Favorite Films (lists up to participating site members)

[lynn cates]

Qb 7

Hello Jeff. What of QB 7? Sir Anthony Hopkins is brilliant in that one--especially when he breaks down in the dock.

Cheers.
LC

[Mayerling]

If you will put down television series like "Rumpole" you might consider

Boston Legal

Law and Order

Perry Mason (certainly a must, if a bit too formulaic)

The Defenders (the 1960s series with E.G. Marshall and Robert Reed. It was briefly revived in the early 1990s.

Trials of O'Brien (before he was Los Angeles' best and most annoying Lieutenant of Police as "Columbo", Peter Falk was in this interesting series as a trial lawyer in New York City in the 1960s. In one episode he solves a perfect crime by figuring out why the suspect with the alibi got quarters only for his change - a rarity in the 1960s).

Sam Benedict (Edmund O'Brien was an attorney in this series again in the early 1960s)

Judd For the Defense (Carl Betz played in this series set in the west, mostly in Texas, as a flamboyant but excellent lawyer based on several like the young F. Lee Bailey).

Dundee and the Culhane (a combination of western with a law theme: Dundee is an British attorney (assisted by the young man Mr. Culhane) in defending people on trial in different parts of the west. The series was a summer replacement show in either 1965 or 1966 and starred (as Dundee, of course) Sir John Mills. It never found the audience it may have really deserved.

Seinfeld (not just for it's ridiculous conclusion, but the running minor character of Jackie Johns (I think the last name may be wrong) who was based on Johnny Cochran in light of his successful acquittal in the Simpson Case. Jackie would appear four or five times, bedeviled by his client Kramer, who frequently gave him an excellent opportunity in some case and would then destroy it by some thoughtless act the attorney would never have countenanced).

Jeff

[Pcdunn]

Hitchcock's "The Wrong Man" is at least a legal thriller, if not too much into the trial itself.

I have seen a little of the TV series "Silk" which was interesting. Rather like our legal nighttime soap, "L.A. Law".

The second series of "Broadchurch" has good trial scenes.

Dear "Rumpole of the Bailey" was always fun.

For (unintentionally) camp, see the original "Perry Mason" episodes.

[Mayerling]

Given that Britain has "rehabilitated" people who were executed under dubious or questionable circumstances sometimes, like Timothy Evans, I find it curious that Morant and his fellow executed mate were never considered for that - it certainly would have given some solace over outraged feelings in Australia.

Of course one might look at this country's back yard and suggest some hanged folks who we sympathize with or wonder about the depth of their actual guilty:

Major John Andre (everyone from Washington down regretted this execution - they wanted General Clinton to hand Benedict Arnold back, and Clinton couldn't do it.

Mary Surratt - probably she had some knowledge (how much is a question) of Booth's conspiracy - but did she really deserve to be hanged?

Captain Henry Wirz, CSS - the commandant of the Andersonville prison camp, was hanged in November 1865. In fact, like the Lincoln Conspirators, his execution was actually photographed. Certainly the deaths of hundreds of Yankee prisoners under bad conditions showed a shabbiness of spirit, but was Wirz actually a victim of a losing side who needed necessary food and clothing supplies for it's remaining armies? And how does one explain similarly bad conditions and deaths at Northern military prisons, like the one at Elmira in New York? We had plenty of supplies. So what happened to us?


Jeff

[GUT]

Funny that most people wouldn't even know Zpeter Handcock's name.

[GUT]

In honor of the Australian and South African members of this website:

Breaker Morant

Jeff

Good old Harry.

You know the scene at the end where they reach out and hold hands, the actors did that, it wasn't scripted, some years after the movie was made it was discovered that Breaker and Handcock hd actually done just that.

[Mayerling]

In honor of the Australian and South African members of this website:

Breaker Morant

Jeff

[DJA]

Glad you agree

[Robert]

Beyond A Reasonable Doubt.

[DJA]

Bitter Springs.

Michael Pate out of character as....an Australian.

A movie before it's time.

[GUT]

The Castle

[Mayerling]

01) The File on Thelma Jordan
02) The Story on Page One
03) The Tattered Dress
04) The Long Dark Hall
05) Odor in the Court (an hysterically funny Clark & McCullough short where as shyster lawyers - especially Bobby Clark - they wreck a divorce case)
06) Gentlemen Prefer Blonds (the hearing regarding ownership of the tiara)
07) Midnight (the concluding divorce proceeding)

Jeff

[Robert]

Murder Most Foul.

[GUT]

Run away Jury


Not a movie just a TV series dear old Horrace Rumpole.

[sdreid]

Compulsion (1959) Based on Leopold and Loeb

Please Murder Me (1956) Where Raymond Burr plays a defense lawyer prior to Perry Mason

A Place in the Sun (1951) Both inspired by a true case and with Burr in the courtroom