Il caso Paradine

Why does this movie seem so dull? The acting isn't bad once you get past Gregory Peck's British accent. None of the performances are outstanding, they're just not bad. The roles restrict the performers' range. I think Alida Valli smiles once. Louis Jourdan seems to have only one expression, a bitter, barely controlled anger. If he tried to smile he might crack. The actor given the best lines is Charles Laughton, who hams it up and brings a bit of life to the screen. "Remarkable how the convolutions of a walnut resemble those of the human brain." And that flabby, sweaty palm as he takes the hand of Peck's wife, squeezes it lasciviously, and places it on his thigh.

Well, I can think of three reasons why it's dull.

(1) It's overwritten. The script needed somebody like Daryl F. Zanuck to hack out some of the underbrush. Peck is questioning Valli in court. It goes something like this: Peck: "What did you say to Latour." Valli: "I told him to leave the room." Peck: "But why did you tell him to leave?" Valli: "Because I no longer wanted him present." Peck: "And why did you no longer want him present?" Valli: "His presence was disturbing." And so on. How did the jury stay awake? Some of the scenes are pointless. Not the sort of interesting meanders you might find in other Hitchcock movies. Just pointless. Peck visits a country house to talk to Latour, who promises to show him the garden and then beats it pronto. An hour or two later Latour shows up banging on the window of Peck's room at the inn, having changed his mind for no apparent reason. The five-minute conversation that follows could have been condensed into half that time and benefited from some supplementary bits of business. Instead the two adversaries sit there like mahogany idols hiding information from one another. That's a poor script for you.

(2) Hitchcock's imagination seems to have been asleep during the shooting. Perhaps the director himself was asleep. (It happened from time to time.) It isn't necessary for every Hitchcock film to have a bravura shot in it. The camera needn't always swing down from an upper story and wind up with a closeup of the key in someone's hand. But there is, maybe, one shot in this flick that bespeaks Hitchcock. When Andre Latour is first called into the courtroom as a witness, Hitchcock keeps the camera focused on Valli's face in the defendant's chair and circles it slowly around her so that we see Jourdan walking slowly into the room past her, behind her, and can almost feel her incandescent desire to turn around and look directly at him.

(3) Hitchcock had a great sense of humor and it's entirely absent from this movie. It must in fact rank among the least humorous films he's ever made. And it's surprising, because he was usually able to insert some piece of business into even his most serious works. (Not including "Vertigo.") Often the humor centers around meals. A dowager stubs out a cigarette in a jar of cold cream, or the yolk of a fried egg. A police inspector is forced to eat fancy dishes that a Kurdish camel driver would turn up his nose at. Or the humor lies in montage, as in "The Man Who Knew Too Much," when Jimmy Stewart escapes from a clumsy set-to with the staff at a taxidermist's and the scene ends with a shot of a stuffed lion's head gaping at the slammed door. SOMEthing, anyway, to lighten things up. But not here.

Put it all together and you have a pretty dull movie, one of the several serial flops that Hitchcock ground out in the post-war period. It isn't exactly painful to sit through. It's just that it's not very enjoyable.

I wish some other star rather than Gregory Peck had played the lead role. Someone like a Ronald Coleman (whom Hitchcock wanted) or Laurence Olivier (whom Selznick wanted). I personally would have loved Robert Donat, but any of the above would have served better. I like Peck normally, but in this film, he's too young and never convincingly English, despite his accent. Even without the accent, he doesn't suggest someone who is passionately and irrationally swept away, as the role calls for.

That said, I still love the film. Some Hitchcock films I love more--as I guess we all do--but I prefer this one over others. View THE PARADINE CASE and then compare it with the master's three movies that followed, those he directed without Selznick (ROPE, UNDER CAPRICORN, STAGE FRIGHT), and you'll see the touch that pervades those he made with Selznick. All the Selznick/Hitchcock flicks are wonderful; they are the director's most glamorous and romantic movies.

I'm crazy about Alida Valli. I'd seen every film she's ever done except "The Paradine Case" until today that is. Today I met Mrs Paradine for the first time. Strangely enough it doesn't feel like Hitchcock it feels more like Carol Reed the director who gave her a major International hit with "The Third Man" a couple of years later. I fell in love with Alida Valli in the 1954 Luchino Visconti's tragic romantic epic "Senso". Now having seen "The Paradine Case" I see a glimpse of the woman in "Senso" where her actions, are also atrocious but govern by love. A love who will only lead to tragedy. Visconti showed us an Alida Valli that other than a great beauty was also a great actress. Hitchcock introduced her as VALLI in this film, a gimmick with very short legs. Here she plays the widow of a blind man that "allegedly" she killed. The casting of Gregory Peck is a major problem, maybe not for the box office in 1947, but it certainly detrimental to the suspension of disbelief, so needed in a thriller. Charles Laughton is superb in his few, short scenes. I wonder if Hitchcock himself was the inspiration for his role. A judge, a lascivious man with an roving eye for young pretty women. Ethel Barrymore plays his wife, to absolute perfection. Then, Louis Jourdan, beautiful of course, Charles Coburn, Ann Todd but, it is Alida Valli who gives this film that extra something. Considered a "minor" Hitchcock by most but not by me. 9/10

Because this movie has so few of the features normally associated with a Hitchcock picture, it has a rather poor reputation. But it has a fine cast, most of whom perform quite well, and if the story is taken on its own merits it is interesting, although slow-moving and heavily dependent on the characters' conversations with one another. If it had been made by someone else, it might seem like more of an accomplishment.

In "The Paradine Case", Mrs. Paradine (Alida Valli) is arrested and tried for the murder of her husband. She is defended by the great lawyer Anthony Keane (Gregory Peck), who quickly becomes intoxicated by his client and loses all objectivity. Even as evidence mounts that she may have done the crime after all, he risks his marriage and reputation on the slightest of chances to find new evidence. It moves quite slowly, but is helped by the presence of many good supporting characters and a fine cast that portrays them convincingly. Things come together in a lengthy courtroom sequence that is sometimes uncomfortable to watch, but tense and realistic.

Many viewers feel let down by the film because it lacks the energy and excitement found in most of Hitchcock's films, and because the courtroom setting creates expectations that are not quite filled. Indeed, it does have its faults, and it's hard to believe that someone of Hitchcock's creative genius could not have thought of some ways to give more life to the body of the picture, because there are times when it really crawls along. But taken on its own merits, it is a pretty good movie, carefully filmed as always, and one that gives the viewer plenty to think about. There are some good scenes, with the best one being the subtly crafted opening sequence of Mrs. Paradine being arrested in her elegant home and taken to prison.

Many Hitchcock fans will not particularly enjoy this one, although if you like his more somber masterpieces such as "Vertigo", you might at least want to give this one a try - not that it is nearly as good as "Vertigo" (how many films are), but it is somewhat similar in tone. It works much better as straight drama, rather than as suspense or mystery, and as such it is worth watching.

OK, so it wasn't the most suspenseful movie Hitchcock ever made, but what a cast! Whenever you can get Charles Laughton, Ethel Barrymore, Gregory Peck, Leo G. Carroll, AND an exceedingly pretty Louis Jordan on the same screen at the same time, you know you're in for a treat. Laughton, as the judge, alone is worth the time spent watching this film.

True, they don't make "talky" pictures like this anymore, but that's half the fun. I think Maltin's 2 1/2 stars is just about right.