The Paradine Case

Alfred Hitchcock came to America to work for Selznick in 1939 when the latter was involved in the production of his masterpiece, Gone With The Wind. Yet their first completed project together was Rebecca, a great success which won the Best Picture Oscar the year later. Hitchcock's filmography shows that his producer then loaned his services to other studios (RKO, Universal, Fox...) while a frustrated Hitchcock still received the same weekly payment from him.

In 1946, the end of the contract was near and Selznick couldn't count on a future collaboration with him. Though he still had one pet project called The Paradine Case. He intended to make it a prestige picture with an all star cast, with none other than Greta Garbo in the title role. Unfortunately for him, the diva of the screen had no intention of leaving her retirement, especially to play a part she hated. So it was decided that Mrs. Paradine would be played by a young hopeful that Selznick wanted to launch in the USA, much like Vivien Leigh in Gone With The Wind. In retrospect, the part of a cold-blooded murderess may not be the ideal choice to introduce a new personality like Alida Valli (nicknamed "Valli" for the occasion).

In any case, Selznick was so eager to have another big success that he made a nuisance of himself, rewriting the script (he eventually got sole credit for it), demanding retakes, and even supervising the editing and sound mixing himself. The end result was the explosion of the budget. Would you ever guess, watching the film, that it cost more money than Gone With The Wind? Well it did!

Although Hitchcock objected many things (like Louis Jourdan who did a fine job but was, in his idea, badly miscast), some elements are obviously his. Ann Todd has trouble shining in a rather unattractive part but she is definitely part of the cool blonde Hitchcock canon. The intricate camera moves inside the Keane mansion will be developed in his next productions like Rope or Under Capricorn. And the sadistic personality of the judge must have appealed to him. Also, his often used character actor Leo G. Carroll plays a lawyer here and John Williams, another lawyer, would go on to play more substantial parts in two other Hitchcock films.

More to the point, the film, in its rough cut ran approximately 3 hours. At the premiere, it had been cut down to 132 minutes. The version generally available today runs about 115. According to Bill Krohn, a "flood" has destroyed the negative of the 3 hour version in the 1980s. He also reports that the 132 minute version is all that remains and yet even that one did not find its way to home video. In addition, two of the missing scenes from the 3 hour version are still extant, only without the sound; These are apparently kept at George Eastman House in New York.

One of these scenes originally took place right before the trial and is featured on a lobby card with Ethel Barrymore, Gregory Peck, Charles Laughton and the actor who plays the painter (possibly Alec Harford), Peter De Lindstrom (an obvious nod to Selznick star Ingrid Bergman whose husband was Petter Lindström and who was considered for the lead at one point). In it, Sophy, the judge's wife, met Keane secretly in an art gallery to ask him to save Mrs. Paradine's head because she couldn't cope with another evening with her husband when he has to sentence the death penalty. They ran into the judge talking to the artist who kindly offers to show Sophy his drawings, sensing the uneasiness in the air. Left alone, the judge tells Keane he has considered placing his wife in an institution.

I do not know if the scene was cut to reduced the length of the feature or to suppress the underlying implication that the Judge enjoys sending people to their deaths and the very obvious fact that he mistreats his wife. I should point out that, in the novel, the scene took place earlier in the story and that it had been discarded by the original script writers (including Hitchcock and his wife).

This re-release trailer contains a few alternate shots and deleted moments (check out Ethel Barrymore trying to hide in the audience).

The music of the film, although composed by famed composer Franz Waxman in an attempt to recreate the Rebecca atmosphere and success (particularly obvious when Kean explores Mrs. Paradine's bedroom), has not met with the same success and is now available only as reorchestrated rhapsody on CD. The music-only track of the DVD is the only way to hear it in its entirety.

The main title gives you an idea of the rushed job that was the whole affair: since Selznick could not decide between a plethora of working titles (Fascination, Bewitched, Under Oath,...), he finally went with the book's original title on the eve of the premiere, causing the font of the title to be different from the rest of the credits.


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That's all for today folks!