In the film, a man accused of killing a wealthy widow who had named him as the main beneficiary in her will undergoes a trial during which his wife testifies against him.
Plot
Senior barrister Sir Wilfrid Robarts, who is recovering from a heart attack, agrees to defend Leonard Vole over the objections of Robarts' private nurse Miss Plimsoll, as Sir Wilfrid's doctor has warned against taking on criminal cases. Vole is accused of murdering Emily French, a wealthy, childless widow who had fallen in love with him and named him as the main beneficiary in her will.
When Sir Wilfrid speaks with Vole's German wife Christine, he finds her rather cold and self-possessed, but she does provide an alibi, although it is not entirely convincing. During the trial in the Old Bailey, the Crown introduces testimony that Mrs. French had seen Vole with a younger woman and planned to confront him, but Sir Wilfrid believes his client to be innocent. To his shock, Christine is also summoned as a prosecution witness.
While a wife cannot be compelled to testify against her husband, Christine was still married to Otto Helm, a man now living in Soviet occupation zone of Germany, when she wed Vole (who was serving with the Royal Air Force in the British occupation zone and married her to help her escape to the West). Christine testifies that Leonard returned home right after the murder and explained that Mrs. French confronted him and he killed her to avoid being disinherited in her will. Christine states that she never loved Leonard, and her conscience has forced her not to lie.
Now terrified for his client's life, Sir Wilfrid is contacted by a Cockney woman who offers to sell him letters written by Christine to a male lover named Max. The handwriting is genuine, and the woman has a legitimate reason for providing the letters: her face was disfigured by Max. During cross examination, Sir Wilfred reads the letters, which include an account of Max and Christine planning to frame Leonard, who is acquitted of murder, much to the crowd's delight.
Sir Wilfrid feels troubled and is proved correct when Christine, brought into the courtroom for safety after being assailed by the departing crowd, tells him that he had her help in the case. Sir Wilfrid told Christine before the trial that an alibi contributed by a loving wife would not be believed by a jury, so she posed as a hateful, double-crossing wife. She also wrote letters to a non-existent lover and played the disfigured Cockney woman who gave Sir Wilfred the same letters, in order to discredit her own testimony. Christine admits that she loves Leonard and saved him, but she knew all along that he was guilty. Christine has actually told the truth upon the witness stand; Leonard did, in fact, confess to Mrs. French's murder.
Leonard, who has overheard Christine, gleefully boasts that he indeed manipulated and murdered Mrs. French. Sir Wilfrid, who genuinely believed in his client's innocence, is infuriated; but the law is now powerless because of British double jeopardy laws (since overturned).
Christine learns, however, that Leonard has indeed been having an affair with the much younger woman seen by Mrs. French, for whom he also plans to abandon her. Leonard smugly announces, though she will now be tried for perjury, he and Christine are now even, as they both saved each other's lives. A devastated Christine grabs a knife and kills Leonard and as she is arrested, Sir Wilfrid decides to further delay his retirement to serve as Christine Vole's defense attorney.
Ben Wright as court clerk (the officer reading charges)
Production
Producers Arthur Hornblow and Edward Small bought the rights to the play for $450,000. The play was adjusted to emphasize the character of the defense barrister.[3] Billy Wilder was signed to direct in April 1956.[4] According to Wilder, when the producers approached Marlene Dietrich about the part, she accepted on the condition that Wilder direct. Wilder said that Dietrich liked "to play a murderess" but was "a little bit embarrassed when playing the love scenes."[5]
Vivien Leigh was considered for the role of Christine Vole.[6] Laughton based his performance on Florance Guedella, his own lawyer, an Englishman who was known for twirling his monocle while cross-examining witnesses.[3]
In a flashback showing how Leonard and Christine first meet in a German nightclub, she is wearing her trademark trousers, made famous by Dietrich in director Josef von Sternberg’s film Morocco (1930).[7] A rowdy customer rips them down one side, revealing one of Dietrich's renowned legs and starting a brawl. The scene required 145 extras and 38 stuntmen, and cost $90,000.[8] The bar is called Die blaue Laterne (English: The Blue Lantern), which is a reference to Dietrich's famous film The Blue Angel.
United Artists' "surprise ending"
At the end of the film, as the credits roll, a voiceover announces:
The management of this theater suggests that, for the greater entertainment of your friends who have not yet seen the picture, you will not divulge to anyone the secret of the ending of Witness for the Prosecution.[9]
This was in keeping with the advertising campaign for the film. One of the posters said: "You'll talk about it! - but please don't tell the ending!"[10]
The effort to keep the ending a secret extended to the cast. Billy Wilder did not allow the actors to view the final ten pages of the script until it was time to shoot those scenes. The secrecy reportedly cost Marlene Dietrich an Academy Award, as United Artists did not want to call attention to the fact that Dietrich was practically unrecognizable as the Cockney woman who hands over the incriminating letters to the defense.[11]
Reception
In a contemporary review for The New York Times, critic Bosley Crowther wrote: "... [T]here's never a dull or worthless moment. It's all parry and punch from the word 'Go!', which is plainly announced when the accused man is brought to Mr. Laughton at the beginning of the film. And the air in the courtroom fairly crackles with emotional electricity, until that staggering surprise in the last reel. Then the whole drama explodes. It's the staging of the scenes that is important in this rapidly moving film ... It's the balancing of well-marked characters, the shifts of mood, the changes of pace and the interesting bursts of histrionics that the various actors display."[4]
Agatha Christie "herself considered it the finest film derived from one of her stories."[12][13] It currently holds a 100% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 40 reviews with an average rating of 8.7/10.[14] In TV Guide's review of the film, it received four and a half stars out of five, the writer saying that "Witness for the Prosecution is a witty, terse adaptation of the Agatha Christie hit play brought to the screen with ingenuity and vitality by Billy Wilder."[15]
Witness for the Prosecution was released on DVD by MGM Home Entertainment on December 11, 2001 as a Region 1 widescreen DVD, and by Kino Lorber (under license from MGM) on Blu-ray on July 22, 2014 as a Region 1 widescreen disc.
^"Top Grossers of 1958". Variety. January 7, 1959. p. 48. Please note figures are for US and Canada only and are domestic rentals accruing to distributors as opposed to theatre gross
Aldridge, Mark (2016). "Chapter 5: Christie Films Make an Impact: Spoilers: And Then There Were None; 'Philomel Cottage'; Love from a Stranger; Witness for the Prosecution". Agatha Christie on Screen. Palgrave Macmillan UK. pp. 79–94. ISBN978-1-3496-7695-8.
