Although its dramatics are fairly obvious, Act of Murder remains a powerful film, if only for its boldness in dealing with a subject that, 50 years after its release, remains taboo for most Americans. Calvin Cooke (Fredric March) is an old-fashioned kind of man whose profession, a judge in a small town near Philadelphia, allows him to pass sentence literally on his fellow citizens. When his beloved wife Catherine (Florence Eldridge, March's wife in real life) falls terminally ill, he and their doctor conceal the nature of her illness in a vain attempt to ease her suffering. After Calvin witnesses a policeman put a dog, critically hurt by an automobile, out of its misery by shooting it, he knows what he has to do. He's willing to die along with his wife, but the irony is that he survives their deliberate auto crash; he must then stand trial for her murder and he winds up with David Douglas (Edmond O'Brien), a brash young lawyer who is dating the Cooke daughter, as his lawyer. Douglas has clashed with Calvin in the courtroom before, and their adversarial relationship continues, as Calvin insists on following the letter of the law, pleading guilty to his crime. Through a twist, he is let off the hook, but the film's sympathies clearly lie with his intent. March and Eldridge appeared in a number of films together, but none where the focus was so sharply on them, and they're wonderfully believable as a couple eternally devoted to one another.
by Tom Wiener
review
