Witness for the Prosecution, a Best Picture of 1957 nominee, surprised me in a couple of ways. First, it's a very entertaining film, an interesting mix of humor and suspense, and the Academy is not always prone to rewarding such films. Entertaining and complex? Not typically their favorite mix, judging from what I've seen so far. Second, it features some great performances from an interesting range of actors: Charles Laughton, Tyrone Power, Marlene Dietrich, Elsa Lanchester, and a raft of British character actors. Next, it's very much a courtroom drama; almost all of the action takes place inside a British court, so it's rather close to its stage roots in its use of one primary set for much of the film. Finally, it's directed by Billy Wilder. I guess I just wasn't familiar with Wilder's full range of movies, but it did catch me off guard when his name appeared during the credits. As good a film as this is, it didn't initially strike me as being a particularly Wilder-esque movie. By the end of it, however, I was fully convinced.
Power plays Leonard Vole, who has been arrested for the murder of a wealthy widow he has befriended. Laughton plays the criminal trial lawyer Sir Wilfrid Robarts, who has been hired to represent Vole even though he (the lawyer) is supposed to be recovering from a heart attack by taking things easy and giving up smoking and drinking and taking his pills and only eating a bland diet. His nurse, played by Laughton's real-life spouse Lanchester, is there to ensure that he sticks to the rules (and to allow her to provide comic relief from time to time). Vole's alibi for the evening of the widow's murder depends upon his wife, a German refugee named Christine, played by Dietrich. She is particularly cagey, choosing her answers carefully and rarely showing emotion when one would expect a wife to do so.
The trial is beset by one surprise after another, not the least of which is Christine's decision to serve as the title "witness for the prosecution" rather than for the defense. On the stand, she contradicts the story she told earlier to police and to the attorneys, thereby implicating her husband directly in the murder. Needless to say, Laughton and company do everything they can to impeach her testimony, including the retrieval of some damning letters Christine allegedly wrote to a male accomplice. The ending of the trial is not the ending of the movie, though, as there are still a couple of surprise twists left for the audience.
I really enjoyed watching Witness for the Prosecution. Dietrich is a marvel here, and yet she wasn't even nominated for an Oscar for her performance. She's remarkably cold at times, but she is quite capable of unleashing a torrent of fury when confronted on the witness stand with her contradictory testimony. Power is also good; you just won't realize how effective he is until the very end of the movie. Laughton is almost playing a parody of himself here, replete with all of the usual gestures and tics that he had perfected over the years. I still liked his performance, but if anyone wants to develop a Laughton impersonation, here's a good film to watch first.
Knowing that he directed this film makes me admire Billy Wilder even more. Look at a partial list of films he helmed: Double Indemnity, The Lost Weekend, Sunset Boulevard, Sabrina, Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, and on and on. And then you can add all of the ones that he wrote or co-wrote, such as Witness for the Prosecution, which started life as an Agatha Christie play. (Confession time: I'm a huge Christie fan. I own a lot of novels she wrote, and realizing that this movie is based upon one of her works just made it all the more exciting.) Perhaps the Academy, which honored Wilder six times during his career, recognized in this film his usual skillful direction. Despite being somewhat different in tone from his other movies, it still bears the stamp of a Wilder film. And that's certainly a reason to watch it on its own.
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