In director Fritz Lang's 1956 film noir entry Beyond a Reasonable Doubt, a newspaper publisher sets himself up for murder as a hoax to illustrate the faulty logic behind circumstantial evidence. Unforeseen complications soon place him in position to be executed.

The original Beyond a Reasonable Doubt film was Fritz Lang's last American directorial effort. The German filmmaker was one of the film noir genre's most acclaimed directors; he was also responsible for classics like the landmark silent sci-fi film Metropolis and the crime drama M.