lchadbou-326-26592 Review of A Fever in the Blood

A Fever in the Blood (1961)

Interesting Drama MIxes Political Campagning With Courtroom

[6/10 · 11 August 2015]

The premise of A Fever In The Blood is three men who are interested in running for governor. One of them, an aggressive DA (played by Jack Kelly) may remind viewers with a longer memory of the character played by Claude Rains in an earlier Warner Brothers film, They Won't Forget- an unscrupulous attorney who prosecutes an innocent man so he can rise to political power. The other two are a corrupt Senator played by the aging Don Ameche and a somewhat flawed trial judge played by Efrem Zimbalist Jr Another aging actor Herbert Marshall is a welcome presence in several scenes as the former governor. Though the attractive Angie Dickinson is wasted as the wife of Ameche, really in love with Zimbalist. The courtroom scenes, which are fairly convincing, center on the murder of a society wife, which we saw in the dramatic opening. Marshall's nephew is wrongly accused though it is the gardener (whose sweaty nervousness is somewhat over played) who we have seen did it. In the course of the proceedings several aspects are brought in which we might take for granted today but were not commonly referred to at that time under the Hollywood production code: the victim's sexual promiscuity, the accused's girlfriend having solicited an abortion (referred to as "an illegal operation") and the judge ordering a telephone wiretap of a conversation between the DA and his partner. There is also a brief mention in the script of the previous year's Presidential candidate Nixon having used the prosecution of Hiss to promote his own success. This was one of the last features directed by WB veteran Vincent Sherman, before he went over to TV, but it shows little of the dynamic studio style that he displayed in his 1940's melodramas. It is a slick production, with sharp but somewhat overly bright lensing by Peverell Marley,and jarring, abrupt transitions between scenes that would not have been the case in the 1940s editing format. Only with the camera pulling back in the big nominating convention scene at the end, when Zimbalist is convinced by Dickinson to re-enter the fray, do we get a sense of Sherman's former finesse.