Study in "Reasonable Doubt"

Rating: 10/10 (30 January 2012)

This film, the title of which gives one the impression that it is charged with tenseness and suspense, calmly but steadily follows its plot line to its touching conclusion. It is a study in the legal concept of "reasonable doubt." The judge in his final instructions to the jury speaks of it, and one of the jurors asks another whether he understands the concept of reasonable doubt. The presence of a number of reasonable doubts heightens the pathos of a young man's life hanging in the balance of justice. All of this is hauntingly surrounded with the music of the oboe and bongo drumming, so characteristic of late 50s and early 60s films.