Main Cast: Jack Lemmon, Dan Aykroyd, Lily Tomlin, Bonnie Hunt, Brian Kerwin
Release Year: 1995
Country: US
Run Time: 91 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
A well-meaning man discovers the downside of taking the law into your own hands in this black comedy. Jack Lambert (Dan Aykroyd) is a college ethics professor who lives next door to a kindly old man of German descent named Max Mueller (Jack Lemmon); Jack is also in love with an attractive doctor named Gail (Bonnie Hunt), whom he plans to marry. One day, an FBI agent approaches Jack with some rather surprising news -- Max is actually Karl Luger, an escaped Nazi war criminal known as the Beast of Burkau and responsible for the deaths of thousands of people during World War II. However, Max has avoided prosecution on a legal technicality, which deeply offends Jack's sense of justice. Outraged, Jack poisons the apples on the tree in Max's yard, and before long Max has succumbed to the tainted fruit. However, Jack then learns that the FBI agents had the wrong man, and Max wasn't really the Beast of Burkau after all. Wracked with guilt, Jack wants to do something to make amends, so he calls off his engagement with Gail and instead begins to court Inga (Lily Tomlin), Max's frumpy and socially inept daughter. Getting Away with Murder was the final project for veteran writer and director Harvey Miller. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Harvey Miller - Director, Richard Nord - Editor, John Debney - Composer (Music Score), Frank Tidy - Cinematographer, Penny Marshall - Producer, Frank Price - Producer, Harvey Miller - Screenwriter
Jack Lambert's (Dan Aykroyd) neighbor Max Mueller (Jack Lemnon) is revealed on the TV news to be the escaped Nazi war criminal Karl Luger who was sentenced to death by the courts. Under the constant duress of the news media's allegations, Mueller plans to flee to South America.
Angered that Mueller might never pay for his crimes, Lambert takes the drastic step of poisoning him by injecting cyanide into some of the fruit in Mueller's apple tree, from which he regularly makes freshly juiced apple juice. At first the police believe it's a suicide, which upsets Lambert so much that he mails them a cryptic letter to reveal that it was actually a murder to carry out the court sentence and to revenge all the lives taken.
And then the plot takes several not so comedic twists.[1][2][3] The TV news, again, reveals that Mueller was mis-identified, he's innocent. Feeling guilty, Lambert does penance by dumping his fiancee Gail (Bonnie Hunt) and marrying Mueller's daughter Inga (Lily Tomlin). However, after the wedding, Lambert receives information assuring him of Mueller's guilt.
