Please Murder Me (1956) is a brilliant noir thriller starring Raymond Burr and Angela Lansbury. A lawyer defends his best friend for the murder of his wife—and then discovers a web of deceit and fraud.
Immerse yourself in this forgotten treasure of classic Hollywood, now available for free viewing in the public domain.
Genre: murder, lawyer, Raymond Burr, Noir, Thriller, Angela Lansbury, Perry Mason, Dick Foran, John Dehner, Denver Pyle
Year: 1956
Description
No further uploads I was quite content with the FTP uploading at archive.org. I could clearly view the extent to which the upload had been done. I could view the rate at which the upload was being accomplished. And, what was probably the most important of all, I could also have an interrupted upload resumed. That is, in the event of a connection failure, as long as I had uploaded 90 percent of a file, I only needed to reconnect to the connection and upload the remaining 10 percent.
The archive.org programmers have done away with the most preferred method of uploading, which is via FTP. They have chosen to make everybody adopt an inferior, cruder approach. The programmers of archive.org would have you entirely reliant on and at the mercy of Adobe Corporation; that is, they will have you use the Flash uploader. In the case of Flash uploader, it has progress indicator that provides a very rough estimation of the proportion of the file being uploaded. Nothing shows the speed at which the upload is happening. It is not possible to resume an interrupted upload. The Flash uploader is far less advanced than the uploading through FTP.
Overview
How’s that for a title? Rather Perry Mason-like lawyer Raymond Burr is brilliant in defending Angela Lansbury, who appears to have no chance at all of getting her husband, and who was the closest friend of Burr! I will not do it the injustice to make you believe that there are a couple of surprises in store in his direction.
It is a miracle that this film should have been permitted to become p.d. Don’t miss it. Others who make an appearance are Dick Foran, John Dehner, Lamont Johnson, and Denver Pyle. You may put the mpeg2 file into DVDAuthorGui (which is free software) and make a DVD to watch on your television.
About the Film
Please murder Me is a film that was directed by Peter Godfrey (director) and starred Angela Lansbury and Raymond Burr in 1956 and the film was produced in America. The movie is under free download at the Internet Archive, it is in the public domain.
Plot
The memories start with him telling his war buddy and best friend Joe Leeds (Dick Foran) that he is sleeping around with his wife Myra (Angela Lansbury) who desires a divorce. Instead of getting angry, Joe, responding, requests Craig to give him some time to consider the matter. Joe completes a letter a few days later in his personal office and hands it to his business partner Lou Kazarian to send. Joe calls Myra informing her that he would be home soon to talk to her. There he meets Myra in their bedroom where a door is closed and the sound of a gunshot is heard.
Joe is killed and it is being investigated by the police. According to Myra, Joe got angry and threatened her physically and she shot him because she was defending herself. Craig also appears in the scene and he was at the scene earlier than the police and he serves Myra as a lawyer.
During the trial that immediately follows, DA Willis has no choice but to have the police go on to present evidence to the court that there was no physical dispute as she had alleged. According to Willis, Myra did not work when she first met Joe, a prosperous businessperson with a sizeable life insurance. In her defense, Craig explains that Myra had gone through post-traumatic hysteria making her inconsistent when she talked about the night in question. Craig in his closing argument states that money motive in the case of Willis is not relevant on the premise that Myra was in love with another man, a fact that can make Joe desire to bring Myra about in premeditated injury. Then, Craig discloses that he is the lover of Myra.
Myra is not found guilty by the jury. She throws a party with friends with Craig. Upon arrival Louis comes privately to tell Craig that he had forgotten he had not mailed the letter to Joe who had addressed it to Craig. In the letter, Joe tells that Myra actually married him because of his money and that she was in love with an artist and not Craig. In part, Joe had resolved to request her to remain married so that Craig could be spared by her. Craig recounts the next moment when Myra had informed him that a former friend, an artist called Carl Holt, had paid her a visit in jail, during the trial.
Craig visits Holt, who tells him about his long time relationship with Myra but she got married to Joe, and that he is grateful and admires Craig in his defense work in the trial of Myra, particularly when he pretended to be her lover as a strategy. Later on, Craig challenges Myra with the letter that Joe had written and the conversation he had with Holt. She even acknowledges that she does go on with Holt now that she is free.
Craig goes to see Holt, who explains his long relationship with Myra, interrupted by her marriage to Joe, and states his gratitude and admiration for Craig in his defense work in Myra’s trial, especially his posing as Myra’s lover as a tactic. Craig later confronts Myra with Joe’s letter and his talk with Holt. She admits that she does intend to go on with Holt now she is free.
Cast
- Angela Lansbury as Myra Leeds
- Raymond Burr as Attorney Craig Carlson
- Dick Foran as Joe Leeds
- John Dehner as Dist. Atty. Ray Willis
- Lamont Johnson as Carl Holt
- Robert Griffin as Lou Kazarian
- Denver Pyle as Det. Lt. Bradley
- Alex Sharp as Sgt. Hill
- Lee Miller as Policeman on witness stand
- Russell Thorson as Trial judge
See also
- Angel on My Shoulder (1946): Watch Paul Muni Outwit Satan in This Free Noir Fantasy
- Texas Terror (1935): Watch John Wayne’s Gritty Early Western Free Online
- McLintock! (1963) – John Wayne’s Wildly Funny Western Rom-Com
👉 Watch Full Movie on Internet Archive:
Tags:
film noir, feature films, movies and films, 1956 films, crime films, thriller films, American films, black-and-white films, English-language films, public domain films
