish boy in Chicago back in 1924.
Dilman, Stockwell and Welles all received Best Actor Award at Cannes in 1959. Another 100% rating from The Rotten Tomato. Double thumbs UP!

Memorable quote...

If there is any way of destroying hatred and all that goes with it, it's not through evil and hatred and cruelty, but through charity, love, understanding.

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