Beyond a Reasonable Doubt

Beyond a Reasonable Doubt is a 1956 American film noir legal drama directed by Fritz Lang and written by Douglas Morrow. The film stars Dana Andrews, Joan Fontaine, Sidney Blackmer, and Arthur Franz. It was Lang's second film for producer Bert E. Friedlob, and the last American film he directed. Plot Austin Spencer (Sidney Blackmer), a newspaper publisher who opposes the death penalty, wants to prove a point about the inadequacy of circumstantial evidence. He talks his daughter Susan's fiancé, Tom Garrett (Dana Andrews), into participating in a hoax, in an attempt to expose the ineptitude of the city's hard-line district attorney. The plan is for Tom to plant clues that will lead to his arrest for the recent murder of a female nightclub dancer, Patty Gray. Once Tom is found guilty, Spencer is to reveal the setup and humiliate the District Attorney. Tom agrees to the plan, and is convicted on the circumstantial evidence. But Spencer dies in a car accident before he can clear Tom, and the photographic evidence he had intended to use to clear Tom after his trial, which he had on his person, is burned to an unrecognizable state in the accident. Tom remains on death row in prison. However, a few hours before his scheduled execution and in time to prove the two men's intentions, written testimony by the dead man is discovered. Because of this, Tom is to be pardoned. However, while talking to his now-ex-fiancée Susan (Joan Fontaine), who has been trying to help him, Garrett inadvertently reveals that he knows the late woman's real name which forces him to confess that the murder victim is actually his estranged wife, Emma Blucher, who had reneged on her promise to divorce him in Mexico. As this was preventing him from marrying Susan, he murdered her, figuring that the late Spencer's proposed hoax would be the perfect cover-up. Susan, through her current boyfriend, notifies the police, and Garrett's pardon is canceled before the double jeopardy rule comes into effect, and the film closes with him being led back to his cell pending his execution later that evening.