One of the best courtroom dramas ever, and definitely the best exposure of the affairs in and out the courtrooms; as well as the trickeries, rapid-fire delivering and fast-talking that any efficient (not righteous) criminal lawyer should have, unbiased, detached from any inner conviction or moral standpoint.
The opposite forces are masterfully played by Jimmy Stewart and George C. Scott, two individuals with an expertise in the use of every cunning, dirty scheme able to be used in order to destroy the credibility of each other’s arguments and win the case no matter what is right and what is wrong; that is what, at the end, paradoxically leads the person who won the case to question about the decision, even if he doesn’t show any concern.
Sadly, justice is such a variable and obscure concept…will it prevail? Think again.
Preminger’s direction is clean and focused on the right spots; the screenplay is snappy and occasionally very funny; Duke Ellington’s music is quite mellow; and Lee Remick couldn’t be lovelier, what a doll.