[society-by-contract]

You know, the late socialist novelist Theodore Dreiser wrote a two-part novel about a case similar (but less flamboyant) than this one. In "An American Tragedy" Dreiser seemed to blame the capitalist system for fostering a climate in which a man would feel compelled in that case for financial reasons to murder his pregnant girlfriend. Wasn't the character named Clyde Griffiths? Was the movie role played by the late Montgomery Clift?

I assume this is the same Dreiser who H.L. Mencken was so fond of and collaborated with in the periodical The Smart Set. Mencken wrote a favorable review of Dreiser's second novel Jennie Gerhardt, but Theo's work apparently took a turn for the worse after his first book. I gleaned this from Terry Teachout's excellent new book: The Skeptic-A Life of H.L. Mencken.

[Gumdrop]

An America Tragedy starred Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor and Shelley Winters. Winters was the pg girlfriend who was poor and from a lower class family. She threatened him if he didn't marry her. Taylor was an upper-class rich girlfriend of Monty's and he wanted to marry her because he was also a social climber. So he drowned the girlfriend, but he was eventually caught and executed.