This is an engrossing and tightly wound tale of greed, murder, deception, bigamy, adultery, and all the other good things in life. It's essentially a courtroom drama with several big -- REALLY big -- surprises. It does not end the way you might expect, with the true criminal suddenly revealed in all his moral turpitude by the expert, penetrating examination by the defense, breaking down in the witness chair and sobbing, "Okay. I did it! I DID IT! I didn't mean to kill her! I just wanted to frighten her." The play's the thing in this movie, yet the director, Billy Wilder, brings his own snappy interpretation to it. The dialog is unashamedly fast. Nobody dawdles over "significant utterances." Even on the witness stand they seem to make a series of unhesitating declarations. "Yes." "No." "Yes, I told you already." And it wouldn't be as good as it is without the acting. Charles Laughton is the central figure, one of those cute old curmudgeons that everyone likes because of his weakness for cigars and brandy. His efforts to bootleg these items under the nose of his nurse, his real wife Elsa Lanchester, are pretty funny. "She won't even find the ASHES," he cackles innocently, like a child getting away with mischief, flicking his cigar ash into an empty drawer. She's always bright and chipper and energetic, a nice contrast to his flabby sedate presence.
Una O'Connor as the Scottish maid is extremely engaging as well, snapping back indignantly at the judge. Tyrone Power is called on to change from a careless and thoughtful guy, to one stricken by fate, then back again, and he pulls it off. Henry Daniell, a Robin Hood villain, and John Williams, ever the legal type, are welcome in every scene in which they appear. Reliable sorts, don't you know. But Marlene Dietrich takes the palm. She was everyone's idea of a no-baloney kind of woman but never anyone's idea of a great actress. And yet, she had me fooled here. Oh, hammy, sure, but her performances fit in because EVERYONE is hammy in "Witness for the Prosecution." God forbid anyone try to make anything serious and arty out of an Agatha Christie mystery! They're fine, just as they are.
