Review: The Paradine Case

Barrister Gregory Peck (surprisingly stiff, and wrongly cast as a Brit) falls for his client (a charmless, boring beyond belief Alida Valli, nowhere near the Ingrid Bergman-type she was probably meant to be), despite having a loving and supportive (if overly suspicious) wife in Ann Todd. Valli is charged with having poisoned her husband, and family solicitor Charles Coburn assigns Peck the case. Recklessly smitten with his client almost immediately (or so we are meant to believe), Peck (potentially stuffing up his reputation as well as his marriage) tries to pin the murder on family valet Jourdan, something the accused is extremely reluctant to do, for reasons obvious to everyone except lunkhead Peck. Charles Laughton is the cynical, harsh judge, none too fond of bursts of emotion, something both Peck and Valli are frequently guilty of (Not that you’d get this from Peck’s hesitance, and Valli’s aloofness!).

 

A bad Hitchcock film (one of his worst), seemingly impossible, but you try sitting through this one! Todd overplays the jealous wife bit so horribly that she seems suspicious of Peck before he's even done anything (it seems to be left to our imagination to understand the connection between Peck and Valli, because it sure as heck isn’t on screen). Laughton and Jourdan are thankfully on hand to steal the film (and prevent me from going off to the land of Nod) as the rather harsh (and sometimes lascivious) judge, and the troubled immigrant servant, respectively. Jourdan, in fact plays the only sympathetic character in the film (and yet, most people find him miscast in the role, including Hitchcock, who wanted a more roguish, ruffian like Robert Newton. Go figure), outside of Todd’s confidante, Joan Tetzel (who is a far better actress than either of the two female leads, it has to be said). Coburn has a few choice moments in another supporting role as Peck’s senior law partner (and Tetzel’s father). Ethel Barrymore earned an Oscar-nomination for her whiny performance here but she’s barely in it (as Laughton’s pathetic, mistreated wife). Watch her in "The Kind Lady" instead, a much better crime flick.

 

I can't believe Hitchcock directed this...I can't believe anyone directed it given the somnambulant pacing (the opening scene just drags on and on! And the endless courtroom scenes are a great cure for insomnia), but Hitchcock especially. There is nothing Hitchcockian about this film, the basic story is TV movie material at best. Had it been made say in the 80s, you'd have William Moses or Harry Hamlin in the Peck role and some busty model in the Alida Valli role, with Valerie Bertinelli or Melissa Gilbert in the Ann Todd role. Hey, why not get Raymond Burr- well, before he died- to do the Leo G. Carroll (another of the film's bright spots, though he's always solid and most professional) role of the opposing barrister? I can't believe Hitchcock would choose to make such a humdrum story into a film. Just what did he see in this ordinary, cheapo material? From what I’ve read, he certainly didn’t much like the film once it was made (and in the director’s defence, most of the casting calls were the producer’s, it must be remembered). Great, but why force it upon us?

 

This 1948 Alfred Hitchcock film is best left to those (morbidly) curious to see a master filmmaker clearly lose interest in his subject during filming (mostly due to an uneasy, if not hateful, relationship with the film’s producer David O. Selznick, which ended with this film). And best ignored by everyone else, you’ve seen this sort of thing done a lot better in the years since (notably on all those legal TV shows). Overly talky screenplay by David O. Selznick (producer of “Gone With the Wind” and Hitch’s “Rebecca”- another dud, and “Spellbound”- one of his best, and screenwriter of “Duel in the Sun”), Alma Reville (“Shadow of a Doubt”, “The Lady Vanishes”), an uncredited Ben Hecht (Hitchcock’s “Rope”, “Notorious”, and “Spellbound”), and also James Bridie (“Stage Fright”, a solid Hitch film, and the lesser Hitch project “Under Capricorn”), from the Robert Hichens novel.

 

Rating: D+