MovieChat Forums > Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) Discussion > the dr. wouldn;t have gotten away with i...

the dr. wouldn;t have gotten away with it

posted 16 years ago by Lee733
32 replies | jump to latest

So when the credits roll I picture the detective speaking with a former coworker of Delores. "So she was seeing someone. A doctor. Fifties, private practice. Eye doctor. Had a family, separated from wife. Thank you very much."
Maybe there is more questioning of Rosenthal given this information he apparently did have a relationship with the victim and had a motive. fast frame forward;
I picture Dr. Rosenthal being bent over his desk, hands behind his back, cuffs being shoved on. :D

Every time I watch this movie I imagine a similar scenario, I can't shake it.

I love this movie. Probably in my top 50. But, I always think at the end that Dr. Rosenthal would be arrested and have his life torn apart. Because there is no way that woman wouldn't have told a coworker or friend about her lover, this rich, handsome doctor, especially that woman. She was the kind of woman who would tell people about the affair, friends, family. Not to mention that she would have kept momentos, she wouldn't have just one picture of the man. She was the kind of woman who would keep ticket stubs, jewelry, pictures, all sorts of *beep* clothes.

Anyone else see this in their head?

[–] eelb 10 years ago

Judah's brother Jack, is entrenched in the underworld. The reason Judah enlists Jack to "handle the problem", is he knows whoever Jack hires will do a thorough job, that leaves Judah's hands clean of any involvement. That's why Jack is upset when Judah gets cold feet, and also frequents Delores' apartment after the murder. Judah comes close to ruining the entire operation. He finally listens to Jack and removes himself from further actions. At that point Judah is home free. The reason Judah hired Jack and his men, is he knows they are accustomed to handling such matters cleanly and efficiently.

The question is not whether Judah will be arrested or not. But whether he will turn himself in.

The theme is common to Allen's other films, although most do not deal with murder. A morally neutral universe that is random, where one can choose to live with misdeeds, if they can legally get away with it.

[–] JellyFish19 10 years ago

I can easily see him not getting away with it, but this wasn't CSI or any type of perfect crime story.

[–] liberius 9 years ago

You're right.

His visit to her apartment after the murder is completely unexpected, as Jack makes clear when he's told. A crazy dangerous move. He has to leave the dinner party unexpectedly (providing evidence in itself that he was involved with no alibi at about the right time). Yet he went solely to retrieve incriminating articles. Huh? He arranges to have his mistress of two years killed but apparently gives no thought to the damning connections to him. He knows there's no video surveillance at or near the building? He can't even be remotely sure he's got everything. Nobody will see him come and go, and nobody has all those many times before? The apartment must be littered with his prints, hairs, etc.

Fact is, his getting away with it, is a movie conceit. It's a big one for sure, but sometimes the big ones work if a greater point needs to be made.

You could argue that he wanted to be caught, the killing being in desperation, the outcome not given much thought. But that's weak in light of his motive in the first place: not to have his wife and family find out about the affair and his life and practice destroyed. His goal was certainly to have her gone and to make sure it wasn't connected to himself.

You either accept the circumstances of his escape, or not. But it's not too much harder than accepting that Allen himself is desired by so many vivacious women.

;-)

[–] bhoover247 9 years ago

One would think that over time the Doctor being an intelligent rational person would eventually let the guilt get to him and respond by either turning himself in or committing suicide. Allen throws us a curve ball by showing the doctor months later actually rationalizing his actions and not letting it haunt him the way we think it would.

[–] liberius 9 years ago

Well, Judah himself admits that it's rationalising which is nothing more than papering over one's doubts with self-serving logic.

We could speculate that the rationalisation can't go on, but I think Allen is telling us, through Judah's final speech, that if there seems to be no practical consequences then you can perhaps get away with it in the moral sense.

I suspect if Judah's family had fallen apart, personal issues had plagued him, his practice failed, then he'd have had a more difficult time sustaining his self-illusion.

Indeed I think that's true for all of us: we equate ongoing success with a well-aligned moral compass. And while it's true that we reap what we sow, it's not always obvious how that happens.

[–] evanmang87 9 years ago

"He knows there's no video surveillance at or near the building?"

In the year 2015, video cameras from local businesses and street lights would have picked up Judah's comings and goings but this film is from the late 1980s. A lot has changed in the past 26 years in regards to video surveillance and policing.

"The apartment must be littered with his prints, hairs, etc."

Apart from the fact that this movie was made, again, in the late 1980s, even modern forensic evidence is not exactly like they make it out on TV shows or else there wouldn't continue to be significant numbers of unsolved murders. Even if police suspected Judah, "knowing" someone killed someone isn't enough to prove it.

[–] liberius 9 years ago

That's not the point of mentioning all the ways he could have been tied to her. It's the many obvious connections he must have with her. For him to suppose he could disentangle himself from her life and any artifacts or records she may have kept or created, and to do it as a mere afterthought, in a moment of panic as it were, leaving the dinner party thereby destroying his only alibi, well, it's rather a stretch. It's glaring, in fact. If you were to have a mistress of two years murdered, your goal being to prevent any trace of the affair being made public, your main consideration would be to eradicate all connection to her either before or at the time of the murder, not as a sudden realisation after the fact. Further, even if Judah somehow missed the necessity for that, Jack, who was circumspect in most other aspects, would have insisted Judah had erased all connections since if Judah was found to be connected, then Jack would also have come under scrutiny as a matter of course.

But as I said, it's a conceit. But it's big one.

[–] Smerdyakoff 9 years ago

I dunno, I kept thinking she had it coming