Crime plays and
films
Generally, lots of
films dealing with
crime and its
detection are based
on
plays
rather than novels.
Agatha Christie's
stage play
Witness For the
Prosecution
(1953;
based on her own
short story,
published in
1933) was
adapted for the big
screen by director
Billy Wilder
in
1957. The
film starred
Marlene Dietrich
and
Charles Laughton
and is a classic
example of a "courtroom
drama".
In a courtroom
drama, a charge is
brought against one
of the main
characters, who says
that they are
innocent. Another
major part is played
by the lawyer (in
Britain a
barrister)
representing the
defendant
in court and
battling with the
public prosecutor.
He or she may enlist
the services of a
private investigator
to find out what
really happened and
who the real
perpetrator is. But
in most cases it is
not clear at all
whether the accused
is guilty of the
crime or not -- this
is how suspense is
created. Very often,
the private
investigator storms
into the courtroom
at the very last
minute in order to
bring a new and
crucial piece of
information to the
attention of the
court. For obvious
reasons, this type
of literature lends
itself to the
literary genre of
drama: There is a
lot of dialogue (the
opening and closing
statements, the
witnesses'
testimonies, etc.)
and little or no
necessity for a
shift in scenery:
The auditorium of
the theatre becomes
an extension of the
courtroom. When a
courtroom drama is
filmed, the
traditional device
employed by
screenwriters and
directors is the
frequent use of
flashbacks,
in which the crime
and everything that
led up to it is
narrated and
reconstructed from
different angles.
In Witness for
the Prosecution,
Leonard Vole, a
young American
living in England,
is accused of
murdering a
middle-aged lady he
met in the street
while shopping. His
wife (played by
Marlene Dietrich)
hires the best
lawyer available
(Charles Laughton)
because she is
convinced, or rather
she knows, that her
husband is innocent.
Another classic
courtroom drama is
U.S. playwright
Reginald Rose's
Twelve Angry Men
(1955),
which is set in the
jury deliberation
room of a
New York
Court of Law. Eleven
members of the
jury,
aiming at a
unanimous
verdict
of "guilty", try to
get it over with as
quickly as possible.
And they would
really succeed in
achieving their
common aim if it
were not for the
twelfth juror
(played by
Henry Fonda
in the
1957
movie adaptation),
who, on second
thoughts, considers
it his duty to
convince his
colleagues that the
defendant may be
innocent after all,
and who, by doing
so, triggers a lot
of discussion,
confusion, and
anger.
