DVD: Divine Viewing Diversions
The courtroom drama might not have the commercial sizzle or blockbuster potential of the action thriller or the superhero adventure.
But it’s nearly always with us in one way or another. Whether fictional or factual, it compels us and diverts us and pleases us and satisfies us. It even has us spouting legalese – whether we’re actually lawyers or not.
So here are 10 of the very best legal dramas ever made, as voted by a jury of one.
A FEW GOOD MEN (1992)
Director Rob Reiner brings the powerful play by Aaron Sorkin to the movie screen with impactful results. Tom Cruise stars as a relatively young Navy lawyer in charge of a case involving two Marines accused of murder, with Jack Nicholson as a commanding officer at the base where the alleged murder took place. The fine ensemble cast includes Demi Moore, Kevin Bacon, Kiefer Sutherland, Kevin Pollak and Cuba Gooding Jr. in a thoroughly absorbing drama that earned four Academy Award nominations – for Best Picture, Best Editing, Best Sound, and Best Supporting Actor (Nicholson). The courtroom scenes absolutely crackle with intensity, especially when Cruise is questioning the electrifying Nicholson.
12 ANGRY MEN (1957)
Henry Fonda, excellent as always and also serving as a producer, stars as the one and only jury member who tries to persuade the other 11 jurors that they have agreed on a hasty – and wrong -- guilty verdict for a young man suspected of murder. Debuting director Sidney Lumet works from an ingenious script by Reginald Rose, who adapted it from his television screenplay. The film was nominated for three Oscars – for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay – and the uniformly strong supporting cast includes Ed Begley, Lee J. Cobb, Jack Warden and Jack Klugman. The production is set in the jury room, as opposed to the courtroom, but it delivers as if you had experienced the gripping trial from beginning to end.
WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION (1957)
This adaptation of Agatha Christie’s enormously entertaining play was directed by the accomplished Billy Wilder, who co-wrote the screenplay. Charles Laughton stars as a London barrister taking on a strenuous murder case despite a heart condition. Tyrone Power plays the defendant, with Marlene Dietrich as his wife, while Elsa Lanchester, Laughton’s real-life wife, portrays the barrister’s spouse. Narrative twists, plenty of rollicking humor, and constant suspense combine to make this a breezy romp with a surprise ending. This splendid collaboration among Christie, Wilder, and a boffo cast garnered six Oscar nominations – Best Picture, Best Actor (Laughton), Best Supporting Actress (Lanchester), Best Director, Best Editing, and Best Sound. Here’s a gem that richly rewards repeat viewers, let alone first-timers.
ANATOMY OF A MURDER (1959)
Jimmy Stewart starred for director Otto Preminger in this absorbing courtroom drama – its language seen as quite daring in its day – in which a crafty attorney in a small town in Michigan defends a murder suspect who is accused of killing his wife’s rapist. In support are George C. Scott, Lee Remick, Arthur O’Connell, Ben Gazzara and Eve Arden. The film received seven Academy Award nominations – Best Picture, Best Editing, Best Cinematography, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actor (Stewart), and two for Best Supporting Actor (Scott and O’Connell). The portrait the film paints of the court system is a fascinating and cynical one, but an accessible one at that, and the ensemble acting is first-rate.
INHERIT THE WIND (1960)
The fictionalized movie adaptation of the play by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee is about the controversial Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925, when high-school teacher John T. Scopes was tried for teaching the Darwinian Theory of Evolution in violation of Tennessee’s Butler Act. Brought to the movie screen by director Stanley Kramer, it stars Spencer Tracy as a version of defense lawyer Clarence Darrow, Fredric March as a variation of prosecutor William Jennings Bryan, and Gene Kelly as a newspaperman based on journalist H.L. Mencken. Splendid acting and a central issue that remains relevant all these decades later make this an enjoyable, large-scale production and an invaluable history lesson for young and old. Deserving Oscar nominations ensued for Best Actor (Tracy), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography and Best Editing.
JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG (1961)
Two Oscars and 11 – count ’em, 11 – total Academy Award nominations went to this powerfully moving gem of a courtroom drama from director Stanley Kramer, a superior all-star production revolving around a German war-criminal trial. One Oscar went to Maximilian Schell for Best Actor, the other to Abby Mann for the screenplay adapted from his 1959 television play. Other nominations: Spencer Tracy (Best Actor), Montgomery Clift (Best Supporting Actor), Judy Garland (Best Supporting Actress), Best Picture, Best Director, Best Editing, Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction and Best Costume Design. Also in the cast: Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark, Marlene Dietrich and William Shatner.
TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (1962)
If there’s a better example of perfect casting than Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch, I’ve yet to see it. Finch is a widowed lawyer and father of two in a small town in 1930s Alabama who defends a black man accused of raping a white woman. This Horton Foote-scripted adaptation of the semiautobiographical, Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Harper Lee won three Oscars – Best Actor (Peck), Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Art Direction. In addition, the superb, poignant, suspenseful drama was acknowledged with Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Best Director (Robert Mulligan), Best Supporting Actress (Mary Badham), Best Cinematography, and Best Musical Score. Finch’s children are masterfully directed naturals in an unforgettable portrait of race relations and childhood.
KRAMER VS. KRAMER (1979)
Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep won Academy Awards – he for Best Actor, she for Best Supporting Actress – for this brilliantly low-key and emotionally devastating domestic drama dripping with verisimilitude that focuses on a custody battle between exes Hoffman and Streep. Director Robert Benton adapted the Avery Corman novel. And the film also won Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay, and received Oscar nominations for Best Editing, Best Cinematography, Best Supporting Actor for young Justin Henry as the child in question, and Best Supporting Actress for Jane Alexander as a family friend. Benton orchestrates the audience’s rooting interest from first frame to last with extraordinary skill.
THE VERDICT (1982)
When Paul Newman won the Best Actor Oscar for “The Color of Money” in 1986, many saw his victory as an apology from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for denying him the statuette that he richly deserved for his great work in this Sidney Lumet-directed, David Mamet-scripted drama about a down-on-his-luck Boston lawyer who takes on a tough medical negligence case in an effort to redeem himself. Five Oscar nominations came the film’s way, including Best Picture, Best Actor (Newman), Best Supporting Actor (James Mason), Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay. The masterful control of Lumet combined with an inspired outing by Newman is a powerful combination, and Newman’s portrait of an alcoholic attorney/principled justice seeker is one for the ages.
PHILADELPHIA (1993)
Tom Hanks won the Best Actor Oscar for his performance as a gay corporate lawyer battling AIDS who is fired by his Main Line law firm. Jonathan Demme directed this powerfully poignant drama that co-stars Denzel Washington as the Philadelphia ambulance chaser who takes Hanks’ character’s case. Bruce Springsteen’s song, “Streets of Philadelphia,” took home the Best Song Oscar, and the film earned further nominations for Best Original Screenplay, Best Song (Neil Young’s “Philadelphia”) and Best Makeup. Detractors might accuse the film of being mainstream or shallow, but strong work by everyone on-screen or behind it achieves what the moviemakers are after, which is to explore homophobia and justice with intelligence and compassion. And Hanks is nothing short of magnificent.
