This is like the forgotten good film in Fredric March's career. People talk about ANTHONY ADVERSE, DR. JECKYLL AND MR. HYDE, THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES, INHERIT THE WIND, or THE ADVENTURES OF MARK TWAIN, but AN ACT OF MURDER is rarely recalled because of it's odd story. At a time when American film audiences wanted to forget World War II and the death and destruction it entailed, March and his wife Florence Eldrich appeared in the only film where their roles were equally important where the subject was euthanasia. It was well told, with March as Judge Cooke, a fiercely strict jurist who rarely showed a drop of mercy towards a convicted defendant. He finds his beloved wife is dying of an incurable, and slowly debilitating disease. While she slowly declines (and very visibly shows her own suffering) the Judge grimly determines to kill her by a convenient car accident. But after the accident the Judge confesses, and faces conviction in his own courthouse. Only at the last moment is he saved from the unforgiving penal code he is always upholding.
It is well acted (Edmond O'Brien giving good support as a liberal-minded attorney who is romancing March and Eldrich's daughter). But the best part is watching the chemistry between March and Eldrich. Only their joint appearances in ANOTHER PART OF THE FOREST and INHERIT THE WIND come close to this, but Eldrich's parts in those films is not as essential as her role in this one. And the subject matter is rarely tackled (certainly not in the 1930s or 1940s). If the end is a bit of a cop-out (the trial reveals that March is not guilty) it still is a brave subject to have tackled at all.
It is well acted (Edmond O'Brien giving good support as a liberal-minded attorney who is romancing March and Eldrich's daughter). But the best part is watching the chemistry between March and Eldrich. Only their joint appearances in ANOTHER PART OF THE FOREST and INHERIT THE WIND come close to this, but Eldrich's parts in those films is not as essential as her role in this one. And the subject matter is rarely tackled (certainly not in the 1930s or 1940s). If the end is a bit of a cop-out (the trial reveals that March is not guilty) it still is a brave subject to have tackled at all.