My friend Robert Roscoe was recently lamenting British courtroom dramas where the judge has a gavel and counsel shouts: ‘Objection!’
What Robert did like were those early Perry Mason episodes, when Raymond Burr would half-smile as he realised the prosecutor had slipped up or fallen into a trap he had laid.
That led to a discussion on the best legal films. He cited A Few Good Men, which I have never seen but should. Then there were the usual suspects. To Kill a Mockingbird, of course, although the last time I tried to watch it on TV, I found it too syrupy (heresy!) and never reached the trial scene. I said Carrington V.C., in which David Niven was court-martialled for embezzlement. Another excellent court-martial was Breaker Morant. And Kubrick’s Paths of Glory, if only for the ending.
Then, in the comedy genre, there is Marisa Tomei, herself the daughter of a trial lawyer, as the inexperienced lawyer Joe Pesci’s much smarter girlfriend in My Cousin Vinny. And a nod to the unqualified as Julia Roberts pursues a settlement in Erin Brockovich.
James Stewart in Anatomy of a Murder? A good lesson for getting your fees up-front. And Humphrey Bogart unravelling under Jose Ferrer’s cross-examination in The Caine Mutiny. The seminal Twelve Angry Men.
In many ways, however, my favourite is The Verdict, in which an alcoholic small practitioner, Paul Newman, is up against a dastardly big-time lawyer in James Mason. The plot turns on whether Newman can produce a particular witness, and throughout the trial, he does not do well. I saw the film in Nairobi one Saturday night, and I can only presume it ends in Newman’s favour because with five minutes to go, the witness turns up and the evidence they give must be favourable. The hollering, cheering and foot-stamping of the audience drowned out the soundtrack. I had not heard anything like it since those Saturday morning children-only Randolph Scott westerns.
There must be plenty more.
James Morton is a writer and former criminal defence solicitor
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