Great Scene: “The Verdict”

Courtroom dramas. A staple of Hollywood cinema for decades. From a string of great films nearly a half-century ago Anatomy of a Murder (1959), Inherit the Wind (1960), Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) to more recent hits including Presumed Innocent (1990), A Few Good Men (1992), and Erin Brockovich (2000), movie-going audiences have shown a sustained interest in legal dramas.

One staple of courtroom dramas is the closing argument. I think it’s fair to say that most screenwriters would tend to go over the top and have their lead character ratchet up the drama through their dialogue. But in the fantastic movie The Verdict (1982), starring the late Paul Newman as alcoholic lawyer Frank Galvin, screenwriter David Mamet resists that temptation to go bigger. Instead the power of Galvin’s words form from their simplicity and honesty.

Here is the script version of the scene:

Here is the scene from the movie:

Paul Newman takes these words and with his voice barely above a whisper, leaving plenty of room for silence, he drives home his point, one human to twelve other humans on the jury — making it a truly great scene.

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