Twilight of Honor, released in the UK as The Charge is Murder, is a 1963 film directed by Boris Sagal and starring Richard Chamberlain, Nick Adams, Claude Rains, and featuring Joey Heatherton and Linda Evans in their film debuts. Twilight of Honor is a courtroom drama based on Al Dewlen's novel, with a screenplay by Henry Denker. Like the 1959 courtroom drama Anatomy of a Murder, it continued a recent trend of descriptions of things previously never mentioned in American cinema, such as vivid accounts of sexual assault, adultery, and prostitution. It was Chamberlain's first starring role in a feature. Plot David Mitchell (Richard Chamberlain), a widowed lawyer in a small city in New Mexico, is appointed by Judge Tucker to defend Ben Brown (Nick Adams) who has been charged with murder. Norris Bixby, an ambitious local prosecutor, has been assigned to try the case, hoping to fill the shoes of Art Harper (Claude Rains), a famed local prosecutor as well as David's friend and mentor, who is retired. Mitchell goes to see Art Harper that night to ask for advice and receives a pep-talk from Harper, demanding he use every legal trick in the book to defend his new client. They are interrupted by Susan (Joan Blackman), Harper's daughter, who has romantic feelings for David and who has arrived back in town from Chicago. During dinner Mitchell says that Ben Brown confessed to the killing and that the prosecution is asking for the gas chamber. He knows that Brown is unlikely to get a fair trial in town, and even he confesses to having preconceived notions about him. Harper says he played a role in Mitchell's being appointed as the defense on the case, and that while he himself is not healthy enough to defend the case personally, he will help Mitchell try to obtain justice for the accused. Susan also volunteers to be his legal secretary, hoping to spend time with Mitchell. The next morning, Mitchell goes to the prison to see his new client. He runs into Ben's wife, Laura-Mae Brown (Joey Heatherton), who turned her husband in and who reveals that she despises her husband, and "hopes he croaks," claiming Ben frequently beat her. She says he murdered a man in a bungled robbery attempt, then fled in the man's car. She also claims that her husband is a compulsive liar and that Mitchell didn't run