It's not really about the title case - or about happily married lawyer Keane's (Peck) crush on Mrs. Paradine (Valli, tapping Marlene Deitrich); It's not really about the British justice system or the backroom politics between colleagues who smoke too many cigars and drink too much cognac; Laughton is memorably despicable, but it's Peck who is really out of his league here - every scene seems to find him crumbling in the same meticulously melodramatic manner (take this alliteration and...you know). Hitchcock's camerawork is sometimes marred by the tight, correctly detailed set of a London courtroom (built on a soundstage in Culver City without movable walls, mind). He never seems to compensate for it, except in a brief visit to a countryside cottage that brings to mind scenes in Rebecca. Besides that brief flashback, this is a decidedly dull, open-and-shut case.

This movie is a little baffling in how it even works because the plot is simple a lawyer is in charge of a murder case where he falls in love the suspect, but he is marrier and his wife knows that he is doing that, but she is okay with if it, if he doesn't fall all the way in love with her. I am willing to bet my wife would not be okay with that. It also seemed like Gregory Peck did it quite a bit as well.

This is far from being Hitchock's most interesting or thrilling film but at the very least it is handsomely made and pleasant enough to watch. With maybe a brief trim in runtime it could have moved at a more thrilling pace, but either way you could do worse with your time.

One of Hitchcock's lesser known works.

Stilted courtroom drama from Hitchcock dispenses with his usual visual hooks and presents a straightforward story of a love-triangle murder with Gregory Peck as a lawyer who falls for his accused client. The plot is interesting and well presented and this is a good film, but it's not a great Hitchcock film.