It was a study in contrast that today’s Hollywood should re-examine—but won’t. Last week at the American Film Institute’s Silver Theatre and Cultural Center just outside Washington, D.C., a rapt and enthusiastic audience watched the 1959 classic Anatomy of a Murder. Starring Jimmy Stewart, Lee Remick, Ben Gazzara and George C. Scott, directed by Otto Preminger, boasting a 100 percent “Fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and a score by Duke Ellington—who also appears in the film—Anatomy of a Murder is a classic courtroom drama.
The film features complex characters who sometimes aren’t what they appear and offers no easy answers. At its conclusion, the audience is not sure if the murder was justified or if an alleged rape actually took place. It is a case strikingly similar to the Cornell seven case currently roiling the nation.
When introducing Anatomy of a Murder at the AFI, film historian Foster Hirsch noted how contemporary the film seems in 2026.
The night after Anatomy screened, the Tom Cruise bomb Digger played in another theater to an audience of three people. I was one of them.
The difference in audience size and enthusiasm should be a clear message to Hollywood. The near-capacity crowd for Anatomy of a Murder was upbeat, enthralled by the quality of what was on the screen, and eager to stay for more films in the annual Film Noir Film Festival, of which Anatomy was a part. The audience for Digger got a long, hallucinatory lecture about climate change and how stupid we all are for not being more hysterical about it. Free Press reviewer Caitlin Flanagan put it well: “There are bad movies; there are always bad movies. But then there are the ones that make you want to carve a little circle around your chair and tunnel your way out.” Digger is shaping up to be one of Hollywood’s biggest bombs.
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