Enigma Solicitors continues its look at the top-20 legal films of all-time.
Judgment at Nuremberg (1961): With a cast that makes star-studded an understatement—William Shatner, Burt Lancaster, Marlene Dietrich, Spencer Tracy, Richard Widmark, Maximilian Schell, Montgomery Clift, Judy Garland, Werner Klemperer—the film fictionalises the 3rd of the 12 war crimes trials held by US military authorities in Nuremberg in the aftermath of World War II, when National Socialist judges were put on trial.
The German judges are accused of signing the orders for the execution of those who opposed National Socialism, the forced sterlisation of people alleged to suffer from “genetic diseases” and the murder of those deemed Lebensunwertes Leben (“life unworthy of life”).
Professor Douglas O. Linder of the University of Missouri-Kansas City’s School of Law considers the Justice Trials, as they became known, “Raise the issue of what responsibility judges might have for enforcing grossly unjust—but arguably binding—laws.”
When Judge Haywood (Spencer Tracy) asks Ernst Janning (Burt Lancaster) how he could enforce a law that led to genocide and the murder of six million Jews, he is told, “I never knew it would come to that,” to which Haywood replies, “It came to that the first time you sentenced a man to death you knew to be innocent.”
A stand-out courtroom film with many fine performances, with Spencer Tracy, Maximilian Schell, Montgomery Clift and Judy Garland all being nominated for Academy Awards.
The Insider (1999): Al Pacino (The Godfather II, Serpico, Revolution) stars in a heavily-dramatised and distorted account of Lowell Bergman’s—a producer on CBS’s 60 minutes—investigation of the ethics of the US tobacco industry.
Russell Crowe (Neighbours, Gladiator) plays Jeffrey Wigand, a former vice president of research and development at a tobacco company, who becomes a consultant to Bergman. He tells Bergman he has information that the tobacco companies are aware nicotine is addictive despite them saying otherwise to the courts and that additives, one carcinogenic, are used to make cigarettes more addictive. Wigand explains, however, that he has a confidentiality agreement with his former employers that will prevent him from revealing such information.
CBS becomes concerned with potentially facing a lawsuit for tortious interference when one of their lawyers, played by Gina Gershon (Red Heat, Showgirls), explains that Wigand and his former employers have a confidentiality agreement and that if CBS encourages Wigand to break it, that CBS could be held liable for damage caused to the tobacco company. The more confidential and truthful the information that Wigand reveals, the greater any lawsuit brought against CBS.
The programme eventually airs and Wigand’s information leads to the tobacco industry paying a settlement of $246 billion for a number of suits brought by different US states.
The film, essentially about investigative journalism and the chilling effect of the threat of litigation upon it, is somewhat hamstrung by skewed characterisation of real people, the over-egging of certain events and the fabrication of others, but it does feature some compelling performances, especially Crowe, Pacino and Bruce McGill.
Let Him Have It (1991): Peter Medak’s film is a social commentary based on the true story of two young men—Derek Bentley, 19, played by Christopher Eccelston (Doctor Wh0, 28 Days Later), and Chris Craig, 16, played by Paul Reynolds (Press Gang, The Beastmaster)—who attempted to break into a warehouse in Croydon in November 1952.
Craig was armed with a pistol. Bentley wasn’t.
They were interrupted and cornered by policemen on the warehouse’s roof. DS Frederick Fairfax, despite being shot in the shoulder by Craig, grabbed and arrested Bentley, who then allegedly said, though this was denied by both Craig and Bentley, “Let him have it,” before PC Sidney Miles was shot in the head, killed instantly.
“Let him have it”—what did those words mean: surrender the gun to PC Miles or shoot him with it?
Craig was found guilty of the murder of PC Miles but at 16 he was too young to hang. Even though Bentley was under arrest at the time PC Miles was shot, he was found guilty of joint enterprise in the murder and hanged in 1953.
1950s London is evocatively created and the film keeps the focus away from Craig and instead on Bentley and his family. Eccleston’s brilliant performance is matched by Tom Courtenay (Billy Liar, Dr Zhivago) and Eileen Atkins (Cold Mountain, Gosford Park), who play his parents, and Clare Holman (Blood Diamond) as his sister.
In 1998, the Court of Appeal quashed Derek Bentley’s conviction for murder.
The film serves as an argument against capital punishment: when a mistake is made, an innocent person dies.
A Man for All Seasons (1966): Based on a 1960 play by Robert Bolt and directed by Fred Zinnemann (High Noon, From Here to Eternity, Oklahoma!), Paul Schofield won an Academy Award for his role as Sir Thomas More, a lawyer executed for treason by Henry VIII (Robert Shaw).
After Pope Clement VII refused to annul Henry’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon, Henry broke from the Roman Catholic Church, appointed himself the Supreme Head of the Church of England and married Anne Boleyn (Vanessa Redgrave, who would later play More’s wife Lady Alice the 1988 adaptation of Bolt’s play). The Act of Supremacy 1534 gave Henry supremacy over the church and required the nobility to swear an oath acknowledging this.
The Act was at odds with More’s faith and he refused to make the oath, considering it heresy, and was convicted for treason on the false testimony of Richard Rich (John Hurt). Henry rewarded Rich by making him the Attorney General of Wales, an event described in the film by More as, “Why Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world… but for Wales?”
Wonderfully acted and filmed, with a fine supporting cast—Susannah York, Orson Welles, Nigel Davenport, Leo McKern, Wendy Hiller—the film was nominated for six Academy Awards.
More is the patron saint of lawyers and the film’s title comes from Robert Whittington’s Vulgaria (1520): “More is a man of an angel’s wit and singular learning. I know not his fellow. For where is the man of that gentleness, lowliness and affability? And, as time requireth, a man of marvelous mirth and pastimes, and sometime of as sad gravity. A man for all seasons.”
The Verdict (1982): Directed by Sidney Lumet (12 Angry Men, Fail-Safe, Network), the films stars Paul Newman (Cool Hand Luke, The Hustler) as Frank Galvin, a disillusioned, alcoholic lawyer on a long stretch of bad luck and misfortune. When a friend hands him a medical negligence case, Galvin treats it as a last chance for redemption and self-respect.
Newman turns in the role of his career, with the scene where he decides not to settle for a too-low offer stands out: “That poor girl put her trust into the… into the hands of two men who took her life. She’s in a coma. Her life is gone. She has no home, no family. She’s tied to a machine. She has no friends. And the people who should care for her—her doctors… and you and me—have been bought off to look the other way. We’ve been paid to look the other way. I came here to take your money. I brought snapshots to show you so I could get your money. I can’t do it. I can’t take it. ‘Cause if I take the money I’m lost. I’ll just be a… rich ambulance chaser. I can’t do it. I can’t take it.”
Naturally, betrayal and underhand tactics follow and it’s an against-impossible-odds uphill battle for Galvin right up until the verdict. A fine cast, with Boston being suspiciously populated by British and Irish actors—James Mason, Charlotte Rampling, Milo O’Shea—and one of Hollywood’s best courtroom dramas.
Previously: 20-16 and 15-11.
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