Compulsion 1959 Directed by Richard Fleischer Screenplay by Richard Murphy based on the novel by Meyer Levin Starring Orson Welles, Dean Stockwell, Bradford Dillman Compulsion the movie, is based on the novel by Meyer Levin, which was based on the Leopold and Loeb case. Levin had been a young reporter when the case broke. He sailed to Europe before the trial, and regretted it his whole life. In 1954, Levin obtained a contract to write a novel about the crime. Compulsion, the film, is dissimilar from the novel. Both are based on the crime but the movie cleans things up a bit. The novel does not. Both take liberties with the facts. Both include Levin's psychological opinion on the motivation, as all works based on the crime do; each seen through the eyes of a particular writer, and imbibed with a particular meaning. This is natural of course. And through the years there have remained those who have become, shall we say, obsessed, with this case? each bringing to their particular work, their own theories.   Dean Stockwell plays Judd Steiner, the Nathan Leopold character. It's difficult to believe, after a factual study of the case, that Leopold could have ever been so weak and snivelling as Stockwell portrays Steiner, with a constantly fearful look on his face and prone to hysterical bouts of tears.

   Brad Dillman's portrayal of the Richard loeb character, Artie Strauss, is also a caricature. Although Dillman does a good job of playing up some of the character's friendly kidding qualities, he gives the general impression of simply being evil- pure evil- dominating Steiner with some invisible undefined power.

   Diane Varsi is cast in the female caricature. In Compulsion, Levin did a bit of amalgomizing to suit his needs. He turned Leopold's brothers Sam and Mike, into one dislikable character named Max. Likewise, several of Leopold and Loeb's girlfriends became the character of Ruth. In Compulsion, Ruth is first the girlfriend of omniscient news reporter Sid. She later becomes the girlfriend of Judd, whom he attempts to rape. She testifies at the trial.

   In reality, Nathan Leopold's girlfriend, Susan Lurie, never testified, and it seems, was never the victim of any sort of attempted rape. Richard Loeb's girlfriend, Germaine Reinhardt, also did not testify. The only girl friend of the boys to testify was Lorraine Nathan.She was a lay witness for the defense but didn't do much to help them. She testified to Richard Loeb's strange bahavior that had caused her to break off with him. After she got down from the stand she passed by Loeb. "Thanks Lorraine," said Loeb, who had tears in his eyes. "But I'm sorry you said those things about me."

   "I'm sorry I had to" replied Lorraine.

   Ruth's appearance in Compulsion is a strange fabricated amalgamation. She even wears an almost identical outfit to the one worn by Lorraine Nathan, yet while Lorriane Nathan was a friend of Loeb, Ruth deals with Judd, humanizing him, causing Judd to get up out of his seat and pass out on the floor. It's all very interesting. It's just not true.

   The courtroom scenes in Compulsion are quite good, however. Orson Welles plays Jonathan Wilke, the Clarence Darrow character. As Levin does in the book, the movie script uses large portions of Darrow's closing- word for word. And it is this that makes Compulsion a must see for the student of this case.

   It is in the courtroom scenes that we can draw a similarity between Compulsion and Swoon- watch both if you can. Compulsion dwells not on the humanity of Artie and Judd, it basically strips them of real humanity, except Judd but that's a fictional interpratation- it dwells on the pleading of Darrow for mercy, and it does it quite well.

   Swoon, on the other hand, humanizes the characters, and dehumanizes their counsel. Both movies are not completely factual. Both are products of the interpratation of Meyer Levin and Tom Kalin. But they are each a glimpse, another opinion, another look around the corner of the Crime of the Last Century.

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