the ending ? (did anyone want a twist?)

Yeah, I think I was expecting that as well.

Especially after the scene where Lt Manion practically manoeuvred the lawyer into finding him a legal "excuse" for having committed the crime. Maybe I'm just overly-suspicious or overly-analytical, but I really thought Manion was just playing dumb in that scene, that maybe he was a lot more cagey and manipulative than he seemed, and that it would come to light later. Like he already knew how to get himself off, and he led Biegler there by the nose.

But I think the movie was a lot less sophisticated than I was anticipating. And I don't mean that as a negative comment.

Or ... I don't know enough movie history or US Legal history for this era and genre of movie. Maybe the whole basis for his plea in this case was a bit revolutionary and would itself have been controversial enough with the film's audiences at the time, without the need for making it more sensational with a plot twist ?


You might very well think that. I couldn't possibly comment.

If no twist, at least there should have been some acknowledgment on the part of Jimmy Stewart that at the very best, he does not know the truth of what happened. (But he probably DOES know and yet he just stands there and says "Well, we get to be the lawyers for Barney's daughter! Let's go!" That's it? That's all he has to say about the situation?)

I think that kind of twist would have spoiled the ambiguous and cynical tone of the movie. There are two major points:

1) Truth itself is sometimes quite impossible to reach.
2) Although theoretically justice is about truth, in reality it isn't.

In the end of the movie, we know that the whole business about Manion, his wife and the murder was in fact totally different of what we've been hearing, but we can't tell in which way. The main characters (Biegler and his pal) know this by experience, that's why they are not surprised and "go ahead" leaving the closed case behind.

It's a VERY disturbing finale, and the lightness of it makes it extremely cynical. I don't think it would be so complex or interesting had it the typical "surprising twist" à la Perry Mason.

The thing is tho, it does not really matter wheather or not he was sane. It was quit clear earlier in the movie that he was guided to that insane plea by Jimmy's character.
Basically they wanted to excuse Marion for murdering the guy because his wife was raped, it doesn't make much difference to the lawyers if he was sane or not. The whole irresistable impulse thing is a joke anyway, it may be a defense but I mean come on. I have an irresistable impulse to kill my boss everyday, but that wouldn't get me off. He got off because the guy raped his wife and the jury sympathized with him. If someone raped my girl I would be on them like Ray Liotta in Goodfellas

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i was so hoping for a twist like say in primal fear or the usual suspects...something where we will know thatthe lieutenant was guilty of murder out of jealousy ...

I was expecting a twist. I guess we have become conditioned to anticipate them these days.

A guilty vwedict wouldnt have been a twist, imho. Nor would a revelation that the Defendant had committed the murder due to jealousy.

As we were watching the following possibilities occurred to me:

1. The defendant had inflicted the injuries on the wife, then killed the victim, and then told his wife to claim she had been raped so that he would get off.

2. That the wife had self-inflicted the injuries so as to trick her husband into murdering the victim.

3. That Jimmy Stewart would realise that the lawbook with the crucial "irresistible impulse" case had recently been checked out of the library (and the relevant page marked) BEFORE the homicide.

4. That the wife would deliberately try to lose the case by changing her testimony in a way that would catch Jimmy Stewart by surprise.

5. That the victim's daughter wanted the victim dead so that she could inherit.
a) I was mainly thinking that her accomplice was the defendant, and that they would run off together (using points 1 and 3 above to achieve that oucome).
b) But the best twist would have been for the defendant's wife to be the co-conspirator with the daughter (using points 2 and 4 above to achieve that oucome). A lesbian liaison was unlikely for the time (save that for the remake), but it could have been that they each had motives for wanting to get their repective menfolk, and that Mary had agreed to give Laura a slice of the profit.

I can’t explain exactly why I felt this way but I expected the film to end with the twist that the lieutenant was guilty of murder out of jealousy. I expected Stewart to discover the wife was having a voluntary affair, the lieutenant discovered it, killed her lover and he (the lieutenant) was the one that actually gave the wife the beating and through fear manipulated his wife into aiding him with the rape story.

I think they should have ended it w/the three of them at his office wating on the verdict to come in. Everything up to that point led you to believe that you don't know how this will turn out and what the truth actually was. They should have ended it that way.