Although it seems a little confusing this film (by "Columbo" Creators Levinson and Link) is extremely clever at watching the activities - for most of the film - of the active mind of the protagonist.
I've explained in reviewing one of the "Columbo" movies that the genesis of that type of mystery plot goes back to English writer R. Austin Freeman. His first "Dr. Thorndyke" novel, THE RED THUMB MARK (1905) is an inverted detective story wherein we see the crime committed first and then wait to find the hidden flaw or flaws revealed by the detective. GUILTY CONSCIENCE (which I saw again on the FOX MOVIE CHANNEL yesterday) is the same type of plot taken one step further: no detective involved here, but rather a corrupt and cynical lawyer thinking of how to get rid of his wife.
All of us have had evil thoughts at one time or another, and most of us never really carry them out because in thinking seriously about them we realize how they might be traced back to us and give us really major problems. Arthur Jamison (Anthony Hopkins) is a great criminal trial lawyer, who sees nothing amiss in misappropriating client's property or breaking professional ethical standards and court rules to win cases. His marriage to his wife Louise (Blythe Danner) is crumbling because of manifest infidelities. She has long wanted a divorce, but she signed (upon marriage) an unfair Pre-nuptial agreement that prevents her from getting any of Jamison's substantial estate. Then she uncovers several criminal acts by her husband that (if she reveals to the district attorney) will result in disbarment and criminal prosecution. She tells him she will reveal this by mail if he does not give her half his property in the divorce settlement. He blackens her eye (we never see this but we see the resulting shiner), and then goes to Houston for a trial he is working on.
Hopkins has a break in the trial and returns to his home in San Francisco. He is aware now (Louise has told him this) that her letter is in a sealed envelope addressed to the District Attorney in a safety deposit box. She will either mail it, or she has left instructions for it to be given to the D.A. if she dies suddenly or violently. So Hopkins is thinking of two things:
1) Getting that letter back unread by anyone else in legal or police authority.
2) Killing Louise.
But he's a clever man, and we watch him go through several scenarios of how to kill her while giving himself an alibi or making it seem like robbers, or making it an accident. Each time he does he confronts himself, his super-ego taking on the personality of Jamison the expert trial lawyer reviewing the crime and ("Columbo" or "Thorndyke" like) revealing all the little flaws that Jamison's imagination and id did not see clearly. Little things like recommending the location of an alibi-establishing dinner to the committee person choosing the place for it (it is fifteen minutes from Jamison's house).
We soon learn that Jamison has a mistress, Jackie Willis (Swoozie Kurtz), an office temp. whom he met when she had to be hired while his secretary was ill. They have been having their affair for nearly a year. She starts intruding into these scenarios when he starts seeing problems in his relation with her, both as motive for killing Louise and on it's own. It seems that Jamison has met another woman (we know her as Gail, but we never see her), so he is two timing his wife and mistress. Soon his scenario plays out in the nightmare situation of both the jilted ladies making peace with each other to get him.
The wonders of this television film (which has enough twists and turnabouts until the conclusion) keeps our attention. Hopkins is properly detestable as a heel, but his mental agility (captured by his wonderfully pinpoint pupil-ed eyes) and the joy of his skulduggery makes us like him. Danner is properly lady-like, with her veneer slowly cracking under the strains of hating this heel she is stuck with. Kurtz varies between comic bits (she seems scatterbrained, especially with her business finding things in her pocketbook) with a serious - deadly serious - side to her nature that Hopkins can't control.
It is a film that works pretty well. Oddly enough, one scenario is never tried by Hopkins. It is probably because it would leave his personal reputation in tatters. He never imagines Louise and Jackie having a confrontation and killing each other. But if (as the film illustrates) there are manifold difficulties in committing one perfect crime, one has to cube it to commit two perfect crimes.
I've explained in reviewing one of the "Columbo" movies that the genesis of that type of mystery plot goes back to English writer R. Austin Freeman. His first "Dr. Thorndyke" novel, THE RED THUMB MARK (1905) is an inverted detective story wherein we see the crime committed first and then wait to find the hidden flaw or flaws revealed by the detective. GUILTY CONSCIENCE (which I saw again on the FOX MOVIE CHANNEL yesterday) is the same type of plot taken one step further: no detective involved here, but rather a corrupt and cynical lawyer thinking of how to get rid of his wife.
All of us have had evil thoughts at one time or another, and most of us never really carry them out because in thinking seriously about them we realize how they might be traced back to us and give us really major problems. Arthur Jamison (Anthony Hopkins) is a great criminal trial lawyer, who sees nothing amiss in misappropriating client's property or breaking professional ethical standards and court rules to win cases. His marriage to his wife Louise (Blythe Danner) is crumbling because of manifest infidelities. She has long wanted a divorce, but she signed (upon marriage) an unfair Pre-nuptial agreement that prevents her from getting any of Jamison's substantial estate. Then she uncovers several criminal acts by her husband that (if she reveals to the district attorney) will result in disbarment and criminal prosecution. She tells him she will reveal this by mail if he does not give her half his property in the divorce settlement. He blackens her eye (we never see this but we see the resulting shiner), and then goes to Houston for a trial he is working on.
Hopkins has a break in the trial and returns to his home in San Francisco. He is aware now (Louise has told him this) that her letter is in a sealed envelope addressed to the District Attorney in a safety deposit box. She will either mail it, or she has left instructions for it to be given to the D.A. if she dies suddenly or violently. So Hopkins is thinking of two things:
1) Getting that letter back unread by anyone else in legal or police authority.
2) Killing Louise.
But he's a clever man, and we watch him go through several scenarios of how to kill her while giving himself an alibi or making it seem like robbers, or making it an accident. Each time he does he confronts himself, his super-ego taking on the personality of Jamison the expert trial lawyer reviewing the crime and ("Columbo" or "Thorndyke" like) revealing all the little flaws that Jamison's imagination and id did not see clearly. Little things like recommending the location of an alibi-establishing dinner to the committee person choosing the place for it (it is fifteen minutes from Jamison's house).
We soon learn that Jamison has a mistress, Jackie Willis (Swoozie Kurtz), an office temp. whom he met when she had to be hired while his secretary was ill. They have been having their affair for nearly a year. She starts intruding into these scenarios when he starts seeing problems in his relation with her, both as motive for killing Louise and on it's own. It seems that Jamison has met another woman (we know her as Gail, but we never see her), so he is two timing his wife and mistress. Soon his scenario plays out in the nightmare situation of both the jilted ladies making peace with each other to get him.
The wonders of this television film (which has enough twists and turnabouts until the conclusion) keeps our attention. Hopkins is properly detestable as a heel, but his mental agility (captured by his wonderfully pinpoint pupil-ed eyes) and the joy of his skulduggery makes us like him. Danner is properly lady-like, with her veneer slowly cracking under the strains of hating this heel she is stuck with. Kurtz varies between comic bits (she seems scatterbrained, especially with her business finding things in her pocketbook) with a serious - deadly serious - side to her nature that Hopkins can't control.
It is a film that works pretty well. Oddly enough, one scenario is never tried by Hopkins. It is probably because it would leave his personal reputation in tatters. He never imagines Louise and Jackie having a confrontation and killing each other. But if (as the film illustrates) there are manifold difficulties in committing one perfect crime, one has to cube it to commit two perfect crimes.