Please Murder Me (1956)

As Good As It Gets

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Poor Angela Lansbury was struggling with her film career in the mid 1950's, having left MGM just a few years before and forced to take on minor bottom of the bill fare with films like this, "Mutiny" and "A Life at Stake". The low quality of her work during this time is not a reflection of her talent, and while you may find some good things in it, it's hard not to compare this to what was being seen on T.V. at the time in the anthology series and crime dramas. She is poorly photographed as one of the oddest femme fatals in film history, seemingly older than her 30 years and coming off as a classier variation of Shelley Winters. Fortunately, she would escape to the stage, be given a glamour audiences never realized she was capable, and ultimately head into legendary status through her Broadway work and a smash hit T.V. series.In this low budget, independent film noir, she is an unhappily married wife who seduces her husband's old war buddy and ends up on trial for the spouse's murder. The D.A. is certain she's guilty, but you can't make the love-starved Burr (as close to his Perry Mason role as he would get on film during this time) believe that. But Lansbury is hiding all sorts of secrets, and no matter how much time she spends in prison awaiting her trial and acquittal will prevent her from her sinister goals. She doesn't count on Burr catching on and plotting justice, and this is what makes the movie a bit more intriguing as it moves on to its chilling conclusion.To see the two great T.V. detectives working together is certainly a curiosity, and they play off each other very well. Lansbury is given wardrobe and hairstyles which fail to make her convincing as a spider woman, and in retrospect, this does seem like something Barbara Stanwyck had already been doing on screen since she plotted with Fred MacMurray to kill her husband in "Double Indemnity". The supporting cast of familiar faces add some gusto to the predictable plot which takes time to get going, ultimately adding some interesting twists and turns that prevent this from sinking into the depths of sociopathic madness that Lansbury's unbelievable character goes to in order to reach her goals. The final shot of her, though, is unforgettable, and worth sitting through the rather short running time to see.

A wife kills her husband, while she carries on an affair with his best friend who also happens to be a defense attorney. Inexpensive little programmer that would work just as well as a movie made for TV. Still it has a good tight script, with a few twists, and two fine actors. It's Raymond Burr a year before Perry Mason and I expect his courtroom scenes here did a lot to win him the lead in Mason. He carries them off with real authority. Then there's Lansbury as the calculating ice queen, and I stopped counting her smiles after one. She does make a convincing spider woman, however.There's little action, while the courtroom scene takes up a lot of time. Still the plot line is an interesting one of intrigue and misdirection. So there are compensations to the talky format. One does have to wonder, however, about attorney Carlson's (Burr) iron sense of retribution. It appears a key plot contrivance, but an interesting one given the circumstances of his guilt. Should mention, at the same time, the presence of the great John Dehner in the key supporting role of county DA. His is a familiar face from that time, and I don't think he ever turned in a second-rate performance, no matter the role. Anyway, it's highly obscure little movie, but not without compensations.

Opening with attorney Craig Carlson buying a gun before settling down to leave a message for the police regarding a murder – his own impending murder, the film offers much in the way of plotting. We flashback to when Carlson confesses to his old friend that not only is his friend's wife leaving him, but that she is leaving to be with him and that he is representing her in the divorce. His friend takes it much better than expected but soon a moment of violence sees all the characters changed or shown in a new light, with the stakes high.I watched this film out of curiosity because not only it is now in the public domain but it also features two very famous names in the lead roles. The opening of the film is odd because it has no sound other than the music, which is an odd effect that doesn't help the atmosphere; likewise the visuals are too dark and not the layered sort of shadowing I'm used to with films from the period that do this sort of darkness well. The plot jumps to the crux of the matter very quickly and as a result it lacks build and development in the characters, robbing the film of audience involvement. What this leaves is the very stiff plotting which folds out reasonably well with interesting turns but nothing too thrilling or exciting. It isn't helped as an idea by just how very "television" the whole thing feels – it is stagey and the delivery of it all is stiff and lacks a spark that it badly needed.The acting is equally stiff and although this isn't too surprising, it is still disappointing. Burr is in the sort of stiff lawyer mode that would later work in Perry Mason but here it is too stiff and doesn't fit the material, I would have liked a bit of emotion in his delivery, particularly towards the back end of the film. By contrast Lansbury is a bit too hammy and melodramatic in her role, she is supposed to be a real femme fatale but she doesn't convince in that role at any point. The supporting players all go the same way – very stiff and lacking in delivery.Please Murder Me offers an interesting plot but it never really delivers it. The whole film lacks spark and life, which is partly due to the very stiff delivery across the board – cinematography is televisual at best, the direction is basic and the performances are just far too unnatural and lacking emotion. A shame because I was looking forward to seeing the two stars in an unusual vehicle, but this isn't much cop.

The movie starts with Attorney Craig Carlson dictating the circumstances of his own upcoming murder into a tape recorder. Through a series of flashbacks we find out that he has a problem - his best friend's wife (Lansbury) comes to him for help in a divorce. Then another problem - he falls in love with her. Then another problem - she shoots her husband in self-defense. Now he has to defend her from a murder rap.He gets her acquitted and they get engaged. All is well!! Of course not - why would the movie be over in twenty minutes? Let's just say that his tidy little circumstances rapidly grow complicated. His awareness of his changing situation, and his reaction to it, make for an interesting psychological development.Burr was a good actor and the camera focuses in on his brooding face. It takes a while to find out that Lansbury's performance is more subtle than you might think.The movie is economically directed - witness how the attorney picks up his gun in the opening shots. No dialog, just a brief sequence of visuals, and the plot advances. Well written, with good supporting performances, including a youngish and slim Denver Pyle. Nice unknown movie.