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CompulsionFor his first film as producer, Richard Zanuck, son of Darryl F, chose an adaptation of Meyer Levin's fictionalization of the Leopold-Loeb case of 1924 in which two students murdered a small boy for kicks. Despite evading the homosexuality of the killers, apart from subtle hints, it was another step towards loosening Hollywood's Production Code. This entertaining film, which lacks a period sense, acted as a plea against capital punishment after a showy Welles makes a commanding plea for leniency in court. The sure-fire case had been used as the basis for Hitchcock's Rope (1948) and later Swoon (1992).
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