Teresa Reviews “Witness for the Prosecution (1957): Chaos in the Court

Fidelity to the stage play: 4 blunt objects

The film added flashbacks, meetings, and most of all, fleshed out Sir Wilfred’s character and added Nurse Plimsoll, doing her darnedest to manage a cantankerous patient.

Quality of movie on its own: 5 blunt objects

What a stunner; it’s beautifully shot, acted, paced, tightly scripted with snappy dialog, and features both comic relief and high courtroom drama. You even get a shot of Marlene Dietrich’s legs and get to hear her sing in a flashback, thus setting up her relationship with Leonard Vole. When you see her in that rat-infested basement cabaret, keep in mind that she was 56.

If you’ve never seen the movie, go watch it now and come back for the review. This is one of those movies (like Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant in Charade) that can only be viewed once. In all subsequent viewings, you are not watching the same movie since you know the surprise that’s coming. You’ll hear every line of dialog differently; you’ll interpret Christine’s testimony differently, and most of all, you won’t see Leonard Vole the same way. The movie will still be terrific, but the climax won’t seize you by the throat and shake you like a terrier toying with a rat.

Witness For the Prosecution has a more complex history than you may know. It began in 1925 as a short story, Traitor’s Hands. Agatha disliked the ending and rewrote the story as a play decades later; expanding it, updating it, and improving the ending. The film follows Agatha’s 1953 play, with added flashbacks setting up Leonard and Christine, as well as Leonard’s meetings with Emily French. And of course, Sir Wilfred gets an entire backstory that didn’t exist in the play. Sir Wilfred is in recovery from a heart attack and watching him in the courtroom, you wonder if he’s going to have another on the spot as he tries to save his innocent client from his evil, conniving wife’s testimony. Leonard Vole will hang for sure if he doesn’t.

Although Marlene Dietrich’s performance as Christine is what most people remember best from Witness, and she and Tyrone Power share top billing, it’s really Charles Laughton’s movie. He’s in the majority of scenes as he tries to get justice done. Watch Laughton play with his monocle. He uses it to test clients of innocence or guilt, to distract attention from something else, and at the end, he flashes it to draw attention to the murder weapon. Watch him play with his pills during the trial, organizing them into neat grids to help him think. Chaotic alignments show when he’s puzzled; when order returns, he’s worked out a solution. Watch him put the prosecuting attorney in his place and force the police inspector to recall the scars he bears from their last meeting in court. Watch him spar with Nurse Plimsoll over his health, his schedule, his naps, his bath, his cigars and brandy, and what cases are acceptable to take on. Miss Plimsoll comes around to his way of thinking right after the climax, encouraging Sir Wilfred to take the case for the defense.

Miss Plimsoll is played by Elsa Lanchester, the real-life wife of Charles Laughton. Every scene between them is suffused with good-natured humor, even when he’s being astoundingly rude. Miss Plimsoll is a very good nurse, and she’s seen it all before. Or rather, she thought she had, until she gets the surprise of her life too.

A plimsoll, by the way, is a Britishism for Keds-type slip-on sneakers. The scriptwriters, Harry Kurnitz and Billy Wilder, came up with that name as a tiny, added amusement. Agatha, however, chose the name “Vole” for Leonard. A vole is a small, furry rodent but it’s also a slang term for winning all the tricks in some English card games. The name fits Leonard; he’s a guy who’s always looking for the main chance, who lives off his luck, who’s always got an angle or a perfectly plausible explanation for why he’s got his hand in the cookie jar. He would never do anything so mundane as get a real job and settle down. That would be boring and beneath him, unlike, say, living off a woman. Or several women.

However, a man can be a user and a cad without being a murderer. Tyrone Power plays Leonard and if you’ve only remembered him as a slab of pretty-boy beefcake in costume dramas, you’ll be impressed. He was really good in this part, making you understand why Emily French was smitten even though she should have known better. Power was 43 when he made Witness; it was his final film as he died of a heart attack at age 44 in 1958.

While Emily French was a fool for Leonard, her housekeeper, Janet MacKenzie knew better. She recognized Vole for what he was right away. She has her own reasons for accusing Leonard of murder, 80,000 of them. She’s got a great scene in the Old Bailey, sparring with both Sir Wilfred and the presiding judge. She gives them both as good as she gets, turning in another memorable performance.

Then there’s Marlene Dietrich, playing Christine. Watch the flashback carefully where she meets Leonard. It sets up her character. She’ll do just about anything to escape the ruins of Berlin. She’s singing and playing the accordion in a basement dive when they meet. Make sure to spot the poster out front. It might remind you of the role that made Marlene a star way back in 1930: The Blue Angel. Watch how she negotiates with Leonard over a spoonful of instant coffee and understand that a desperate, hungry woman will willingly do anything for food, safety, warmth.

The question you’ll have, watching this flashback of when they met, is how much of what Christine says in court is real? This woman is carved from ice; remote and unemotional. Is there any passion at all under that Teutonic exterior? Does she love her much younger husband or is she merely grateful to him for getting her the heck out of Berlin? Now that he’s no longer useful, is she ready to discard him and move on? How does she really feel about Leonard’s relationship with Emily French? Marlene Dietrich did not win an Oscar for this role but she should have.

This version of Witness For the Prosecution is one of the best Agatha adaptations around. Put it on your must-see list at once and for God’s sake, don’t read the Wikipedia summary before you watch it. You don’t want to lose any of the impact of that climax.