Why don't we ever see the boy?

I would guess that the reason the his face isn't shown is because, as they said in the movie, the murderers disfigured the face with acid to hinder identification. It might be too gruesome to show for the time period, but also would probably just be too difficult or expensive to prepare a disfigured body for the one shot.

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I certainly could not say what was in the director's mind about not presenting the boy in the film, but I do have a few theories:


1) As another poster stated, this movie was made in the late 1950's and there were stricter codes back then regarding what could be portrayed in movies, so that might be why the murder in all its gruesome reality and the murdered boy were not shown. However, that does not explain why the boy when alive was not shown (at least, not shown in any way that I remember), which leads me to #2:


2) Not showing the boy before he was murdered could have been a clever omission. L. & L. (aka 'Judd' and 'Artie') were, to most, two of the least likely people to be the murderers. In addition, purportedly the murder was done as a kind of detached ‘experiment’, so the early parts of the movie play almost as if a murder had NOT been committed which, in a way, detached the movie from the murder – as the murderers were themselves detached from the killing. So, no depiction of the victim because Judd and Artie cared about the boy’s life AND death as much as that of a bug they had just squashed on the sidewalk, and the director might have tried to illustrate this on more than one level. The Sid character (played by Martin Milner) was one of our first inklings to the movie having a genuine emotional feeling and shock about the murder. In fact, the closest we get to seeing anything of the *murdered* boy is in his presence. That scene, in the morgue, was chilling in the little that was shown and in Sid’s reaction. Older movies could be very good at appealing to the imagination with just subtle ‘hints’ and leaving it to the viewer to fill the rest in – many current films are not talented in that respect.


I, myself, did not need to see the murder reenacted or the victim afterwards to ‘get’ what had happened. Also, not focusing on the boy before the murder allowed me as a viewer to focus more on the other characters. That does not make the boy’s life incidental in any respect when one considers the real crime, but this case is particularly interesting because of the character, intellect, age, motives, and wealth of the murderers, and how these very odd ducks could be effectively portrayed in film (with no disrespect meant toward murder victims or to this poor, unfortunate innocent boy who apparently was in the wrong place at the wrong time).




"I can't stand a naked light bulb, any more than..a rude remark or a vulgar action" Blanche DuBois

The movie seems to be more about conflicts of personalities — Artie and Judd and their strangely symnbiotic but competitive relationship, then the cat-and-mouse game with Horn, and finally the face-off between Horn and Wilks — than the details of the murder, most of which aren't even mentioned.

Showing, or even really discussing, the murder would only have bogged the movie down and put the focus on the crime, rather than on the personalities, which is where the driector seems to have wanted it.



You might very well think that. I couldn't possibly comment.

In addition to what´s already been suggested in this thread, I suppose not seeing the victim perhaps allows for a more objective, less emotional examination of the issue of capital punishment that takes center stage in the last third of the picture - the same way the decisionmakers in court ought to evaluate the situation.

I should add though that the transition from the pre-murder events to the post-murder was handled in a rather strange, off-handed manner as the crime´s emotional impact on the narrative was essentially non-existent; it´s sort of like glossed over entirely (can´t help but think of In Cold Blood at this point, where the similar transition was marked by the soon-to-be-murdered family father switching off the light in his house - the effect it creates is quite astounding). Also, not only do we not see the murder itself, but we don´t even get to witness the "Nitzschean" duo mentally crossing the line, the actual push from fantasy to reality. It´s almost like the director didn´t trust Stockwell and Stillman to adequately act out such a scene.



"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan

Its really simple why the murder is not shown, or even the abduction, becuse this is a liberal, pro anti-death penalty movie,made when liberals were just starting to take control of the media. Think of how dishonest this movie compares to lets say, In Cold Blood, with graphic protrayals of the murders.
Audiences would have rejected the anti-death-penalty slant of the film if the murder wasn't invisible. I liked the film, but I really feel more empathy should have been awarded to the victim. This is somewhat redeemed by Well's great line to Artie at the conclusion of the film.

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