You probably know how the TV series "Law and Order was structured. The first half dealt with two detectives tracking down the criminal. The second half took us into the DA's office where legal issues were discussed, culminating in a condensed version of a trial. "Twilight of Honor" is like the second half of "Law and Order." I'ts fast paced and mostly dispassionate, except for whatever passions are generated by the judicial process itself.
Not that "Twilight of Honor" in any way copied "Law and Order." It couldn't have. The movie was released more than twenty years before the TV series. If there is a source for "Twilight of Honor", it's likely to have been "To Kill A Mockingbird", which came out the year before, or even "Anatomy of a Murder," from 1959. Both were commercially and critically successful too, and generic success can be a powerful motivator.
The earlier films were softer, though. One was seen from a child's point of view and the other was an extended character study. This one doesn't fool around with sentiment. It's tense all the way through and wastes no time. Example: Claude Raines, in his last movie, is the dropsical and avuncular mentor to brash but uncertain lawyer Richard Chamberlain. They get together in the evenings to discuss the process of the case, and Chamberlain's next moves in trying to defend prisoner Nick Adams on a charge of murder. Late one night, Raines stretches and says, "I wonder who registered the two-room suite at that motel." Cut. It's the next day and Chamberlain is holding the receipts from the motel and challenging a witness. No tedious scene in which he visits the motel and has to wangle the registration forms from the reluctant man behind the desk.
Director Boris Sagal (Katy's dad) rushes the emotion too much. People shout at each other too early in the story, so that there's little sense of pressure building. It's simply there, constantly. Raines doesn't have many scenes and seem old and sadly fagged out, as is his character. Richard Chamberlain plays it straight and he's not bad. (He was quite good in "The Last Wave.") Something seemed to keep him bound to television or minor movies. Maybe he was too blandly handsome or too gay.
James Gregory is the ambitious District Attorney and he plays the only role he's ever played, the pompous, indignant, blatherskite gascon. He does it so well that he's funny, as in "The Manchurian Candidate." Nick Adams seems as lost as his character. Chamberlain has a love interest. He's just coming down from the death of his wife and gradually develops an attraction for Raines' daughter, Joan Blackman, who is pretty but cannot act. Joey Heatherton is Adams' sluttish wife who does sexy solo dances at juke joints just to watch the men gawk at her. And can she DO it too. I'd be one of the gawkers. The movie could have used more of her.
The movie is curiously structured. We begin by knowing nothing about the case, and we're filled in my shimmering flashbacks during interviews with the principals. It doesn't quite work because the flashbacks are introduced in any linear way. They seem patched together.
Yet it's not a terrible movie. You won't finish it feeling that it was a complete waste of time, only with a vague sense that, with a bit more care, it could have been considerably better than it is.
New Mexico, where the story is set, is an odd state. It no longer has the death penalty. The top half of the state, centered around artsy Santa Fe and the resorts at Taos, are reasonably liberal. The southern half, where I live, votes conservative. There are many Hispanics in the south and they're liberal but they don't turn out to vote in vast numbers.
Not that "Twilight of Honor" in any way copied "Law and Order." It couldn't have. The movie was released more than twenty years before the TV series. If there is a source for "Twilight of Honor", it's likely to have been "To Kill A Mockingbird", which came out the year before, or even "Anatomy of a Murder," from 1959. Both were commercially and critically successful too, and generic success can be a powerful motivator.
The earlier films were softer, though. One was seen from a child's point of view and the other was an extended character study. This one doesn't fool around with sentiment. It's tense all the way through and wastes no time. Example: Claude Raines, in his last movie, is the dropsical and avuncular mentor to brash but uncertain lawyer Richard Chamberlain. They get together in the evenings to discuss the process of the case, and Chamberlain's next moves in trying to defend prisoner Nick Adams on a charge of murder. Late one night, Raines stretches and says, "I wonder who registered the two-room suite at that motel." Cut. It's the next day and Chamberlain is holding the receipts from the motel and challenging a witness. No tedious scene in which he visits the motel and has to wangle the registration forms from the reluctant man behind the desk.
Director Boris Sagal (Katy's dad) rushes the emotion too much. People shout at each other too early in the story, so that there's little sense of pressure building. It's simply there, constantly. Raines doesn't have many scenes and seem old and sadly fagged out, as is his character. Richard Chamberlain plays it straight and he's not bad. (He was quite good in "The Last Wave.") Something seemed to keep him bound to television or minor movies. Maybe he was too blandly handsome or too gay.
James Gregory is the ambitious District Attorney and he plays the only role he's ever played, the pompous, indignant, blatherskite gascon. He does it so well that he's funny, as in "The Manchurian Candidate." Nick Adams seems as lost as his character. Chamberlain has a love interest. He's just coming down from the death of his wife and gradually develops an attraction for Raines' daughter, Joan Blackman, who is pretty but cannot act. Joey Heatherton is Adams' sluttish wife who does sexy solo dances at juke joints just to watch the men gawk at her. And can she DO it too. I'd be one of the gawkers. The movie could have used more of her.
The movie is curiously structured. We begin by knowing nothing about the case, and we're filled in my shimmering flashbacks during interviews with the principals. It doesn't quite work because the flashbacks are introduced in any linear way. They seem patched together.
Yet it's not a terrible movie. You won't finish it feeling that it was a complete waste of time, only with a vague sense that, with a bit more care, it could have been considerably better than it is.
New Mexico, where the story is set, is an odd state. It no longer has the death penalty. The top half of the state, centered around artsy Santa Fe and the resorts at Taos, are reasonably liberal. The southern half, where I live, votes conservative. There are many Hispanics in the south and they're liberal but they don't turn out to vote in vast numbers.