Witness for the Prosecution (1957)

This is the fourth consecutive Billy Wilder film I have seen and will be the last for a while as I do not have access to The Lost Weekend, Double Indemnity, or Stalag 17 at the moment. Of the six Billy Wilder films I have seen (this string of four along with Sunset Boulevard and Sabrina) this one is second only to Sunset Boulevard. The film is about a man (Tyrone Power) accused of murdering a single woman who is about to leave him a bunch of money and his only alibi is his wife (Marlene Dietrich). When the credits roll a voice warns the viewer not to spoil it so I'll say no more. The plot was very entertaining, well-paced, and even had a couple of comedic moments. This film is not a comedy by any stretch of the imagination, but is still funny a couple times. I do not generally care for comedy movies because a well-written drama can be funny enough, there's no need for constant laughter. Back to the plot, the moments leading up to the ending seemed a little weak while I was watching but these would-be issues were mostly resolved and this story full of twists and turns delivers a very good ending which I will not reveal for obvious reasons.

As stated previously, this film stars Tyrone Power and Marlene Dietrich. They both do an excellent job especially Dietrich, who I had never previously seen. Actually, one could argue they were more supporting cast than anything as Power's lawyer, played by Charles Laughton, is in almost every scene in the film. He does an excellent as well and is rather funny at times. He delivers a line near the end of the film that I thought was most excellent but it sort of reveals the plot so I will not post it here.

Other than a five to ten minute stretch near the end of this film just about everything was perfect. According to some legal experts there were a few moments in the trial that probably would not have occurred, although the experts argue that they are at least plausible. I suppose this slightly detrimental to the film as the trial hinges on these somewhat unlikely occurrences. Still, this film is great and when combined with what else I have seen Billy Wilder is now one of my favorite directors (I now have three) and moves ahead of Stanley Kubrick as my second favorite, still quite a way behind Hitchcock.

93/100
A-

UP NEXT: I'll try yet again to like Audrey Hepburn in probably her most famous role, Breakfast at Tiffany's.

Wow, it must have been excellent!

cdurbfan22 wrote:

Wow, it must have been excellent!

Yeah, it was. I'm a little worried my scores are too high, but I am watching mostly highly-regarded movies. I also have an account on flixster.com to rate movies and I quickly looked up how I'm rating them:

Here's the number of movies by number of stars:

5.0 Stars: 4
4.5 Stars: 8
4.0 Stars: 8
3.5 Stars: 16
3.0 Stars: 9
2.5 Stars: 14
2.0 Stars: 7
1.5 Stars: 3
1.0 Stars: 1
0.5 Stars: 3

To convert my ratings to number of stars:
95-100: 5 Stars
90-94.5: 4.5 Stars
85-89.5: 4 Stars
80-84.5: 3.5 Stars
75-75.5: 3 Stars
70-74.5: 2.5 Stars
65-69.5: 2 Stars
60-64.5: 1.5 Stars
55-59.5: 1 Star
0-54.0: 0.5 Stars

So it seems most of my movies (39/73) get between 70 and 85. I guess that's a decent distribution although it's a little bit skewed towards the high end, but like I said - I haven't watched many bad movies yet...I'll get there - American Pie anyone?

catbox_9 wrote:

cdurbfan22 wrote:

Wow, it must have been excellent!

Yeah, it was. I'm a little worried my scores are too high, but I am watching mostly highly-regarded movies. I also have an account on flixster.com to rate movies and I quickly looked up how I'm rating them:

Here's the number of movies by number of stars:

5.0 Stars: 4
4.5 Stars: 8
4.0 Stars: 8
3.5 Stars: 16
3.0 Stars: 9
2.5 Stars: 14
2.0 Stars: 7
1.5 Stars: 3
1.0 Stars: 1
0.5 Stars: 3

To convert my ratings to number of stars:
95-100: 5 Stars
90-94.5: 4.5 Stars
85-89.5: 4 Stars
80-84.5: 3.5 Stars
75-75.5: 3 Stars
70-74.5: 2.5 Stars
65-69.5: 2 Stars
60-64.5: 1.5 Stars
55-59.5: 1 Star
0-54.0: 0.5 Stars

So it seems most of my movies (39/73) get between 70 and 85. I guess that's a decent distribution although it's a little bit skewed towards the high end, but like I said - I haven't watched many bad movies yet...I'll get there - American Pie anyone?

Oh okay, that's cool.

catbox_9 wrote:

American Pie anyone?

:puke2:

Not for me.

I tried to watch that movie, eh not so good.

bobrob2004 wrote:

catbox_9 wrote:

American Pie anyone?

:puke2:

Exactly!