Anatomy of a Murder, and of attitudes to women

Anatomy of a Murder by Robert Traver

published 1958

 

[excerpt] “What were you wearing that night?” I said… “Were you dressed as you are now?” Looking again, I was somehow hopeful she wasn’t. But then, hadn’t she already mentioned wearing a sweater?

“Well,” she said thoughtfully, “I had on a sweater, one very much like this” – I winced inwardly – “and a skirt and a slip and panties.”

“Any girdle?” I inquired hopefully.

“Heavens no,” she said. “I never wear the things.”

 

comments: Anatomy of a Murder – written by a judge under a pen-name, featuring a murder trial in great detail, and then turned into a highly-rated film – is notable for many things, and is beloved by many in the legal profession. I probably should sigh about the fact that what brought it into my mind right now is a mention of ‘girdles’ – ie women’s underwear. (In the days when the blog did Dress Down Sunday, I was always intending to pick this book up again. ADDED LATER: In the comments below a reader reminds me that I did mention this book and a potential post in the comments on this John Dickson Carr book: Below Suspicion)

When I posted on the remarkable Black Wings Has My Angel  recently, the btl comments discussed girdles – they feature in the book, and we discussed why a woman with a perfect figure would need one. In the case of the book, it’s because it’s a good hiding place. In real life in the 1950s, it’s because it would not be respectable NOT to wear one. I said:

There was some atavistic feeling that women must have many layers on, or they would face some unnamed danger or immorality. And then of course those layers had to be as uncomfortable as possible.

And that instantly brought this book to mind.

It is fascinating on many levels: its portrayal of a trial has been much-praised, and the author Robert Traver does a great job with the setting in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan – memorably described both in its scenery and also its feeling of disconnection from the rest of the state. The film was Oscar-nominated: directed by Otto Preminger, an amazing cast including James Stewart and Lee Remick, titles by Saul Bass and music by Duke Ellington.

The book is long and detailed but easy to read – though you suspect a good editor might have removed some of it.

It has a tremendously modern feel in some ways – perhaps like a book by Scott Turow, with its drilling down and unvarnished look at the way the justice system works. But it is very much of its time in its attitudes to women. And to rape.

First person narrator Paul Biegler is an attorney who is disappointed in life and drinks and goes fishing and doesn’t have many cases. He is called in to defend Lieutenant Manion, an Army officer who has shot and killed a man – Barney, a bar owner who, it was alleged, had beaten up and raped Manion’s wife Laura. Biegler – who is nicknamed Polly, I presume because of local pronunciation of his first name – takes on the case and puts forward a defence of temporary insanity: ‘irresistible impulse’. He is counting on a jury deciding that a man is entitled to murder someone who raped his wife.

He investigates the case, with the help of an even more hard-drinking older lawyer who is on his uppers, and his faithful secretary Maida. So far so familiar, though I think later legal thrillers, both books and films, may have learned from this one.

Now we get to the character issue. The Manions are not the most edifying pair – both have interesting pasts, and they are perhaps careless people (in the manner of Tom and Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby). Biegler knows that the prosecution will try to imply that Laura led the dead man on, that sex was consensual. That she was a floozie.

And this is where the girdle is important:

·      …It was going to be hard at best, I saw, to tone down this concupiscent-looking creature, but I would have to make the try. However she might despise wearing a girdle she was damned well going to have to wear one at the trial. I’d have to remember to tell her.

·      She was wearing slacks and a tight sweater—I saw I’d have to speak to her about that.

·      I also reminded him to remind Laura to be sure and wear her glasses and her new girdle during the trial. And above all no sweaters.

[at no point in the book, btw, is a bra mentioned]

Laura has gone to a bar on her own, she has drunk whisky and played pinball, some people claim she danced with men.

So…. These are the attitudes to rape that we do hope have disappeared now.

Nothing is held back in the prosecution case. A witness says of Laura:

‘At times I thought her behaviour wasn’t quite ladylike… Like once when she took off her shoes to play pinball.’

The prosecution is on it:

‘Is it your practice to remove your shoes when you drink whisky?.. or when dancing?... and were you served drinks with your shoes off?’

I mean, really?

Biegler knows how the prosecution is thinking, and even he has his doubts about Laura. As above, he thinks glasses will help. On the day, she has taken his advice:

She was dressed in a becoming dark linen suit and wore sheer stockings and high-heeled shoes and a little straw hat with a short veil that fell over her eyes. This was the first time I had seen her dressed up and I calculated that with glasses…yes, I might risk showing her before a jury

 

You can only shake your head at some of this.

The story is a page-turner, you definitely want to know how it comes out. I read it before many years ago, and have to say that I remembered the ending completely incorrectly, I had a very strong firm memory that was completely false.

But anyway. Biegler meets a young woman along the way, and there is a prospect of romance…

…Her dark hair was piled on top of her head and she wore a ruffled peignoir over some sort of silk lounging pajamas which reached high at the throat, Mandarin fashion, along with matching wedge-soled slippers with discreet pompons on the toes.

She’ll go down a storm in his conservative small town. I mean, it doesn’t even say if she’s wearing a girdle underneath this getup.

I like books set in Michigan, not sure why. And sometimes they link up:  for example, In my post on True North by Jim Harrison I said ‘the author of Anatomy of a Murder, Robert Traver/John D Voelker is a minor character’.

Another book considering the wearing of girdles is Exit a Star by Kathleen Moore Knight, here on the blog.

Lounging pajamas/pyjamas worn by Ginger Rogers.