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By Jennifer Bowles, Associated Press television writer
Sixty years before the O.J. Simpson trial became the trial of the century, another famous case involved an American hero, a tragic murder and -- let's not forget -- a media frenzy.
Still today, the kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindbergh's 20-month-old son in 1932 incites passionate opinions about whether the German immigrant who was convicted and executed was actually guilty.
Even the actor who plays the doomed Bruno Richard Hauptmann in the HBO movie "Crime of the Century" (airing tonight at 8) and the actress who portrays his devoted wife are at odds over his innocence.
"I couldn't have done it if I thought he was guilty," says Stephen Rea.
"I don't know in my heart if Hauptmann is guilty or innocent. No I don't," says Isabella Rosselini.
The movie is based on "The Airman and the Carpenter," a book by Ludovic Kennedy, a British author and documentary filmmaker.
Mr. Kennedy claims Mr. Hauptmann was made a scapegoat for a crime against Mr. Lindbergh, who leapt into icon status after making the first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean in 1927.
Mr. Hauptmann, Mr. Kennedy contends, was the victim of politicians, prosecutors and law enforcement officers who tainted evidence, coerced witnesses and knew all along that Mr. Hauptmann wasn't guilty.
Whether you agree with that premise or not, the movie is a compelling drama directed by Mark Rydell and also starring Michael Moriarty, David Paymer and J.T. Walsh. The movie tugs at your emotions, makes you question your own moral convictions and leaves you wondering what really happened.
Mr. Kennedy says he looked into the case after seeing Mr. Hauptmann's widow, Anna, on a network morning show professing the innocence of her husband.
"I was convinced she was telling the truth," Mr. Kennedy recalls. "Her whole attitude was so natural and spontaneous, I knew she wasn't acting. I felt, 'Well, I must do something about this, I must try to put the record straight.' "
After doing a BBC documentary on the case and sifting through piles of documents, Mr. Kennedy wrote his book, published in 1985.
"The need for a scapegoat was so tremendous at that time because people were so horrified about what happened to the No. 1 hero," Mr. Kennedy said. "People just lost all sense of balance and reason and deluded themselves into believing this man was guilty."
Through his research, Mr. Kennedy says, he found "a series of things and it all pointed to one thing: There wasn't a single piece of evidence that convicted him that wasn't false and wasn't being rigged and being planted."
Like the Simpson case, though, everyone has their own theory.
"When it gets down to the nitty gritty, Hauptmann killed the baby for the (ransom) money," says Jim Fisher, a criminal justice professor at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania and author of "The Lindbergh Case."
Ask Stephen Monier, police chief in Goffstown, N.H., and co-author of "Crime of the Century," a book not connected to the movie, and you get a completely different view -- one that suggests Mr. Lindbergh, himself, was the most probable suspect.
A former prosecutor, Mr. Monier says the first place you start an investigation of this type is with the family. As an example, he points to Susan Smith, who blamed another man for drowning her two sons before she confessed.
Mr. Lindbergh, Mr. Monier contends, "negligently killed his child" and "fabricated a kidnapping case."
"He was rather eccentric and in my view a very strange man. Just two months earlier he hid the baby in the closet and allowed the whole household to believe the child had been kidnapped."
So while the movie may do little in settling the baby controversy, it's sure to generate a reaction from retired Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf.
The movie paints his father Norman Schwarzkopf, who headed the Lindbergh probe, as a corrupt investigator who bent the law to get Mr. Hauptmann convicted.
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