- Legal drama with Gregory Peck as his first of three iconic screen lawyers
- His infatuated fly is drawn into a black widow’s web of deceit and desire
- Garbo refused role so producer tried building another mononymous star
- Italian Alida Valli also only billed by her surname in American publicity
- “Get off my Case!” Hitchcock repeatedly clashed with producer Selznick
- Drastically edited film bore all the scars of a creatively stifled production
- Box office flop: Somewhat disjointed results could not recoup huge costs
- Despite failings, it’s been re-evaluated and is looked on more kindly now
- The deadly weed: Most of the cast advertised smoking – and died from it
Note: this is part of an ongoing series of 150-odd Hitchcock articles; any dead links are to those not yet published. Subscribe to the email list to be notified when new ones appear.
The Paradine Case: Making of a Masterpiece; Collectors Guide, Part 2: Home video, 3: Soundtrack
Italian 1952 post-war release, two sheet poster by renowned artist Angelo Cesselon, one of at least three he executed for the film; another’s also from 1952, and the 1960 re-release.
Contents
Production
The Paradine Case [pron. Para-deen] features Gregory Peck as Anthony Keane, a brilliant young lawyer at the height of his professional career, charged with the defence of a married woman accused of murdering her blind husband. Keane falls madly in love with his client Mrs Paradine (Alida Valli) who convinces him of her innocence. The tension builds from their first meeting and finally erupts in an emotionally charged courtroom where the obvious appears… not so obvious! Classic dialogue entwined with Hitchcockian intrigue supported by superb performances from Gregory Peck, Ann Todd and Charles Laughton makes this without doubt, according to Bill Collins, “The director’s finest, deserving of greater appreciation.” – Australian CEL VHS
In the Old Bailey
It is now time to forgive David O. Selznick for Duel in the Sun. Once again, with The Paradine Case, he has produced a fine movie. This Alma Reville-James Bridie adaptation of an old Robert Hitchens novel is literate, absorbing, and admirably acted. For a film that runs two hours and five minutes, the story is a simple repetition of one question. Did or did not Mrs. Paradine (Valli) murder her blind husband in order to marry her lover (Louis Jourdan)? The defense attorney (Gregory Peck) believes in her innocence, but by the time he begins to suspect that his beautiful client is more sinner than saint, he has become hopelessly infatuated with her.
Peck and Valli: Barrister loves sinner
Life ads: Peck/Todd/Laughton/Coburn/Barrymore/Jourdan/Valli
More than half of the screen play is devoted to Mrs. Paradine’s trial in the Old Bailey and, necessarily, involves considerably more talk than action. It took a bit of doing to create suspense and maintain it for the long-delayed climax, but Alfred Hitchcock, aided by Lee Garmes’ restless and revealing camera, does just that, with time out for characterization and productional detail. With all credit to Hitchcock’s shrewd direction and a superior script, it is the cast that establishes The Paradine Case as one of the season’s outstanding films. Two of the actors are Selznick imports. Valli, an Italian star, is both an actress and, obviously, one of the screen’s most beautiful women. Jourdan, French, handsome, and also a competent actor, contributes a sultry, Gallic intensity that is certain to appeal to both bobby-soxers and mamas.
The more familiar players are even better. Gregory Peck is excellent as the embattled defense attorney who didn’t let his mind know what his emotions were doing. Leo G. Carroll is perfect, as always, as his opponent in Old Bailey. Charles Laughton as a sadistic judge combines a sinister realism with a Gilbertian touch of “Trial by Jury,” and Ethel Barrymore gives a brief, interesting characterization as his tremulous wife. Just as good are Charles Coburn as Mrs. Paradine’s family lawyer and Joan Tetzel as his precocious daughter. However, the most difficult role and, possibly, the most rewarding, is that of Ann Todd as Gregory Peck’s remarkably understanding wife. Competing with an all-star cast, Valli’s glamour, and the taut melodramatics of the Old Bailey, the English actress contributes a human emotion to an otherwise cerebral exercise in refined melodrama. – Newsweek
Movie of the Week: The Paradine Case – Life | US pressbook
The Paradine principals. Back: Hitch, Louis Jordan, David O. Selznick, Charles Laughton, Charles Coburn, Gregory Peck. Front: Joan Tetzel, Ann Todd, Ethel Barrymore. But where’s Valli?
Alamy, Bridgeman, Getty, Imago, Shutterstock
Unsatisfied with Paradine’s critical and commercial reception, Hitch later said: “Many times, people have told me how much they enjoyed Witness for the Prosecution. They thought it was my film instead of Billy Wilder’s. And Wilder told me people asked him about The Paradine Case, thinking he had done it. Well, I would be happy to make an exchange.”
Peck plays barrister Anthony Keane, a man torn between passion and duty… huh, aren’t they all? This marked the first of his three significant screen outings as a lawyer, the others being of course, Sam Bowden in Cape Fear and his signature role of Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (both 1962). Paradine’s based on the eponymous 1933 novel by British writer Robert Hichens, many of whose works made it to the screen including thrice-filmed The Garden of Allah. Naturally, the finished article has many alterations and omissions from the novel, especially following Selznick’s drastic editing, whereby the overzealous producer chopped it by almost a third. In particular, if the Horfields seem ultimately inconsequential to the plot it’s because, according to Hitchcock expert Pat Mcfadden:
“In the novel, the Horfields had more significance than that which made it to the finished film. Lord Horfield and (Malcolm) Keane hated each other, but each had something the other wanted; Horfield coveted Keane’s wife, and went further in his advances than the one scene in the film. Keane, in his obsession with Mrs. Paradine’s fate, makes the decision to kiss up to the judge as much as he can, to the extent that he even allows his wife, Gay, to share a cab with Horfield knowing that he will make another pass at her, which drives a permanent stake into their marriage. Meanwhile, Lady Horfield arranges a secret meeting with Keane (this was shot but cut) to tell him that the judge is a sadist who gets a thrill from sentencing women to death.”
- Hitchcock and Selznick: Their Rich and Strange Collaboration in Hollywood (1987/1999) – Leonard J. Leff | review
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The face that launched a thousand (legal) slips: Alida Valli’s a real head case
Hitchcock/Truffaut: “There is an interesting shot in the courtroom when Louis Jourdan is called in to give evidence; he comes into the courtroom and must pass behind Alida Valli. She’s turning her back to him, but we wanted to give the impression that she senses his presence—not that she guesses he’s there—that she actually can feel him behind her, as if she could smell him. We had to do that in two takes. The camera is on Alida Valli’s face, and in the background you see Louis Jourdan coming down to the witness box.
First, I photographed the scene without her; the camera panned him all around, at a two-hundred-degree turn, from the door to the witness box. Then, I photographed her in the foreground; we sat her in front of the screen, on a twisting stool, so that we might have the revolving effect, and when the camera went off her to go back to Louis Jourdan, she was pulled off the screen. It was quite complicated, but it was very interesting to work that out.”
- The Paradine Case – Jay S. Steinberg
- The Paradine Case – Colin McGuigan
- In and Around The Paradine Case – Douglas Pye
- The Paradine Letters/pt2/pt3/pt4 – Farran Nehme
- When I Made The Paradine Case – Hitchcock and Mark Rappaport
- The Feminine Gaze in Notorious and The Paradine Case – Elizabeth Abele
This was the only Hollywood film for British actress Ann Todd, who played Peck’s faithful wife. She was originally contracted to make a second, for Universal, but production delays on Paradine meant she had to return to the UK to begin shooting opposite Ray Milland in transatlantic production So Evil My Love. She was slated to return to the states the following year but that didn’t transpire and thereafter she again confined her career almost exclusively to the UK. So Evil was titled after the US pressing of its 1947 source novel, published in the UK as For Her to See, written by Marjorie Bowen under the pseudonym of Joseph Shearing. It’s an excellent gothic thriller and example of gaslight noir that will appeal to fans of the Master and is well worth seeking out via its handful of releases:
- US: Universal DVD (2016) trailer, score
- Kino BD (2021)
- UK: Screenbound DVD (2016) trailer
- France: Rimini Digipak BD/DVD (2022) screenshots
Italy: A&R; Spain: Cine Club– bootlegs
Smokers paradise
US poster
It’s interesting to note much of the publicity material for this ensemble film used variations on the “floating heads” style; it’s the only practical way to get seven famous faces in the frame! This poster, with the heads transplanted onto others’ bodies, is a typical film/smoking tie-in of the era; how times change. Thank God. Note that four of the six died of smoking-related illnesses and though Jordan and Valli managed to make old bones, the deadliest weed could well have been a contributory factor in their eventual demise. The only star missing is Charles Laughton but I doubt he’s absent on moral grounds as he was an inveterate smoker, seldom pictured without puffing away on something and he died of cancer at the age of 62. Sadly, it seems almost every other star of the golden age died young from alcoholism, smoking or suicide. Most of the glamour was strictly onscreen.
If you’re wondering why Hitch himself isn’t on the poster, it’s because he’s not, as it states, one of the “stars” of the film, or of anything else by this point. His regular appearance in publicity materials largely postdates the mid-1950s, after Alfred Hitchcock Presents made him a household name – and face. Even disregarding all that, he only smoked Montecristo cigars. What’s more, I don’t recall Hitch ever advertising anything that wasn’t a good cause or directly related to his work. Well, apart from Reduco, of course!
UK quad poster by Stafford & Co.; more info in the entry for Suspicion
Laughton’s wife was the inimitable Elsa Lanchester, unfailingly brilliant in every role I’ve ever seen over the course of her 55-year screen career. Also a smoker, natch, she had a respectable recording career too, beginning in 1926, and Laughton guested on her 1957 album, Songs for a Smoke-Filled Room, which does exactly what it says on the (tobacco) tin. All in all, quite ironic. Incidentally, in early 2021 the historically sexist Blue Plaques Panel of English Heritage shamefully decided against awarding her their accolade despite women still making up only 15% of the tally. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
On the radio
The sole radio adaptation sees the return of two of the film’s leads, with Peck replaced by Joseph Cotten, who also starred in Shadow of a Doubt and Under Capricorn. It’s included on the MGM and Kino discs and various other sources:
- Lux Radio Theatre, May 9, 1949 (57min) – Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli and Louis Jourdan; Radio Spirits 2-CD/cass, 6-CD/cass | MP3/alt/alt
The Paradine Case: Making of a Masterpiece; Collectors Guide, Part 2: Home video, 3: Soundtrack
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This is part of a unique, in-depth series of 150-odd Hitchcock articles.
