I watched Witness For the Prosecution tonight, and was struck by it. It is an interesting courtroom drama with solid performances all round; compelling in it's style and makeup, and well directed. But the ending, after such a plausible and almost beautiful winding story of complete believability. . . left me shaking my head in disbelief. How the film makers could allow such a fine picture to collapse with such a concoction of trumped up melo-dramatic absurdity in the final scene goes beyond absurdity. It was as though someone in the production staff decided they had to save Charles Laughton's (who gave a grand performance as the lead defense English barrister, Sir Wilford Robarts) reputation, so that he did'nt come off looking as though he had been duped by the main characters involved in the murder he was defending. Afterall, Laughton had been the beloved protagonist featured as the barrister hero throughout the film. So at the end, when the wife (Marlene Dietrich) saves the murderer (Tyrone Power) from the gallows, they had to quickly concoct a scene to avenge the wicked and scandalous trick that had been played on the defense team, the law, and the true hand of justice. If they had allowed the husband and wife to walk off together hand in hand into the sunset at the end, I would have said this is one of the greatest courtroom pictures ever made. But Billy Wilder could have done much better with the ending IMO, which had nothing to do with plausibility, and for me almost ruined the picture.
Kudos to the actors, especially Laughton, Marlene Dietrich, and Elsa Lanchester. More kudos to the director who clearly did a masterful job right up until that final silly scene that kind of ruined it for me.
Kudos to the actors, especially Laughton, Marlene Dietrich, and Elsa Lanchester. More kudos to the director who clearly did a masterful job right up until that final silly scene that kind of ruined it for me.