Compulsion (1959)

Compulsion is a 1959 American crime drama film directed by Richard Fleischer. The film is based on the 1956 novel of the same name by Meyer Levin, which in turn was a fictionalized account of the Leopold and Loeb murder trial. It was the first film produced by Richard D. Zanuck.

Director – Richard Fleischer

Writers – Richard Murphy (screenplay), Meyer Levin (based on the novel by)

Cast –
Orson Welles as Jonathan Wilk
Diane Varsi as Ruth Evans
Dean Stockwell as Judd Steiner
Bradford Dillman as Artie Strauss
E.G. Marshall as District Attorney Harold Horn
Martin Milner as Sid Brooks
Richard Anderson as Max Steiner
Robert F. Simon as Police Lt. Johnson
Edward Binns as Tom Daly
Robert Burton as Charles Straus
Wilton Graff as Mr. Steiner
Louise Lorimer as Strauss’s mother
Gavin MacLeod as Padua – Horn’s Assistant
Terry Becker as Benson – Angry Reporter (uncredited)
Russ Bender as Edgar Llewellyn – Attorney (uncredited)
Peter Brocco as Albert – Steiner’s Chauffeur (uncredited)
Alan Carney as Globe Newspaper Editor (uncredited)
Harry Carter as Detective Davis (uncredited)
Wendell Holmes as Jonas Kessler (uncredited)
Jack Raine as Professor McKinnon (uncredited)

Watch “Compulsion” (1959)

Plot

Close friends Judd Steiner (based on Nathan Leopold and played by Dean Stockwell) and Artie Strauss (based on Richard Loeb and played by Bradford Dillman) kill a boy, Paulie Kessler, on his way home from school in order to commit the “perfect crime”. Strauss tries to cover it up, but they are caught when police find a key piece of evidence — Steiner’s glasses, which he inadvertently left at the scene of the crime. Famed attorney Jonathan Wilk (based on Clarence Darrow and played by Orson Welles) takes their case, saving them from hanging by making an impassioned closing argument against capital punishment.