The Dock Brief

Sometimes good movies fall through the cracks of the pavement. They disappear, forgotten about. 'The Dock Brief' (or 'Trial And Error', fluidity of title is another symptom) is one such film. Despite starring Peter Sellers and made in his glory period, it seldom reaches the television screens, seldom, if ever, talked about.

Watching this is nothing more than a revelation. The plot is simple, Morganhall (Sellers) a barrister, is given his first case in forty years, as he is chosen to defend Henpecked Herbert Fowle (Richard Attenbourgh), a grey, drab, bird lover, who has murdered his over-bearing, guffawing wife (Reid) because she wouldn't leave him. It is not an important case (the 'Dock Brief' of the title means that Fowle has no money for a lawyer, established barristers avoid them like the plague), but Morganhall sees this as an escape from the prison of his own life, 'Oh Fowle! The wonderful new life you've brought me!'

Morganhall and Fowle are little men, confined long before they are cell-bound (this film is full of images of confinement, prison cells, bird cages, claustrophobic houses, ) and the joy of the movie comes from their relationship, dull, grey Fowle takes wing as he falls under the spell of Morganhall's imagination. Sellers is wonderful, Morganhall is a tragic character, a defeated man, but never pathetic. In his dreams he is a great lawyer, but, naturally, his one great day in court ends in ruins, 'I had only to open my mouth and pour out words'.

Fowle is reprieved and released, due to Morganhall's incompetence and the barrister's dreams are dashed. Put like that, it is a bleak ending, yet the joy of the movie is that it ends in hope, in Morganhall's and Fowle's friendship. For the first time, as the leave prison and walk across Westminster Bridge, they are free from confinement (I love the little jig Sellers performs in long shot).

Both Sellers and Attenbourgh are on top form (though I've mostly singled out Sellers, Attenbourgh's lonely bird lover really is beautifully played) and lover's of gentle, bitter-sweet comedy, should seek out this movie. I think it's going to remain with me for the rest of my life, a truly life-affirming experience.

This neglected little film is based on a one-act play by John Mortimer, the creator of "Rumpole of the Bailey," and it extends some scenes (particularly the flashbacks to the lives of both the barrister and the accused) in ways that add little but running time. Beryl Reid, a very distinguished British stage actress, is given a role that requires her to do almost nothing but laugh hysterically. Oddly enough, the expansion of the script makes it feel even more theatrical than cinematic.

The real reasons to see this "Trial and Error" (aka "The Dock Brief") are the performances of Peter Sellers and Richard Attenborough. The latter was one of England's great character actors before he became a director and a Lord. Here, hidden behind a putty nose, he delivers an impeccable performance as a mediocre little man who kills his wife for a bit of quiet. And this was the period - just before head-turning international fame struck - when Sellers was offering one miraculous performance after another. His barrister is a subtle blend of self-delusional bluster and frightened awareness of his own inadequacy; the delicacy of this performance, especially the love he seems to feel for this little man who might prove his salvation, is a joy to behold. And the very last shot of the film, just before the final credits, made me laugh out loud - very silly, yet absolutely right.

Peter Sellers is a lawyer who has waited years for his first case. He gets it in the form of Richard Attenborough, who admits that he killed his wife, Beryl Reid because she wouldn't run away with the boarder. In Attenborough's cell, they brainstorm trial strategies in fantasy. Then they go up to the actual trial.

It's an absolute trifle of a movie, little more than a two-man show about the inanity of the law. That's hardly surprising, given that it's derived from a play by John Mortimer, best remembered for his many judicial mysteries, and the TV series RUMPOLE OF THE BAILEY, based on them. Sellers and Attenborough attempt to evoke the sort of movie that might have been made were Laurel & Hardy to make one, although one without anything in the way of physical slapstick.

John Mortimer was a very clever witty man. His writings were accessible, never laboured, they never patronised the audience, baffled them or bored them. As a former barrister, he was entirely used to addressing and winning-over juries. It was plausible at the very least that his writings were based on true experiences. Like Dickens, working in the field of Law exposed him to a gallery of characters and odd situations which were beyond most people's experiences.

And in the radio play version, the story starts with the curious but plausible situation where an imprisoned accused (of murdering his wife) is joined in his cell by the barrister who is to defend him. The dialogue is both entirely reasonable yet at the same time entirely plausible such that the accused wrongly assumes that the barrister is a another accused come to share the cell. A long conversation at entire cross-purposes ensues. The skill and wit is all in the carefully constructed dialogue.

Here in this film version, the simplicity and wit is replaced by superfluous dialogue and additional scenes. Richard Attenborough is excellent as the accused, a modest man with a great deal to be modest about. Peter Sellers is however lack-lustre, perhaps ill at ease with the part and perhaps the direction. Sellers was at base a comedian who became a comic actor. Perhaps in 1962 he had not yet developed the skill to deliver a part he could not empathise with.

I see that it received no awards of any kind - confirmation that it fell flat

an underrated flick , unfolding a powerful drama about the relation of a less fortunate attorney whose inner portrait is revealed when he is assigned to defend a man accused of murder. Witty dialogue and social satire, as well as excellent performance by Peter Sellers and Richard Attenborough.