Movie Review: Witness for the Prosecution

Ah...they dont make em like they used to....
ABC 2 keep on with their marvy black & white fillums on Sat nights. Sometimes they're crap and sometimes they're classics. This is a classic. It was on ABC 2 on Sat night.
I remember my Grandma letting me stay up in my pjs to watch this being presented by Ivan Hutchinson in the 70s, when she was babysitting. It was on after the Muppets. We had fish & chips.
This pertickler movie is wunnerful because:
- Charles Laughton. They dont make em like that any more. In the middle of such theatrical physical performances, he works with his eyes as an adept in film, and he works with his vocal presence as an adept in live theatre. Charles Laughton is/was a great actor and our movies are poorer because there isn't anyone like him anymore. Leo McKern's cuddly Rumpole of the Bailey probably owed a fair bit to Laughton's character in this film. Except Laughton is a lot less cuddly and a lot more mesmerising.
- Billy Wilder's direction: when was the last time a modern film used traditional melodrama without getting all post modern pastichey about it? It's a great storytelling form. Love all of the tearing of the hair and the breast beating from Tyrone Power, contrasted with all of Marlene Dietrich's cold control. Love all of the business between the old lawyer and his nurse So so very old fashioned, such clearly and melodramatically defined characters.
- Agatha Christie's original tale- guaranteed twists and turns. Ya know, I couldnt watch a modern day crime tv show. Turns my stomach. Distressing, all of that gruesome realism. Its as if they've lost the point of what all of the storytelling's about. Witness For the Prosecution is a marvellous courtroom drama that is a wonderful reminder of why one would bother making a film about a crime: for the pleasure of the twists and turns in the the tale...