The Paradine Case (1947) User Reviews (124)

Hitchcock's Courtroom Fizzle

[theowinthrop · 6/10 · 17 December 2005]

There are some films that are forever lost that one wishes still existed: the complete GREED and THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS (Welles final cut)for examples. In the cinema of Alfred Hitchcock, THE PARADINE CASE as he originally shot would have been of great interest. Whether it would have been better is another matter. THE PARADINE CASE is generally conceded as among Hitchcock's lesser films. It's most interesting parts of the performances of the leads (except for Alida Valli, who is quite dull), and the famous sequence of the portrait of Valli whose eyes seem to follow the camera (standing in for Gregory Peck/Anthony Keane) as it passes from one room to the next.

Hitchcock told Francois Truffaut that he felt the casting was wrong. He wanted Greta Garbo for Mrs. Paradine (but Selznick had Alida Valli signed up). He wanted Ronald Colman or Laurence Olivier as Keane (but Selznick had Gregory Peck signed up). He did not want Louis Jourdan as LaTour, but wanted Robert Newton. Again Selznick said no. As a result of our general respect for Hitchcock the suspense film artist we sympathize with his comments, and dismiss Selznick as a bullying producer who destroyed a masterpiece. I seriously question this view.

First of all, David Selznick (for most of his career as a producer) was way ahead of the majority of such Hollywood figures because of his taste and ability. Anyone who could create GONE WITH THE WIND, David COPPERFIELD, SINCE YOU WENT AWAY, and other high caliber movies is not one to dismiss so cavalierly. Most of the films he did with Hitchcock (whom he brought to Hollywood in 1939) were very good films: REBECCA, SUSPICION, SHADOW OF A DOUBT, LIFEBOAT, FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT - they were not crappy. Secondly, he was aware of difficulties in getting performers: Olivier was working in England in 1948. Colman was working mostly at MGM, but was a bit too old for the role. And Peck was not an unknown talent: He had worked with Hitchcock already. As for Garbo, she had been in retirement for six years, and there was no sign she was interested in a film come-back.

The Jourdan - Newton problem is another matter. LaTour, in the film, is Colonel Paradine's loyal batman, now a valet and groom on the estate. Mrs. Paradine has made a play for his affections, and he has rejected them out of loyalty to his master. Hitchcock felt that Robert Newton, with his physical appearance, would have looked more like a man who worked in the mire of a stable than Louis Jourdan did, although as Jourdan remained the Colonel's personal servant that seemed a minor casting point in favor of Newton. Hitchcock also skirted the issue (soon to be handled in ROPE, STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, and NORTH BY NORTHWEST) of a homosexual relationship between his characters. LaTour was supposed to be more openly close to the Colonel in Hitchcock's opinion. But it was a 1948 film - how close was the relationship supposed to be? Furthermore, Selznick as producer would be aware of one defect regarding Newton not found in Hitchcock's account to Truffaut: Newton's alcoholism. Given the size of Newton's benders he was a poor risk in most film acting roles (no matter how available he was). Not so with Louis Jourdan. The film was brought in under 93 days, and that record would not have been possible if Newton had been in the cast and kept getting drunk. As for the homosexual relationship, it never is fleshed at all in the film. But would a 1948 audience have been willing to accept that? I don't think so.

The supporting players, particularly Ann Todd, Charles Laughton as the sadistic Mr. Justice Lord Hawfield, and Ethel Barrymore as Lady Hawfield, gave good accounts of themselves in the film, especially Laughton as the Judge who takes out his frustrations with Mrs. Keane (ANN TODD) to wreck her husband's case. His best scene, where he compares a walnut to a human brain sums up the character's beastliness.

I think that what Hitchcock fans fail to notice here is that it is Hitch's only real courtroom film. While his characters face hearings and sentencing in court (like in the start of NOTORIOUS), they rarely are shown being tried. I CONFESS is an exception - and the bulk of the film is not a trial. Here the bulk of the film is the trial of the anti-heroine Mrs. Paradine. It is not typical Hitchcock, and fails to fascinate the audience. The highpoint is the verbal clashes between Laughton and Peck (sometimes assisted by Leo G. Carroll as the prosecutor), Jourdan's collapse in the witness box when Keane attacks him for secretly betraying his master with the defendant, and Valli's final condemnation of Keane in court. But the circumstances and the dialog do not fascinate the viewers. Compare the way the trial in THE PARADINE CASE compares with those in Billy Wilder's WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION, and in TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. Laughton's Sir Wilfred Robarts enlivens the film, and his tactics in attacking Torin Thatcher's case for the prosecution of Tyrone Power are solid and interesting in the former. Gregory Peck's Atticus Finch, in defending Brock Peters on a rape charge in a segregated, bigoted South, are cutting and sensible. The key is the script - both of those films have better scripts, based on better writings (Agatha Christie and Harper Lee) than the Robert Hitchens novel.

One can bemoan the loss of the three hour version or the 119 minute version that we lack now, but if it was anything as dull as the slow moving courtroom sequences of the currently extant film, I doubt that any improvement would have appeared.

A technically sound, but ultimately unsatisfying courtroommelodrama

[kmcalind · 5/10 · 30 September 1999]

This is a disappointing effort from the team of Hitchcock and Selznick. Probably its greatest shortcoming was its inability to ingeniously circumvent the Production Code (as accomplished in "Notorious") to present its adult themes. As a result, even though it is obvious that the case itself is not the subject of the film so much as a backdrop for an awkward arrangement of love triangles and its effect on one "involved" attorney, the courtroom scenes are the most compellingly watchable of the film. In contrast, the final scene of the film does not carry the weight that it should and feels like a cheat rather than the resolution it pretends to be.

Some fault may be given to the just-OK performances from usually dependable actors such as Peck and Ann Todd. The stand-out performances here are from supporting characters such as Charles Coburn, Louis Jordan, Joan Tetzel, Charles Laughton and Ethel Barrymore, but they are either given very little to do or, in Barrymore's case, feel like they were interesting characters in sub-plots that were incompletely edited out of the film (usually a sign of a poor adaptation).

In the final analysis, this is a film that will probably only appeal to devotees of Hitchcock and/or Laughton.

great cast, pretty good movie

[areopagite · 7/10 · 12 February 2004]

OK, so it wasn't the most suspenseful movie Hitchcock ever made, but what a cast! Whenever you can get Charles Laughton, Ethel Barrymore, Gregory Peck, Leo G. Carroll, AND an exceedingly pretty Louis Jordan on the same screen at the same time, you know you're in for a treat. Laughton, as the judge, alone is worth the time spent watching this film.

True, they don't make "talky" pictures like this anymore, but that's half the fun. I think Maltin's 2 1/2 stars is just about right.

Fine Cast in Slow-Moving But Interesting Drama

[Snow Leopard · 9 July 2001]

Because this movie has so few of the features normally associated with a Hitchcock picture, it has a rather poor reputation. But it has a fine cast, most of whom perform quite well, and if the story is taken on its own merits it is interesting, although slow-moving and heavily dependent on the characters' conversations with one another. If it had been made by someone else, it might seem like more of an accomplishment.

In "The Paradine Case", Mrs. Paradine (Alida Valli) is arrested and tried for the murder of her husband. She is defended by the great lawyer Anthony Keane (Gregory Peck), who quickly becomes intoxicated by his client and loses all objectivity. Even as evidence mounts that she may have done the crime after all, he risks his marriage and reputation on the slightest of chances to find new evidence. It moves quite slowly, but is helped by the presence of many good supporting characters and a fine cast that portrays them convincingly. Things come together in a lengthy courtroom sequence that is sometimes uncomfortable to watch, but tense and realistic.

Many viewers feel let down by the film because it lacks the energy and excitement found in most of Hitchcock's films, and because the courtroom setting creates expectations that are not quite filled. Indeed, it does have its faults, and it's hard to believe that someone of Hitchcock's creative genius could not have thought of some ways to give more life to the body of the picture, because there are times when it really crawls along. But taken on its own merits, it is a pretty good movie, carefully filmed as always, and one that gives the viewer plenty to think about. There are some good scenes, with the best one being the subtly crafted opening sequence of Mrs. Paradine being arrested in her elegant home and taken to prison.

Many Hitchcock fans will not particularly enjoy this one, although if you like his more somber masterpieces such as "Vertigo", you might at least want to give this one a try - not that it is nearly as good as "Vertigo" (how many films are), but it is somewhat similar in tone. It works much better as straight drama, rather than as suspense or mystery, and as such it is worth watching.

Great Drama Glossed Over

[jzappa · 7/10 · 30 November 2010]

With all the proficiency in production for which both Hollywood veterans were recognized, David O. Selznick and Alfred Hitchcock seemed to go halves in creative effort on a polished piece of stagnant entertainment in their ceremonial Paradine Case. Dub it a mystery melodrama, even if that doesn't completely sum it up any more than it did Rebecca, a preceding, much superior production by the two. Classify it as a romantic courtroom would-be tragedy alongside a marriage soap opera. It's all of these things rolled together in one intermittently interesting movie, effortlessly told via Hitchcock's sophisticated camera.

If you recall the lingering distress which Rebecca, the apparition femme fatale of that film, set off all the other characters, albeit she herself was dead, that's the kind of shadowy trouble that the poised Mrs. Paradine affects all the characters in this narrative, except she's quite alive. Nevertheless, her husband, a blind man, is dead and she's on trial for his murder. The story itself has much prospective tension, especially putting Mrs. Paradine at the hub of the drama. It's never cut and dried what she's up to and though the seductive effect of a woman under suspicion on a man with influence is and was nothing new, the plot progresses on its own distinctive path, as she is a distinctive character. The issue is that, unlike Hitchcock's British films, this American Hitchcock film set in Britain dulls the blade of the dramatic elements and turns. Hitchcock's camera has a way of acting like an adept trial lawyer, whirring calmly along with customary material and swiftly punctuating with fluent theatrics, and also unsurprisingly, the movie's furnishings have a lush David O. Selznick guise. However, despite Hitchcock's simplistic mastery of when and how to move the camera, each scene is a dialogue piece that I, to my own surprise, found would be much more impactful in other, perhaps grittier and more contemporary hands.

Slowly, overemotionally, but gracefully enough, this picture files the potentially much more intriguing story of the eponymous widow's swaying lure over many who are impinged on by her trial, in addition to a predetermined eye-opener to the nature of the character herself. It makes a pale wink at the covetousness she provokes in the officiating judge, a typically sharp-tongued Charles Laughton whose urbane hostility has altogether sent his wife over the edge, another powerful narrative element that seems to have been glossed over. There's also disquieting suggestion of Mrs. Paradine's clutch on her husband's valet, a man upon whom keen suspicion is aimed before and during the trial, though mainly it follows the zeal she rouses in the stiff-postured man appointed as her defending counsel and of the torment this causes his wife.

Gregory Peck is fervent as the prominent young London barrister who lets his heart, callously ensnared by his client, control his head, while Ann Todd would be much more persuasively grief-stricken as his wife were it not for Franz Waxman's gushy score being poured on her every word like syrup. Italian import Alida Valli makes the confined Mrs. Paradine a composite of inscrutability, ambiguity and sensuality, and Louis Jourdan is pretty intense as the harassed valet.

It isn't a momentous Hitchcock effort by a long shot, save to the degree that it infers the cave dweller beneath everyone's practiced etiquette and concrete integrity and barristers' wigs. And it isn't a momentous script either, for the intent of cinema that is, developed by Selznick himself from Robert Hichens' novel. After a hazy buildup of evidence and of passion in the lawyer's heart, the story finally goes into a static but enthralling courtroom and thankfully remains there for most of the second hour.

Peck good.--but Shoulda hired Brit James Mason for lead. Why blow $ on fancy Brit courtroom n then hire American lead???

[movie-viking · 6/10 · 7 July 2010]

This movie is still fairly good...and still worth watching. But consider it (at best) a "double" instead of a home run.

And yes I like Gregory Peck---he is THE "Atticus Finch" etc. etc.

But British actor JAMES MASON - a MASTER at playing the Tormented Man - could have reacted much better to Alido Valli's "Mrs. Paradine"!!! She radiates such mystery. Is she innocent? Guilty? Or??? And Mason would have more "Gravitas" -as he was a Brit (clearly of upper class British origin) playing a British lawyer. He had one of the best speaking voices...Imagine the tense scenes between Mason and the wife---and Mason and the accused!!! And even Mason and the valet!!!Jourdan and Mason - would have been a better set of adversaries! No offense to Gregory Peck---but maybe the ACCOUNTANTS won this casting choice - as Peck was a big box office draw then.

I think that the two Hollywood 1947 "newbies" Valli - and Jourdan - are the two best actors in this film! Outshining even the great supporting cast!!!

Crushing Out In Old Bailey

[bkoganbing · 6/10 · 4 November 2006]

This was Gregory Peck's second and last film with Alfred Hitchcock. He plays an English barrister who starts crushing out on his beautiful client who in this case is Alida Valli. Kind of hard to understand because at home he's got a porcelain goddess in the person of Ann Todd who definitely rates as one of Hitchcock's cool blonds. I guess Valli had a touch of the exotic for him as she did for Joseph Cotten in The Third Man.

For an English based film most of the cast is American. The English in this film are Charles Laughton, Ann Todd, Leo G. Carroll, and Joan Tetzel. Had Hitchcock had his way he would have gotten Sir Laurence Olivier over here to play Peck's part. Peck does his best, but I think Olivier would have been really something in the part. His performance as George Hurstwood in Carrie which is a similar role proves that.

Peck is suggested as counsel by Charles Coburn, solicitor for Alida Valli. She's been arrested for allegedly poisoning her rich and blind husband who was a war hero. The only other one around when the crime occurred was valet Louis Jourdan.

The thing I've always found curious about The Paradine Case is that while Peck's courtroom skills are brilliant as he tries alternative theories of the crime, he still allows himself to be ruled by the client because of his male member. A lawyer not so emotionally involved would have just sat Valli down and told her the legal facts of life. Valli refuses to let that happen.

Among the supporting cast look for a deliciously malevolent performance as Judge Horfield by Charles Laughton. Both at home where during a dinner party he makes a clumsy attempt to seduce Ann Todd and later on in court where during the trial he slams Peck at every opportunity. Laughton is a picture of corpulent corruption.

In the films of Alfred Hitchcock, the most expensive part of the film is the set of Old Bailey courtroom which is completely rebuilt to scale. The set is quite impressive. Although Hitchcock had experimented with a one set film with Rope and later on Dial M for Murder was done almost entirely in a small apartment, the set really is most like the set in Rear Window. Nearly the entire cast is present in Old Bailey, each in his assigned location like the people in the courtyard apartments in Rear Window. Visually I find it quite impressive.

Although Peck is not well cast, he's a good enough player to overcome the obstacles. The Paradine Case did not do as much for him as his earlier film for Hitchcock, Spellbound. Still it hurt no one's careers by association with it.

A different kind of Hitchcock

[blanche-2 · 7/10 · 8 January 2008]

"The Paradine Case," released in 1947, is a courtroom drama directed by the master, Alfred Hitchcock, and it's obvious it isn't his thing, or else he didn't care about it. Gregory Peck plays a British attorney and Ann Harding his wife; Alida Valli is Mrs. Paradine, a woman accused of murdering her blind husband, Louis Jourdan is her husband's valet, Charles Laughton is the judge, and Leo G. Carroll is the prosecutor. All that talent, and it's pretty slow going.

Peck is Anthony Keane, a successful attorney with a very happy marriage to Gay. They are extremely affectionate and loving with one another, which is why it seems strange that five minutes after Keane meets Mrs. Paradine, he falls in love with her. Granted, Alida Valli is exquisite and mysterious, but the woman is accused of killing her husband. She becomes an instant threat to Gay, who tries to remain courageous. Peck's hair is grayed in this, and I was surprised to read in another comment that he had a British accent. I only heard an accent in one scene where he kept saying cahn't - and it sounded really odd.

Louis Jourdan is Andre La Tour, whom Keane suspects may have committed the murder. Jourdan is so handsome, even Laughton's character comments on it! The story drags on, and the trial is really a McGuffin, because the actual plot involves the Keane's marriage. Harding does her usual excellent job, and Peck, accent or not, is very good.

It's the kind of film that leaves one flat. There's not too much to say about it except that given Hitchcock and the cast, one would expect a lot more.

More than a courtroom soap opera--a major Hitchcock work

[JuguAbraham · 8/10 · 17 February 2006]

I loved the film not because of its courtroom drama but because of Hitchcock's ability to deal with the drama outside the courtroom.

First, take in the shots that lead up to Alida Valli's character being arrested and locked up in the cell. Hitchcock is at his best building up the positive and elegant side of the character by enhancing the details--the expensive jewelry, the lady ensuring her hair is in place before receiving visitors, the humanist care taken to inform the valet that she would not be having her dinner, etc., etc. The build-up of the character within a few minutes of reel time for the viewer is considerably intelligent right up to the loud slamming of the cell door and the effect it has on the inmate (Hitchcock's own phobia?).

The second sequence that is unforgettable for me is the camera zooming in on Ann Todd's naked shoulder followed by the lecherous Charles Laughton caressing Todd's hand hidden away from her husband's vision, leading up ultimately to Todd's rejection of Laughton's advances. What is of consequence is not the performance of Todd or Laughton, but Hitchcock's sequence of visuals deftly edited to enhance the effect.

A third unusual image of the film is the introductory shot of Louis Jordan. This is the only film in my memory where a character is introduced without the least shred of light falling upon his/her face--his legs and hands are quite visible, but not his face.

Finally, the meetings in the jail between Valli and Peck smolders without a kiss or a physical touch. In my view, the performance of Valli is outstanding. Her remarkable turns in films by Visconti ("Senso") and Bertolucci ("1900") proved her capability.

The film belongs to Hitchcock, Valli and the camera-work of Lee Garmes (shots within the courtroom--probably the angles were suggested by the director). It is an unusual Hitchcock film with an elegant turn by Alida Valli. It is a film that cries out loud for a reassessment among Hitch's body of work. It is a major film of the director--though it is not an obvious one. Hitchcock seems to ask the viewer at the end of the film a difficult question--who is the true heroine of the film? And he has a MacGuffin...

Passable Hitchcock with some Pretty Precarious Penmanship

[brad_and_ethan · 7/10 · 18 December 2007]

I recently picked up Hitchcock/Truffaut (my other copy was in the basement of me mum's home in Maryland) again, just having seen this film. I have seen many Hitchcock films, most of them the more popular, cited ones. I agree with Mr. Moreno's review (the first review?) in that you don't need a lot of whiz-bang or heavy-duty suspense in a film; pure dramatic suspense is enough for any cineaste. However, I think Mr. Moreno goes too far in extolling this film. It has several handicaps. The most outstanding one for me is Mrs. Paradine's seduction of Keane. Deep into the trial during an adjournment, Keane finally says something to the effect of, 'And to think I was an idiot to fall in love with you'. I just didn't 'get' her seduction of this man! I just didn't see enough evidence of any possible love/lust relationship. I mean, they didn't even KISS once during their meetings. If he were really being seduced, I think we need more evidence to believe in their 'relationship'. And this is caused by an insufficient screenplay. Also, as Hitch himself pointed out, it's hard to follow the trial because we don't see the house/rooms well enough to orient ourselves when the attorneys cross-examine the witnesses. It might've been interesting if the audience were privy to what actually happened that night, or at least an INKLING of what happened. I think the best thing this film has going for it is the question of conscience and dramatic situation of Keane. I'm glad I finally saw it, but I'd rather watch 'Vertigo' again...

Pleasurable environment, fine actors - flat story

[trpdean · 3/10 · 5 December 2001]

A master chef, lavish preparation, fine ingredients in the choice of actors, great sets, costumes - but no imagination in the story. It's still enjoyable because upper middle class London in the 1950s, the relationships among the people, their entertainments, the beauty of the homes, the clothes, the accents, is a pretty enjoyable place to be for this movie's duration.

However, the story - an uneasy mix of an uninvolving outdated sappy soap opera story of the torn man and his nobly suffering wife, with a murder trial that has drama but no surprises at all - is pretty bad.

We're in the world of The Reluctant Debutante, Witness for the Prosecution, Dial M for Murder, Midnight Lace - upper middle class 1950s London (it's the sort of movie where, as they change from black tie and gown, they might say: "Did you enjoy the Philharmonic tonight, darling?" "Well, the oboes were a trifle off". "Don't forget we have Lord and Lady X coming for dinner tomorrow". He pulls a face; she smiles, embraces him and praises him.). You both love this atmosphere - it doesn't seem stifling at all - yet understand how the "Angry Young Men" and then the Beatles could have wanted to blow it up.

A major criticism: this movie has the kind of mindset that launched feminism. Women exist either to ensnare men to their doom with their beauty or to nobly suffer, praise and forgive their heroic, if unfaithful-in-the-heart, men. Time and again, we hear of the "unfeminine" curiosity of one woman (whose interest is entirely prurient), and we see the absolute SHOCK on Peck's face when his client says that an adulterous affair in her past was at her initiation.

A minor criticism: there is no explanation why an American (Peck) is a barrister. Rex Harrison would have been a better choice.

Another minor criticism: the dialogue is so repetitive. E.g., how often is Peck told he's tired? Sometimes four times in a single

Another minor criticism: the music is too heavy, the story just isn't enough to really grab us - so the music must tell us what we are supposed to feel.

Yet the movie is still enjoyable - the characters of Gregory Peck, Charles Laughton, Charles Coburn and Louis Jourdan are well-drawn and enjoyably relate to each other. Laughton is particularly good - loathsome yet real-seeming. Alida Valli IS beautiful and exotic. Ethel Barrymore has obviously had FAR far better roles - Ann Todd is actually quite a good actress in other things, but has absolutely nothing to work with here, so the viewer will find her tiresome (not the movie's intention).

If Hitchcock and these stars were not involved in this movie, no one would ever watch it, and it would probably still sit gathering dust somewhere, unreleased for home viewing.

So, see it - it IS enjoyable to see these stars in this atmosphere, but expect some irritation and don't expect to remember it in a year.

Alida Valli: Hitchcok before Visconti

[johngiovannicorda · 9/10 · 28 April 2017]

I'm crazy about Alida Valli. I'd seen every film she's ever done except "The Paradine Case" until today that is. Today I met Mrs Paradine for the first time. Strangely enough it doesn't feel like Hitchcock it feels more like Carol Reed the director who gave her a major International hit with "The Third Man" a couple of years later. I fell in love with Alida Valli in the 1954 Luchino Visconti's tragic romantic epic "Senso". Now having seen "The Paradine Case" I see a glimpse of the woman in "Senso" where her actions, are also atrocious but govern by love. A love who will only lead to tragedy. Visconti showed us an Alida Valli that other than a great beauty was also a great actress. Hitchcock introduced her as VALLI in this film, a gimmick with very short legs. Here she plays the widow of a blind man that "allegedly" she killed. The casting of Gregory Peck is a major problem, maybe not for the box office in 1947, but it certainly detrimental to the suspension of disbelief, so needed in a thriller. Charles Laughton is superb in his few, short scenes. I wonder if Hitchcock himself was the inspiration for his role. A judge, a lascivious man with an roving eye for young pretty women. Ethel Barrymore plays his wife, to absolute perfection. Then, Louis Jourdan, beautiful of course, Charles Coburn, Ann Todd but, it is Alida Valli who gives this film that extra something. Considered a "minor" Hitchcock by most but not by me. 9/10

A different movie form Hitchcock

[daneshbod · 7/10 · 14 January 2011]

I have seen quite a lot of Hitchcock movies. I have even seen "The trouble with Harry" which has a strong sense of humor. I should say that this one is also a kind of different from rest of his work the subject is more about romance than the case itself.

Although the movie was a little bit too long but it still kept me entertained till the end of it. The start was very promising though I didn't quite like the ending but I like the adult talks between Gregory Peck and Ann Todd. I recommend this movie to couples.

My rating for this movie is 7 out of 10.

BTW my favorite Hitchcock movie is still North by Northwest.

Paradine Lost

[slokes · 2/10 · 6 September 2005]

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the prosecution contends the film before you is an indisputable dud, the weakest film ever made by the Master of Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock. It would be a career low in many lesser careers, so it's more startling the career in question is that of filmdom's greatest director.

A blind war veteran, a pillar of society named Paradine, is found poisoned in his bed. The suspected murderer, his beautiful wife Maddalena (Alida Valli), faces the Crown defended by a smitten barrister named Anthony Keane, played by Gregory Peck, who feels his best chance of winning the case is to let the jury see his client's true character and expose the victim's valet as the real killer.

That whirring sound you hear is Johnnie Cochran spinning in his grave. Your head may be doing much the same before you see this turkey come home to roost. Hitchcock did make some less-then-successful films; "Jamaica Inn," was named one of the 50 worst films of all time by Michael and Harry Medved. But "Jamaica Inn" at least has some fun performances and colorful settings to make up for an undernourished plot. The turgid, static proceedings of "The Paradine Case" require patience and a willingness to overlook plot holes wider than Charles Laughton.

The acting is wooden almost across the board, with only Laughton as an ill-tempered judge scoring occasionally. That's only because he limits himself to raising an eyebrow or suppressing a grin while Peck, Valli, and the rest of the cast alternate between performing their one-dimensional roles in leaden fashion, or else overemoting whenever producer David O. Selznick's script takes one of its hairpin turns.

The script is the worst thing here, with lines that undercut the supposed intelligence of the characters. Peck is given some choice howlers, like when someone raises the likelihood the Crown might try to prove Maddalena killed her husband, having put her in jail for it and all that.

"She's not a murderess," Keane explodes. "She's too fine a woman...I only hope the Crown does try to foul her name once, just once."

There's also nonsensical exchanges like this, between Keane and another attorney played by Charles Coburn, who rivals Peck, Valli, and a young Louis Jourdan for giving the worst performance. "Have you ever thought about what you can learn from photographs?" "Ah, yes, the social footsteps of time." Huh?

The film often seems focused on selling the beauty of Valli, an actress better known for her central role in "The Third Man" but hardly a stunner on the order of Garbo despite her thick accent. When Keane first meets her, the learned counsel is moved to utter: "Mr. Paradine could never have understood the sacrifice you were making (by marrying him.) He had never seen you." Yeah, apart from the money, she was Mother Teresa.

The first half of the film is slow going, helped only by the English upper-class interiors Hitchcock always photographed well. There's some decent early scenes in the trial, but then the proceedings erupt into anarchy and more hammy acting. Revelations fly one after another, while tears and sweat pour down grimacing faces. None of it makes much sense. You really don't care how it ends, just so that it ends.

They say courtroom scenes are surefire drama highpoints in any film, but "The Paradine Case" is a clear exception. You would never think the lead actor in this film would go on to glory in the cinematic courtroom of "To Kill A Mockingbird," or that the director was in the midst of a remarkable 30-plus-year run of making some of the greatest films ever known.

Hitchcock obviously made this under contractual obligation to Selznick, and it shows. You, however, are under no such obligation to view it. The prosecution rests.

worth a second look...

[a_viewer · 29 May 2003]

Often unjustly dismissed as one of director Alfred Hitchcock's 'lesser works,' THE PARADINE CASE stands up as well as any 1940's courtroom drama when taken on its own terms. And the central theme: that of a lawyer passionately (and wrongly) convinced of a beautiful and intelligent client's innocence because he wants to trust his emotions and not the evidence, certainly seems to strike a chord with audiences. It has been used countless times from the silent era to the present day (e.g., MADAME X, GUILTY AS SIN, BODY OF EVIDENCE, etc..). Unlike reviewer stills-6, I found the central triangle-between lawyer Peck, his wife Ann Todd, and lovely client Alida Valli (whose motives are always kept nebulous until the end) believable and surprisingly complex. Each has his/her own agenda; with Peck wavering between the lovely, warm Todd and the beautiful, coldly mysterious and sensual Valli, who seemingly represents an attitude toward love and life he has presumably never known but finds appealing nevertheless. Valli has the most difficult role here, having to both woo Peck to her cause while keeping him emotionally at a distance, but Todd also acquits herself admirably by bringing depth and sensitivity to what could have been just a run-of-the-mill suffering wife role. She refuses to suffer in silence, and uses words to argue her cause passionately, saying wryly at the end: 'That's what comes from being married to a lawyer.' Of course, a cynic could point out that when Todd insists Peck defend and acquit Valli she is being unjustly noble-but I think Todd's stoic suffering and her explanations to Peck quickly undercut this idea. (And in fact, if Peck did follow up on his offer to Todd to quit the case halfway through, this wouldn't be much of a movie!)

Indeed, the wordiness of this film seems to be one of its detractors' biggest complaints. But in this I think Hitchcock has (perhaps unintentionally) made a sly point: the characters talk circles around each other (particularly Peck and the always deliciously malevolent Laughton), but manage most of the time to completely miss the realities of the situation. Only the women--the silent Valli, the barely repressed Todd, and the caustic Joan Tetzel--recognize the truth. The men, doomed to arguing and finagling, miss the point-and the truth-completely, in their attempts to sacrifice each other to their own individual causes.

Even considered strictly within the Hitchcock pantheon, it's clear THE PARADINE CASE has many Hitchcockian trademarks: dazzling cameras moves, wonderful imagery, sweeping romantic themes, blurred triangles of love, desire and hate between all the principle characters, brutal men, devious women, an impending sense of doom, and even a character noted for her 'masculine' interest in the legal technicalities of the case. (Clearly, Hitchcock found these women pursuing 'masculine' interests fascinating, as they seem to pop up in many of his films (e.g., Patricia Hitchcock in STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, Barbara Bel Geddes in VERTIGO). But I also find in the women here a darker prelude of Hitchcockian things to come. No one in THE PARADINE CASE is entirely happy (or even, one might argue, happy at all), but each sticks firmly to her own emotional path, able to see the potential tragic outcome but unwilling to waver enough to change it. (Kim Novak's character follows a similarly torturous internal journey in VERTIGO, as does Tippi Hedren in MARNIE).

So if you have the time to be absorbed by this imperfect but still compelling drama, take another look at THE PARADINE CASE. You might be surprised.

Great Classic

[whpratt1 · 7/10 · 30 June 2008]

Enjoyed this Alfred Hitchcock film starring Gregory Peck,( Anthony Keane) who plays the role of a very successful lawyer and is also married to a very pretty wife, Gay Keane, (Ann Todd) and they are both very much in love with each other. Anthony is hired to defend a very pretty woman, Mrs. Maddalena Paradine, (Alida Valli) who is suppose to have killed her husband by poison in a glass of wine. Mrs. Paradine's husband was blind and was also taken care of by his trusted valet for many years. As the story progresses, Anthony visits Maddalena and actually starts to fall in love with her and this starts all kinds of problems with his own wife Gay. This film has many great veteran supporting actors like Ethel Barrymore, Charles Laughton, who plays a Judge and Leo J. Carroll who is the prosecuting lawyer in this case. If you like Alfred Hitchcock films, you will not want to miss this film.

Underrated Hitchcock film still has more than its share of flaws.

[gridoon · 6/10 · 2 July 2003]

Hitchcock's last collaboration with Selznick had its good and its bad points for him; he came away with a sumptuous production but also with a not-terribly-interesting story. The film is smoothly directed, with some exceptional camerawork; Hitchcock was undoubtedly a master of his craft by this point. However, the depiction of the trial procedures makes the picture look extremely dated. Quite frankly, Madonna's "Body of Evidence" had more credible courtroom scenes. And Ethel Barrymore's Oscar nomination, for a role with screen time that amounts to no more than two minutes, is one of Hollywood's biggest mysteries, if not blunders. (***)

Hitchcock on automatic pilot...

[rainking_es · 7/10 · 6 April 2006]

Once again the genius Alfred Hitchcock converted such a simple story into a very good movie. "The Paradine Case" is not one of Hitchcock's most remarkable works (for me is not one of his 10 best movies), but even those movies from the English director that are not masterpieces are way better than 99% of present-day cinema. It's so entertaining and the sequences of the trial are just superb.

What to say about Gregory Peck and Charles Laughton? Well, they're two good reasons to take a look at "The Paradine Case". The mysterious and beautiful Alida Valli do the rest.

Cinema of trials and investigations in the good old style.

*My rate: 7/10

A Supporting Cast Worth Watching

[PDXozoner · 7/10 · 15 July 2006]

The weakest elements of this uncharacteristically romantic Hitchcock courtroom drama are the leads- especially the very handsome young Gregory Peck- and the oddly romantic ending. It gets a seven, however, because Laughton, Ethel Barrymore, the coldly handsome young Louis Jourdan, and the rest of the supporting cast do what great supporting casts are supposed to do... they offer nuance, strong characterization, and tension. Laughton is particularly effective, not only in the courtroom but in the uttterly unexpected subplot of his relationship with his wife, played superbly by Barrymore. There are other, better Hitchcock films, but this one is well worth watching.

So what if there's no action?

[critic-2 · 10/10 · 6 August 2002]

"The Paradine Case" has gotten an undeserved bad reputation as one of Alfred Hitchcock's least interesting films simply because it does not use any of the gimmicks and brilliant visual touches Hitchcock is famous for: a man being chased by a crop duster, inventively shot murder scenes in locations such as the ones in "Psycho", people dangling from Mt. Rushmore, unusual settings such as a cramped lifeboat. As if these touches were all that made Hitchcock great! If these touches are all we watch Hitchcock for, it's as shallow a reason for watching films as going to see summer movies merely to see special effects. A great director like Hitchcock deserves more credit than that.

"The Paradine Case" is, on the contrary, one of Hitchcock's most entertaining films, if you are willing to concentrate on dialogue and characterization rather than flashy visuals. Gregory Peck is the barrister assigned to defend Mrs. Paradine, a woman on trial for the cold-blooded murder of her blind husband, and it is immediately obvious that Peck is so besotted by this beautiful, mysterious woman that he is in no position to be objective about his client. Peck does quite a good job, but one can only wonder how Laurence Olivier, who was busy filming "Hamlet" at the time, and who was Hitchcock's first choice for the role, might have played it. Hitchcock wanted Greta Garbo for the role of Mrs. Paradine, but was unable to get her, and settled for Alida Valli, who is excellent, if not as beautiful and mysterious as Garbo. Louis Jourdan plays a suspicious-looking witness in the case, but Hitchcock wanted Robert Newton (famous for playing Long John Silver and other disreputable characters) for the role, and Newton would have provided a far more different and repulsive characterization (apparently Hitchcock's intention).

Charles Laughton unforgettably plays the judge at the trial as a sadist and a supremely dirty old man, who hates Peck because Ann Todd (as Peck's wife) refused his advances once, and Ethel Barrymore, brilliant in her limited screen time, is Laughton's intimidated and submissive wife.

The majority of the film does take place in the courtroom, but so does "Witness for the Prosecution", and no one has a bad word to say about that film. (Would they have done so if Hitchcock had made that one? The Agatha Christie thriller doesn't contain any flashy visual touches either.)

Those who love Hitchcock for only his "trademarks" perhaps need to look a little harder and think a little deeper, and then they will appreciate this excellent film.

A Romance without Chemistry

[claudio_carvalho · 7/10 · 23 December 2009]

In London, the upper-class Mrs. Maddalena Anna Paradine (Alida Valli) is arrested accused of poisoning her blind wealthy husband Colonel Paradine. Her friend Sir Simon Flaquer (Charles Coburn) recommends the experienced lawyer Anthny Keane (Gregory Peck) to defend her in the court. Along the hearings in prison, Keane falls in love for the beautiful Mrs. Paradine, affecting his marriage and his strategy of defense against the will of his client.

"The Paradine Case" is an irregular work of Alfred Hitchcock. The plot is intriguing and dramatic, supported by magnificent cinematography and dialogs. Allida Valli is extremely beautiful and elegant in her debut in Hollywood. Unfortunately, the romance between Keane and Mrs. Paradine never works, since there is a total lack of chemistry between Gregory Peck and Allida Valli. It is impossible to note that he has a crush on her, only when he declares his love for her that the viewer will understand the situation. Charles Laughton has a magnificent performance in the role of the unpleasant and arrogant Judge Lord Thomas Horfield. Most of the characters are unlikable and their relationship and behavior are at least unpleasant. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Agonia de Amor" ("Agony of Love")

A succession of melodramatic surprises

[Edmund_Bloxam · 1/10 · 16 August 2010]

The story of this film is nonsensical. It completely lacks interest or suspense. Instead of plot points or developments that subtly and rewardingly build into each other, periods of waffle are suspended between quite bizarre and highly over-emotionalised changes in circumstance.

This is the method of character development as well. For no particular reason, as in set up by events or character changes, the main character suddenly develops the most highly-charged emotions.

Considering that the story is a murder case, the audience is denied any plot points to be intrigued by. There is little or no story to follow. We simply await the next overly-dramatic happenstance. The worst cases of this happen in the courtroom. Armed with no information at all, the attorneys ask random questions until the witnesses crack and reveal a crucial plot point at a random juncture.

The story and characters are so unconvincingly melodramatic that a bit of context would have at least held the movie together. As it is, there is nothing that maintains any kind of dramatic momentum, whether that be plot or characters. The viewer cannot become caught up in the melodrama because he has no coat tails to hang on to.

Actually, Pretty Good

[plato-11 · 8/10 · 31 December 1999]

I liked this one, even though most people don't. It's a fascinating tale, and it seems very much Hitchcockian. Sure, it seems to drag at times, but the plot, directing, and the acting is good. Louis Jourdan is probably the best actor in this whole production. And to think this is his first English-speaking film. Gregory Peck is pretty good, also. I liked at the beginning when the cops arrested Alida Valli, and the audience isn't really sure why that is. Andre Latour's (Jourdan) little breakdown (I use breakdown for want of a better word) in the courtroom is terrific. I really love this movie, and I don't care how boring other people say it is. I would recommend this movie to anyone who thinks they can appreciate it.

Subpar Hitchcock

[kenjha · 7/10 · 4 July 2010]

A seemingly happily married London attorney falls in love with his client, a rich woman accused of murdering her husband. This is one of Hitchcock's weaker efforts, although not as bad as its reputation would suggest. The script is less than compelling, but the fine cast features the likes of Laughton, Coburn, and Barrymore. Although Hitchcock's films are known for their icy blonds, the blonde here (Todd) is loving and warm-hearted while the brunette (Valli) is the icy femme fatale. One can't blame Peck for falling for Valli. Although Valli and Jourdan had made over 40 films between them outside of Hollywood, the opening credits indicate that they are being introduced.

incredibly dull--what a waste

[planktonrules · 3/10 · 4 March 2006]

You would think that the combination of Alfred Hitchcock and Gregory Peck would produce some real sparks. Well, in this case it sure didn't. This courtroom drama is just amazingly dull and uninvolving. In fact, given the choice, I think I'd prefer an episode of Perry Mason or even Matlock. The story is so static! One reviewer liked it and said that the film had "less energy" than traditional Hitchcock suspense films. I disagree. I think it had absolutely no energy. I have tried watching this film several times but keep finding my attention wandering. That's saying a lot, as I am a rabid Gregory Peck fan--he's made so many wonderful and interesting films--just not this one.