Five Film Favorites: Courtroom Dramas

The courtroom in "To Kill a Mockingbird"

by F.T. Rea

After the crime has been committed, the cops have investigated it and the handcuffs have been slapped on the culprit, some movies end. If they think about it, most viewers probably assume the captive will face the music in a courtroom. 

In a general sense, the characters in crime films are usually developed by what they do -- action. If the story is more about the legal ordeal after arrest, the trial, then it’s usually dialogue that drives the story. Typically, the characters in courtroom dramas are developed by what they say … and of course, how and when they say it. 

This installment of five film favorites is focused on courtroom dramas. Legitimate courtrooms, please. Not kangaroo courts. Furthermore, trials that take place outside of a real courthouse, such as in "M" (1931) or in "The Ox-Bow Incident" (1943), as good as they both are, belong on another day’s list of favorites.

To narrow the field even more, movies about courts martial aren’t being considered this time, either. So that means great war films with pivotal military trials in them, such as "Breaker Morant" (1980), "The Caine Mutiny" (1954) and "Paths of Glory" (1957) can’t be included on this particular list. However, as you will see, below, a film about a tribunal for war crimes can be included.

Now that I've said what can't be on the list, here are today's five favorite courtroom dramas: 

• "Anatomy of a Murder" (1959): B&W. 160 minutes. Directed by Otto Preminger. Cast: James Stewart, Lee Remick, Ben Gazzara, George C. Scott, Eve Arden. Note: In the late-50s this story about a violent killing and some sex-related issues was a bodice-ripper. Gazzara, the defendant, claims to have amnesia. Stewart is the easy-going defense attorney who doesn't miss much. Remick, a fun-loving temptress, is the defendant's wife. The judge is played by Joseph Welch, a real-life lawyer who was made famous by the live telecasts of the Army-McCarthy Hearings.

• "Inherit the Wind" (1960): B&W. 128 minutes. Directed by Stanley Kramer. Cast: Spencer Tracy, Fredric March, Gene Kelly, Harry Morgan. Note: Adapted from the play with the same title, which was a fictionalized version of the famous Scopes “Monkey” Trial (in 1925), the movie offers Matthew Harrison Brady (March) as a William Jennings Bryan-like figure. Henry Drummond (Tracy) as a Clarence Darrow-like figure and E. K. Hornbeck (Kelly) as a H. L. Mencken-like figure. To avoid a spoiler, I can't reveal here who plays the role of the monkey.

•  "Judgment at Nuremberg" (1961). B&W. 159 minutes. Written by Abby Mann. Directed by Stanley Kramer. Cast: Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark, Marlene Dietrich, Maximilian Schell, Judy Garland, Montgomery Clift, William Shatner, Werner Klemperer. Note: Set in Nuremberg, Germany, in 1948, the film presents a fictionalized version -- a composite -- of the famous Judges' Trials of 1947. The film centers on a particular tribunal led by Chief Trial Judge Dan Haywood (Tracy), in which a small group of German civilians stand accused of committing “crimes against humanity” for their roles in making the Holocaust possible. Warning: Some of the death camp footage is hard to watch.
  

• "To Kill a Mockingbird" (1962): B&W. 129 minutes. Directed by Robert Mulligan. Cast: Gregory Peck, Mary Badham, Brock Peters, Robert Duvall, Phillip Alford. Note: Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, via Horton Foote’s screenplay, was smoothly interpreted to the big screen in this compelling story set in a small town in Alabama during the Depression. A respected white lawyer, who is the father of two precocious kids, is appointed to defend a black man accused of raping a white woman. This is that rare movie that's as good as the great book it was based on.

• "The Verdict" (1982): Color. 129 minutes. Directed by Sidney Lumet. Cast: Paul Newman, Charlotte Rampling, Jack Warden, James Mason, Lindsay Crouse. Note: Newman’s character was a hot shot attorney at a big law firm before alcoholism unraveled his life. As a favor, a helpful former colleague tosses him what seems, at first glance, to be an easy medical malpractice case. Of course, it turns out to be a much more complicated situation and tough choices must be made. 

The courtroom in "The Verdict"

Maybe one reason so many courtroom dramas have been produced is that if most of the scenes are in the courthouse, it saves money on sets. Another reason is that a trial provides a ready-made and organized context in which to present a story. The testimony of witnesses can tell the whole tale. The disclosure of the verdict is a natural way to wrap up the story.

Once the suspense is over, the viewers frequently see "The End" on the screen, appearing over footage of attorneys gathering up their papers. Sometimes justice has been wrought. 

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