Top 10 courtroom dramas
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Witness For the Prosecution (1957):
For me, Witness For the Prosecution pips To Kill a Mockingbird to the top spot because of it's powerhouse performances by a galaxy of excellent stars and it's tangled, yet incredibly engaging narrative.
Based on an Agatha Christie stage play of the same name, Witness For the Prosecution is equally a 'whodunnit' murder mystery as it is a courtroom drama. Starring Charles Laughton as an extremely talented defence lawyer, Tyrone Power as a man charged with the murder of an elderly woman he had befriended, and Marlene Dietrich as his German wife who does not appear to be as devoted as one would think, Witness For the Prosecution perfectly blends the genres of drama, thriller and film noir.
Complete with lengthy flashback sequences, the various aspects of the narrative are revealed fragment by fragment, as the audience is kept guessing Leonard Vole's (Power) guilt and the intentions of his wife. The subsequent conclusion of the plot is surprising and unforeseen, a thrilling ending to an incredibly intriguing case.
Although the plot does not evoke the same strong feelings of overcoming injustice that some of my previous entries do, for me it is precisely because of this that Witness For the Prosecution makes it to number one on my poll – an exciting case of murder, betrayal and femme fatales that whisks the audience off into courtroom bliss!
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