A Hollywood icon, almost as famous for his saucy products as his screen appearances, sadly died recently. His passing was rightly marked with extended obituaries that focused not just on his memorable performances but also his philanthropic activities, the latter marking him out as a thoroughly decent man.
Marvellous though he is as Butch Cassidy, to say nought of Cool Hand Luke and the Hustler, for me it is his performance as the one-case-a-year ambulance chaser Frank Galvin, that will forever linger in my filmic memory. We first meet him at the wrong kind of bar, playing pinball would you believe? If that’s not reprobate enough, he also smokes and has an alcohol dependency problem. A low life lawyer in a crumpled suit. Interest levels soar. Next we see him being ejected from a funeral parlour after he tries to slip his business card to the father of the deceased. It’s getting better.
David Mamet’s Oscar nominated script gives Paul Newman what in my opinion must be his greatest role, and in the hands of director Sidney Lumet, THE VERDICT (1982) is transformed into a highly satisfying cinematic experience, with bags of law thrown in for good measure.
Meanwhile, Frank gets a client - a young woman in a vegetative state, which allegedly is the result of medical negligence. It is assumed that he will settle with the hospital lawyers, headed up by the viperous James Mason. But our hero has other ideas. He takes a Polaroid photo of his client, and as the image slowly appears on the photographic paper resting on the unfortunate woman’s hospital bed, we have a visual motif of Frank’s mind as it slowly but surely comes into focus. This is the one he will fight. Redemption beckons.
He turns down an astronomical sum, and gets a punch on the nose for his efforts from the client’s not so caring brother-in-law, who wants to settle for guaranteed dosh. Lawyers getting duffed up! It’s got to end in tears.
Later, back in the bar and taking a break from pinball wizardry, Frank encounters Charlotte Rampling, who fails to mention when they later rumble in the bedroom, that she is in the pay of Machiavellian James Mason and his cadre of supercilious corporates.
Things go wrong. Witnesses mysteriously disappear. He’s not ready for trial. But the never say die advocate tracks down one of the nurses present at the operation and our heroic lawyer steals, yes steals, her phone bill which lists all her calls. She becomes the surprise witness and reveals the cover up. Wow!
His closing speech to the jury is masterful. Slow build-up with lots of dramatic pauses and appealing to their sense of decency - a speech I’ve reprised in my local mags court on many an occasion with excellent results. Not really.
The final scene has the distraught Charlotte constantly ringing the now teetotal victor and him not picking up. What strength of character? Now that’s what I call a lawyer role model. Not for me the squeaky clean father and son team of the 60’s TV series The Defenders or Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mocking Bird. Give me skid row Frank wrestling with his personal demons (not to mention dear Charlotte), and standing up for justice against the smug well-heeled defenders of a negligent hospital. It’s poverty row law versus magic circle law. A story almost as old as time itself. David v Goliath. And David wins again can you believe?
David, that’s David Mamet, of course, wrote the script. And much admired it is too. He started off writing plays such as his witty critique of capitalism Glengarry Glenross, and the even wittier satire on Hollywood, Speed the Plough, recently revived at the Old Vic with Kevin Spacey and Jeff Goldblum. There was a woman in there somewhere as well, but she was hard to find. Her role was a bit like Charlotte’s in that her purpose was to act as a conduit between the two male leads. Things are no better in Glengarry Glenross where female characters are distinguished by their absence.
You see David doesn’t do women, unless they happen to be his latest girlfriend/partner/wife, and he’s directing a film of one of his own scripts. Then she gets the lead. One can’t help feeling that if David were to have a road to Damascus moment and change his career to, say, for example soliciting, he would be in difficulties with the Law Society’s equal opportunities policy. But he’s in show biz, and there he will stay. If for no other reason than he can write his own scripts and by definition his own rules. Apparently that’s creative freedom, and very nice it is too. But one wonders, who are the beneficiaries? Certainly not the legion of unemployed female actors gnashing their teeth at what some people may describe as thinly disguised misogynistic productions.
Meanwhile back at the film and its far from complex moral, which can be summarised as follows:-
If you are into civil litigation always check out the credentials of any prospective partner, particularly if she is a lawyer and bears a passing resemblance to Charlotte Rampling. Unless of course you go by the name of Frank Galvin and bear a more than passing resemblance to Paul Newman. In which case you will probably not only be able to have your cake but also you will doubtless be able to eat it as well, with a variety of autographed exotic sauces to boot!
Here’s to you, actor, sauce inventor, and general all round good guy.
Paul Newman 1925-2009 RIP
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