One of the lesser known films of Hitchcock, "The Paradine Case", stars Gregory Peck as Anthony Keane, a barrister (that's lawyer for us American folks) is called upon to defend a widow accused of murdering her old, rich, and blind husband. Keane is described as brilliant by several characters, including his wife Gay (could you imagine naming your child Gay nowadays?). I'm guessing that if Keane was an American lawyer in the mid 1990's, he would have been part of the dream team in the OJ trial. Gregory Peck, as usual, does an admirable job with this part.

Upon meeting Anna Paradine (Alida Valli), Keane is captivated by her. His captivation grows into his admission to her later on in the movie that he is in love with her. While Mrs. Paradine is rather attractive, her character in general is rather flat. Valli deserves credit for her acting ability in being able to portray an unhappy, unemotional woman. She reveals no emotions until the end of the movie and it seems effective. With that being said, throughout much of the movie, she seems and distant and cold. I had a hard time believing that Keane would be able to fall in love with her, especially with the conversations shown between the characters. It just doesn't seem that interesting to me and it seems more procedural than it is personal. Besides, why would he want to fall in love with her when he has a perfectly good wife waiting for him at home? His wife makes cocktails for him when he gets home from work. What more does a man need?

The remainder of the film is fueled by the infatuation Keane has for Paradine. I have read elsewhere that this infatuation makes him try to pin the murder on Andre Latour, the valet of the late Mr. Paradine and lover of Mrs. Paradine. Some say that his jealousy fuels him to pin the death on Latour. At times this makes sense, at other times, we must remember that Keane is a defense lawyer and his job is to make it plausible to the jury that his client might not be the murderer.

Keane seems to be doing a brilliant job in presenting his case, even making it seem likely that Latour had something to do with Mr. Paradine's death. In a turn of events, Keane loses his luster during the trial. His faults are exposed and perhaps his brilliance isn't quite what it seemed. Either that or he was under that evil spell of love and it made him act like a fool like most humans usually do.

In comparison to the more familiar Hitchcock movies, this movie lacked excitement and had too many holes in the plot to be considered a classic by Hitchcock standards. While this movie was more watchable than the garbage turned out at the local Cineplex, for a Hitchcock movie it was sub par.