Colin Stinton Billy as Billy. Sidney Lumet. More like this. Watch options. Storyline Edit. Frank Galvin was once a promising Boston lawyer with a bright future ahead. An incident early in his career in which he was trying to do the right thing led to him being fired from the prestigious law firm with which he was working, almost being disbarred, and his wife leaving him.
Continually drowning his sorrows in booze, he is now an ambulance-chasing lawyer, preying on the weak and vulnerable, and bending the truth whenever necessary to make what few dollars he has, as he has only had a few cases in the last few years, losing the last four. His only friend in the profession is his now retired ex-partner, Mickey Morrissey, who gets Frank a case, his fee solely a percentage of what his clients are awarded.
The case should net Frank tens of thousands of dollars by settling out of court, that money which would at least get him back on his feet. Towler and Marks. Kaye was admitted to the hospital for what should have been a routine delivery, but something that happened while Kaye was on the operating room table led to her brain being deprived of oxygen, resulting in permanent brain damage, and Kaye now being in a totally vegetative state requiring hospitalization for the rest of her life.
Frank eventually learns that the cause seems to be that Dr. Towler, the anesthesiologist and an expert in the field, used the incorrect anesthetic for the situation. However, all but one person that was in the operating room that day has provided depositions that nothing improper occurred in the operating room. The one holdout is the operating room head nurse, Maureen Rooney, who is not talking, period, to Frank or the other side. Upon seeing the state Kaye is in, Frank unilaterally decides to do what he believes is the right thing by declining the lucrative out-of-court settlement offered by the Archdiocese and take the case to court.
In doing so, he hopes the truth that the hospital and the doctors truly were negligent comes to light. Feeling that this case may be a turning point in his life, Frank has a new spring in his step, enough that he attracts the attention of Laura Fischer, the two who begin a relationship.
Despite having whatever the truth is on his side, that truth which he does not know, and having an expert witness of his own, Frank has an uphill battle in that the Archdiocese has retained the services of Ed Concannon, a high-priced lawyer who has a large team of associates whose task is to help Concannon and the Archdiocese win at any cost. Concannon's task seems even easier as Judge Hoyle, the presiding judge, is already biased against Frank for taking the case to court.
Did you know Edit. Trivia Among the people in the courtroom during the dramatic closing speech is a young Bruce Willis. Goofs In the climactic courtroom scene, when Frank calls Kaitlin to the stand, Concannon is flustered and confers with one of his lawyers. We then see the lawyer leave the courtroom, presumably having been given some direction by Concannon. Later, after Kaitlin has been questioned by Frank and cross-examined by Concannon, the lawyer returns with a book containing the case Concannon cites to get the judge to disallow the admittance of the photocopy of the hospital admission form as evidence.
So there's no way the lawyer would have known to go out and find a case regarding the inadmissibility of a photocopy. Quotes [Frank is giving his summation to the jury] Frank Galvin : You know, so much of the time we're just lost. Alternate versions NBC edited 33 minutes from this film for its network television premiere. User reviews Review.
Top review. I saw "The Verdict" when it was released in and just watched it again. It is amazing what of the film I retained in memory. Most of what I remembered was the sheer brilliance of Paul Newman. In seeing it the second time, I'm 24 years older, I've worked for attorneys, I've had an experience with the justice system.
I guess someone told him they were similar. Newman said to him, "This is a time to not take yourself seriously and your work very seriously. Celebrating Hispanic Heritage. Log in with Facebook. Email address. Log In. First Name. Last Name. By signing up, you agree to receiving newsletters from Rotten Tomatoes. You may later unsubscribe. Create your account Already have an account? Email Address. Real Quick. We want to hear what you have to say but need to verify your email. Please click the link below to receive your verification email.
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View All Photos Movie Info. A boozing lawyer Paul Newman takes on a law-firm dean James Mason , the Archdiocese of Boston and the system in general. Sidney Lumet. Richard D. Zanuck , David Brown. David Mamet. May 11, Paul Newman Frank Galvin. Charlotte Rampling Laura Fischer. The movie is populated with finely tuned supporting performances many of them by British or Irish actors, playing Bostonians not at all badly. Jack Warden is the old law partner; Charlotte Rampling is the woman, also an alcoholic, with whom Galvin unwisely falls in love; James Mason is the ace lawyer for the archdiocese; Milo O'Shea is the politically connected judge; Wesley Addy provides just the right presence as one of the accused doctors.
The performances, the dialogue, and the plot all work together like a rare machine. But it's that Newman performance that stays in the mind. Some reviewers have found The Verdict a little slow-moving, maybe because it doesn't always hum along on the thriller level.
But if you bring empathy to the movie, if you allow yourself to think about what Frank Galvin is going through, there's not a moment of this movie that's not absorbing. The Verdict has a lot of truth in it, right down to a great final scene in which Newman, still drinking, finds that if you wash it down with booze, victory tastes just like defeat.
Note : I have left this last paragraph just as I originally wrote it, because that is how the movie played for me. Several readers wrote to argue that his cup contained coffee, and that in their opinion he had stopped drinking.
In I had a chance to ask Paul Newman, and he said: "Coffee. My reading of the scene is valid for me, I believe, even if it's wrong. To some degree we must complete all works of art in our own imaginations. Pauline Kael Review The camera sits like Death on the dark, angled images of this anguished movie about a Boston Irish lawyer, played by Paul Newman , who was hurt by those closest to him and became a booze-soaked failure. Lest anybody miss the point, the director, Sidney Lumet , puts dirges on the sound track.
When the lawyer goes into court to fight the powerful Archdiocese of Boston, his faith in the judgment of the ordinary people who sit on the jury enables him to redeem himself. It's a Frank Capra setup given art-film treatment. There's plenty of drizzle and brown gloom.
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