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The Times (17/Jan/1949) - New films in London, The Paradine Case

(c) The Times (17/Jan/1949)


New films in London

The Paradine Case

Mr. Alfred Hitchcock is the director of The Paradine Case, a film based on the novel by Robert Hichens. The German film, Ehe im Schatten, has already been reviewed in these columns.

LEICESTER SQUARE

The Paradine Case. — Mr. Alfred Hitchcock in Rope asserted himself by the paradoxical method of withdrawing his immediate influence and allowing the camera to photograph the play without interruption; in The Paradine Case he is once more content to remain in the background and relies on a faithful transcription, of criminal proceedings at the Old Bailey to provide sufficient excitement and suspense. The Paradine Case runs for 110 minutes, and tor what seems nearly half of that time the film is, as it were, a report of a trial. The story has put the enigmatic Mrs. Paradine (Valli) in the dock on the charge of poisoning her blind husband and has established both that defending counsel (Mr. Gregory Peck) is un-professionally disturbed by his client's beauty and that there is a certain mystery in the relation between her and her husband's valet (Mr. Louis Jourdan). The truth comes out in the course of examination and cross-examination, and the film deserves the greatest credit for the care it brings to the business of conveying the feel and atmosphere of an English murder trial. Mr. Charles Laughton is, magnificently, the Judge — ripeness is all, ripeness and the relishing of it — and it is as well he is there to preside, for Mr. Peck is never quite convincing and Valli is content simply to exist and allow her loveliness to act her part for her. Miss Ann Todd is in adequate command of the domestic interludes, and the film for long stretches at a time is mercifully free of all musical accompamment. A moderate Hitchcock; no more, no less.