The Paradine Case (1947)
Oh, Franz Waxman gets on my nerves. He just doesn’t know when to quit! He wrote the start of a nice theme for The Paradine Case, but then his composition went crazy. Wall-to-wall music in every scene, notes constantly zigzagging up and down scales for no reason, and orchestrations that seem to want to drive the listener insane—Unfortunately, Franz Waxman’s score was only the first of many problems with this movie.
Fresh off his success in Alfred Hitchcock’s Spellbound, Gregory Peck reunited with his director to play a British barrister hired to defend an accused murderess, but finds himself falling in love with her. Well, Greg was only 31 years old in 1947, so in order to convince the audience that he had decades of fantastic Atticus-Finch-esque experience in the courtroom, he was given extremely fake looking and distracting white shocks of hair near his temples. It was just as effective convincing the audience he was old as his unreliable accent convinced people he was British. I love Greg, but he just can’t do accents very well.
Despite all-star supporting cast of Charles Coburn, Charles Laughton, Ann Todd, Ethel Barrymore, Leo G. Carroll, and Louis Jourdan in his first American film, the movie was incredibly boring and redundant. I can’t count how many times a character had reached his or her point in a monologue but kept talking for another three minutes anyway. It was obvious that either producer David O’Selznick or Alfred Hitchcock wanted Ingrid Bergman to play the accused murderess, but she must have been busy. They cast Valli, also in her first American film. She tried to come across as alluring and seductive, but really, the one expression she wore during the entire film was one of a model’s pose. The entire time, she seemed to be silently asking, “Have you drawn my eyebrows on yet? Can I move?”
The story is flat, the characters are annoying, the direction is slow, the music is infuriating, and the acting leaves much to be desired. Unless you love Louis Jourdan and want to see him with curly hair, save yourself two hours. Watch Spellbound and To Kill a Mockingbird for your Hitchcock and Gregory Peck lawyer fixes. And if you do love Louis Jourdan, rent Madame Bovary to see him in his full gorgeousness.
Want to watch it? Click here to watch it on ok.ru. And thanks "Juhi Thaker" for posting!
More Charles Laughton movies here!
More Gregory Peck movies here!
Fresh off his success in Alfred Hitchcock’s Spellbound, Gregory Peck reunited with his director to play a British barrister hired to defend an accused murderess, but finds himself falling in love with her. Well, Greg was only 31 years old in 1947, so in order to convince the audience that he had decades of fantastic Atticus-Finch-esque experience in the courtroom, he was given extremely fake looking and distracting white shocks of hair near his temples. It was just as effective convincing the audience he was old as his unreliable accent convinced people he was British. I love Greg, but he just can’t do accents very well.
Despite all-star supporting cast of Charles Coburn, Charles Laughton, Ann Todd, Ethel Barrymore, Leo G. Carroll, and Louis Jourdan in his first American film, the movie was incredibly boring and redundant. I can’t count how many times a character had reached his or her point in a monologue but kept talking for another three minutes anyway. It was obvious that either producer David O’Selznick or Alfred Hitchcock wanted Ingrid Bergman to play the accused murderess, but she must have been busy. They cast Valli, also in her first American film. She tried to come across as alluring and seductive, but really, the one expression she wore during the entire film was one of a model’s pose. The entire time, she seemed to be silently asking, “Have you drawn my eyebrows on yet? Can I move?”
The story is flat, the characters are annoying, the direction is slow, the music is infuriating, and the acting leaves much to be desired. Unless you love Louis Jourdan and want to see him with curly hair, save yourself two hours. Watch Spellbound and To Kill a Mockingbird for your Hitchcock and Gregory Peck lawyer fixes. And if you do love Louis Jourdan, rent Madame Bovary to see him in his full gorgeousness.
Want to watch it? Click here to watch it on ok.ru. And thanks "Juhi Thaker" for posting!
More Charles Laughton movies here!
More Gregory Peck movies here!