Trivia for
Anatomy of a Murder (1959)

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• Duke Ellington did the music and has a cameo as "Pie-Eye."
  
  
• The part of the judge was offered to both Spencer Tracy and Burl Ives, but instead went to Joseph N. Welch who was a lawyer in real life who had represented the U.S. Army in the televised Army-McCarthy hearings in 1954.
  
  
• The part played by Lee Remick was first offered to Lana Turner, who agreed to take it on the condition that she would wear gowns designed exclusively by her personal couturier, Jean Louis. When director Otto Preminger objected that such gowns were not suitable for the role, Turner turned down the part. Columbia was ready to give in to Turner's demands but Preminger resisted and gave the role to Remick, then almost a beginner.
  
  

• The Lee Remick part was turned down by Jayne Mansfield.
  
  
• Otto Preminger originally wanted Lee Remick for the part of Laura because he had been impressed with her debut in A Face in the Crowd (1957) and knew that she could play a young sultry woman (even though Remick was 8 months pregnant when Preminger approached her for the role). A few weeks later he called to tell her that he had given the part to Lana Turner and instead offered her a smaller role of Mary Pilant, but Remick boldly refused. On an especially hectic day when Remick received a call saying that she had the part of Laura, she thought it was a joke and hung up. It took another phone call to convince her that she truly did have the lead female role.
  
  
• The film was cut, scored and in previews only a month after filming had wrapped.
  
  
• James Stewart's father was so offended by the film, which he deemed "a dirty picture", that he took out an ad in his local newspaper telling people not to see it.
  
  
• Upon its original release, the film was banned in Chicago, Illinois.
  
  
• The "law library" in the courthouse was actually filmed in the Carnegie Public Library in Ishpeming Michigan. The door that was opened in the Courthouse, which is in Marquette, Michigan, was the door to the men's restroom. The movie was filmed on location in Marquette County Michigan.
  
  
• Part of the controversy surrounding this movie was because it included use of the words "bitch", "contraceptive", "panties", "penetration", "rape", "slut" and "sperm".
  
  
• The movie's poster was as #1 of "The 25 Best Movie Posters Ever" by Premiere.
  
  
• When James Stewart's character goes to the hotel to visit Kathryn Grant, the clerk at the desk is reading Leon Uris's "Exodus". One year later, director Preminger would go on to direct its film version, Exodus (1960).
  
  
• Otto Preminger disliked the use of flashbacks; hence there are none in the film.
  
  
• Duke Ellington's score is a diagetical one, i.e., it is not superimposed over the action but can only be heard within the context of whatever scene music might be playing in.
  
  
• Shooting was completed in just two months.
  
  
• James Stewart's character Biegler is generally cited as being the reason why he was cast as smalltown West Virginia lawyer Billy Jim Hawkins in the 1973-74 TV series "Hawkins" (1973).
  
  
• [June 2008] Ranked #7 on the American Film Institute's list of the 10 greatest films in the genre "Courtroom Drama".
  
  

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