Twilight of Honor

Richard Chamberlain was as big a star as MGM ever had when Chamberlain was TV's Dr. Kildare. Chamberlain had an iron clad 7 year contract, and MGM kept him busy both on TV and in movies, and his first movie was the western A Thunder of Drums billed far below George Hamilton and Luana Patten. After his rocket to fame, MGM starred Richard Chamberlain in this first rate court room drama Twilight Of Honor to cash in on Chamberlain's tremendous popularity. In his Dr. Kildare days Chamberlain is reported to have gotten 15,000 fan letters per week more than Clark Gable ever got in his heyday as King of the MGM Lot. MGM in those days was the premier movie studio and this film reflects the quality production values the MGM studio gave its films. The production team of Perlberg/Seaton were assigned this film and cast along with Chamberlain a true star and class act Claude Rains. Nick Adams also stars. Quality film.

OK courtroom drama from Perlberg-Seaton, with MGM capitalizing on Richard Chamberlain's TV success by casting him as a rather Kildare-like defense attorney. He's recently widowed, and he's given the unenviable job of defending sleazy-but-polite Nick Adams, who's already confessed, twice, to murdering Pat Buttram, a well-liked local politico who was trying to make time with Adams' sluttish wife, Joey Heatherton. Chamberlain's OK, and so are the courtroom exploits, with a screenplay that seems to delight in pushing the envelope a bit in terms of sexual conversation circa 1963. There's discussion of impotence, sleeping nude, and prostitution, and several sequences of Joey Heatherton twitching luridly next to a jukebox. But the best reason to watch is Claude Rains, as Chamberlain's former professor and current legal adviser. He looks genuinely unsteady and hasn't many good lines, but it's a beautiful, modest, underplayed performance. Joan Blackman is on hand as his daughter, to provide the rather tepid romantic interest, and Jeanette Nolan is good (when wasn't she) as Buttram's protective widow. The flashback format is unwieldy, and Boris Sagal directs it like it's a big TV show, but it keeps your interest pretty steadily, especially as a barometer of what was and wasn't permissible on screen in1963.

"Twilight of Honor" is a film with a rather mediocre overall score on IMDB of 6.3. Well, after seeing it, I cannot believe the film has such a rating, as it's a top-notch courtroom drama....and a film you'd likely appreciate.

This film is Richard Chamberlain's first starring role in a movie, though he'd done TV before this. He plays a young and very inexperienced lawyer who is set to defend a rather dim man for murder....and the town's atmosphere is definitely hostile towards him. On top of this, the state has brought in a cocky special prosecutor (James Gregory). All the young lawyer has is his idealism and some advice from his mentor (Claude Rains). Can he possibly get a light sentence or a verdict of not guilty with so many things working against him?

This is a very intelligent and well written drama...one that never was dull and managed to get the viewer to care about the dumb schnook on trial for his life. All in all, a nice little film well worth your time.

Always enjoy viewing this film mainly because Joey Heatherton's father was a mail man and delivered the mail to my home at the time in Nassau County, Long Island, New York. Richard Chamberland,(David Mitchell),"The Pavilion",'99, was a lawyer in this picture and wound up having to defend Joey Heatherton's (Laura Mae Brown), husband from a crime he was accused of performing on a police officer. The police officer was found not breathing in the bed in which Laura Mae shared herself. Laura is a very sexy hot to trot gal and performs all sorts of wild movements with her body in a bar next to a classic jukebox in the 1960's. Claude Rains,(Art Harper),"The Invisible Man",'33 makes a brief appearance and adds a good supporting role. This is a very entertaining film in Black and White and held my interest from beginning to the very end.

In an unnamed city in a fictional county in New Mexico, a vicious killer (Nick Adams) is being tried for murder. The courtroom drama focuses on an ambitious prosecutor (James Gregory) and a young and inexperience defender (Richard Chamberlain).

Gregory is trying to ride the publicity surrounding the trial to a high political office, and there seem to be a lot of people willing to railroad the kid into the gas chamber. The case has several curious aspects. Adams has signed two different confessions but both of them have omitted large parts of his story. Adams also has a tramp for a wife (Joey Heatherton) who turned him in for the reward!

Into this media circus of lies and hype comes young Chamberlain who must battle the system ((including a judge who clearly favors the prosecutor). He relies on advice from a wily old lawyer (Claude Rains) who's been sidelined by ill health. Rains also has a comely daughter (Joan Blackman) who has eyes for Chamberlain.

Can the young lawyer navigate the complicated legal waters and fight the corruption to save his client?

All the actors are fine. Chamberlain (currently starring on TV as Dr. Kildare) gets the star build-up here from MGM. Rains steals all his scenes and Gregory and Adams are solid performers (Adams won an Oscar nomination). Heatherton makes her film debut here.

Cast includes Jeanette Nolan as the widow, Linda Evans as her daughter, Edgar Stehli as the judge, Arch Johnson as the bartender, Robin Raymond as Heatherton's ma, and Pat Buttram as the victim.

Much of the film is told in flashback, but the overall storyline suffers by being a tad too close to the classic Anatomy of a Murder (1959). Still worth a look.