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Bringing Bogie ut of theCourtroom Closet:Law and Lawyers in FilmProf Rennard Strickland

Casablanca (19421is a film of mystery andromance. Warner Brothers cultivated thataura of intrigue not only about the placeCasablanca but also about the man Rick.His mysterious past is among the reasonsCasablanca is ranked by general audi-ences as the most popular American filmof all time. Questioning Rick's past seemsalmost subversive, somehow disloyal,unfair to the memory of HumphreyBogart. And yet, there is no doubt aboutit: the mysterious Rick Blaine was a law-yer-a criminal attorney at that!

Rick, surely the most famous cine-matic bar owner in history, was alsoadmitted at the bar of justice. Beforecoming to Casablanca for the waters,Rick had been a practicing attorney firstin New York City and then in Paris. Theold Hollywood studio system was good atdoing what it set out to do; in Casablancait sought to obscure the past of the manBogart immortalized on the screen. Andthe film did just that! It is absolutelyimpossible from the film itself to estab-lish Rick's legal credentials. ClosetingRick was a deliberate decision by thefilm's producers.

The proof that Rick was a lawyer hasbeen buried for almost half a century inyellowing corporate files at WarnerBrothers. There it is-in black andwhite-in the "memorandum of screendevelopment" from Stephen Karnot,dated 12/11/41. Just as the movie audiencedoes not know Rick's legal background,the other film characters-save one-donot know, either. The studio memo setsforth Rick's past as follows:

Rick Blaine ... is a taciturn man ofmystery to his patrons .... Only Rinaldo,French Prefect of Police, Rick's professedfriend, knows of his background as afamous criminal lawyer [and of] his aban-donment of career and flight into oblivion.

Prof. Rennard Strickland

Law is a kaleidoscopic profession.No doubt lawyers have a greatmany varied images of themselvesand of their enterprise.

Even after you know that Rick is alawyer, there are only the slightest ironichints in the film, a subtle clue or two thatmight suggest his abandoned profession.Rick, when negotiating the sale of hiscafe to Blue Parrot owner Sydney Green-street, represents his own interests aboutas badly as most lawyers do when repre-

senting themselves. Rick has also takenup running a bar and restaurant, thelawyer's favorite way to personal bank-ruptcy. Howard Koch, one of the screen-writers who transformed the script forthe unproduced play Everybody Comes toRick's into the Oscar winning scenario forCasablanca, was a Columbia Law Schoolgraduate and a member of the New YorkBar.

Rick is not the image most Americansconjure up when they think of silverscreen lawyers. There are many morefamous screen attorneys. Over more thaneight decades the motion picture industryhas produced courtrooms full of famousand infamous barristers. Cinematic law-yers have shaped the way Americans

think about the legal profession. In anexchange between the beautiful youngassistant prosecutor and a handsomeyoung partner in an early episode of"L.A. Law," they talk about their lawyerrole models. "Like Gregory Peck in ToKill a Mockingbird, (1962),"he says. Andshe replies, "No, with me it was SpencerTracy in Inherit the Wind (1960)."

Film and law seem to have beenmade for each other. Real-lifecourtroom dramas are themselveshighly theatrical,

If the legal profession is to compre-hend the public view of law and lawyers,American film must be seen as more thana pleasant or even challenging diversion.For the image of the lawyer-indeed eventhe behavior of lawyers themselves-hasbeen significantly influenced by themagic of the great stereopticon. In fact, ithas become so pervasive that the ABASection on Tort and Insurance Practicerecently published a guide for the use offilms in teaching professional responsibil-ity to law students. The future impact onboth the public and the bar will be fargreater with more than sixty-five percentof American television householdsequipped with VCRs. Ours is a visualculture and the moving image on thescreen is a primary transmitter, indeed,creator of the culture.

Law is a kaleidoscopic profession. Nodoubt lawyers have a great many variedimages of themselves and of their enter-prise. And like the blind man and the ele-phant, the image of the professiondepends upon whether you are graspingthe trunk or the tail. Lawyers themselveslive and work in a world of law, court-rooms, conferences, and libraries. For thevast majority of America's non-lawyersthe longest, most continuous and sus-tained association with legal institutionsis in the world of film. It is not in thebright light of a line-up, or from the jurybox, or even standing before a judge thatthe average American learns about law.Most Americans know Perry Mason;fewer recognize even the name of Wil-liam Rehnquist.

Law dominates American life and cul-ture in ways not even imaginable to ourfounding fathers and certainly not com-prehensible to the vast majority of ourfellow inhabitants of this planet. There iscontinuing truth in Alex de Toqueville'soft-quoted dictum that in America,sooner or later, all questions becomelegal ones. It is also true, as Garth Jowetthas asserted, film is a democratic art.Thus, it is only natural that in a societylike America, the filmmaker and the law-maker would have both a natural affinityand a jealous distrust.

Most screen lawyers are not as roman-tic as Rick and most settings are consid-erably more mundane than Casablanca.Nonetheless, some of the screen's mostmemorable moments belong to the law.Film and law seem to have been madefor each other. Real-life courtroom dra-mas are themselves highly theatrical.John Waters, the quintessential outlawmoviernaker, notes in his autobiographi-cal observations, Shock Value (1981),that"trials are the most entertaining of allAmerican spectacles, always better thanthe theater, and except for a few special

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cases, much more thrilling than themovies."

Almost from the beginning, trialscenes provided the infant film industrywith an ideal setting in which the crudetechnology of the pioneer cinema couldfunction. As sound came, the limitedmobility of the courtroom added to thealready attractive elements of filming ona single set; fixed points of sound andlighting combined with apt opportunityfor dramatic revelations.

For almost a century now, law andlawyers have appeared in every imagina-ble genre of film. Not surprisingly, screenlawyers most frequently appear in crimeand criminal dramas. Attorneys, and par-ticularly judges, dominate many tales ofwestern settlement and empire building."True-life dramas," especially famous,notorious or sensational trials, providerich opportunities for filmmaking. Screenbiographies based on the lives of famouslawyers and jurists are fairly common.The classic social problem film oftenturns upon a legal issue or solution; thecourt-martial is a convenient forum forthe greater issues of war and peace. The

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so-called "Woman's Picture" is oftenentangled with a question of justice.Finally, the screen comedy, particularlythe old-fashioned screwball kind, hascontributed significantly to our image oflaw and lawyering. Futuristic or sciencefiction films often raise questions of jus-tice. A great epic spectacular or even amusical may address legal issues. Thebest law and lawyer films are about thestruggles of mankind, of great men andwomen and especially of ordinary citi-zens in extraordinary situations.

Humphrey Bogart's screen roles illus-trate the range of film images of attor-neys. The romantic Rick in Casablancawas neither Bogart's first nor last per-formance at bar. His lawyers reflect theextremes to which the screen has sub-jected the legal profession. Bogart's law-yers have varied from a crusading Tho-mas E. Dewey-like D.A. protecting BetteDavis when she turns "state's evidence"in Marked Woman (1937)to the crooked"mouthpiece" who steals tainted moneyfrom his co-conspirator James Cagneywhile Cagney "takes the rap" in AngelsWith Dirty Faces (1938).

The screen's view of the dichotomy inthe legal profession-of Society Lawyer(1939)versus Criminal Lawyer (19511-isno more vividly portrayed than in Knockon Any Door (1949).Bogart is forced toresign from his blue chip, silk stockinglaw firm when he chooses to representyoung accused murderer John Derek.Years ago, Bogart had representedDerek's innocent father and now believeshe provided an inadequate defense in theearlier trial. In a classic drama supportingthe sociology of the forties and fifties,Bogart himself, the legal profession, andsociety at large bear the heavy burden fora good boy gone bad because his father'slawyer was too busy. Appropriately,Bogart's last screen performances forWarner Brothers is as the lawyer crusad-ing, once again, against the kingpins ofthe underworld in The Enforcer (1951).

An even more striking black versuswhite view of law and lawyers comes outof MGM. No actor has ever, in such ashort time, played such contrasting law-yers as did Louis Calhern, the great oldworkhorse of Mayer's stable. Both TheAsphalt Jungle and The Magnificent Yankeewere released in 1950. Calhern's crooked

Small-town lawyer Finch is thequintessential American attorney.He is the dream that young law-yers hope to achieve and that oldlawyers regret having lost.

lawyer in The Asphalt Jungle master-minded a great caper and is then so dis-reputable that he double-crossed his part-ners in crime. An indelible screen imagefrom this film of the early fifties is sleazylawyer Calhern with Marilyn Monroe,his devastatingly beautiful mistress. Filmhistorians believe the chance for Calhernto recreate his stage role of Oliver Wen-dell Holmes, Jr. in The Magnificent Yankeewas Metro's reward to a faithful contractplayer. Certainly, his portrayal of thisheroic United States Supreme Court Jus-tice is one of the great idealized portraits

of law and lawyers in American life. Seenback-to-hack, The AsphaltJungle and Mag-nificent Yankee show the legal professionat its best and worst.

Like Bogart, there are others whosescreen ethos has made them ideal cine-matic lawyers. Spencer Tracy, HenryFonda, James Stewart, Gregory Peck,Paul Newman, and Robert Redford haveall grown up on the screen as lawyersmoving from the green kid just out of lawschool to the beaten-down, threadbare,struggling hack or the wise and wilysenior counselor. Of this group, SpencerTracy deserves to hold the screen lawyerprize for sustained service at the bar, hav-ing started as a young lawyer in It's ASmall World (1936j, sparred with his attor-ney-wife Katherine Hepburn in Adam'sRib (1949j, financed from his legal prac-tice the elaborate wedding of daughterElizabeth Taylor in Father of the Bride(1950j,and repented of dubious behavior,giving his life to atone, in The PeopleAgainst O'Hara (19511.Toward the end ofhis career, Tracy brought to the screen an

inspired recreation of a fictionalizedClarence Darrow in mortal combat withWilliam Jennings Bryan in Inherit theWind (1960) and the troubled judge pre-siding over Nazi war crime trials inJudgment at Nuremberg (1961).

A superb contrast in the various areasof law can be seen in Paul Newman'ssociety lawyer, a big-firm tax manipula-tor, in The Young Philadelphians (1959),and in his failed slovenly alcoholic ambu-lance chaser of The Verdict (1982). Simi-larly, Jimmy Stewart's perpetually blush-ing bridegroom lawyer in Made for EachOther (1939) has become not only olderbut wiser by the time of Anatomy of aMurder (1959). Redford similarly goesfrom the bridegroom associate in Barefootin the Park (1967) to the aging seducer inLegal Eagles (19861·

No actor ever felt the impact of thelaw from more angles than Henry Fonda.He is a struggling frontier barrister inYoung Mr. Lincoln (1939), a grizzly oldspecial counsel in The Boston Strangler(1968), a juryman. in TWelve Angry Men(1957), the eloquent everyman cowpoke

confronting mob violence and lynchingin The Ox-Bow Incident (1943), and thetragically doomed prison escapee in YouOnly Live Once (1937).

Gregory Peck's Atticus Finch in To Killa Mockingbird (1962) is a cinematic highpoint in the idealized portrayal of a law-yer as guardian of society. Small-townlawyer Finch is the quintessential Ameri-can attorney. He is the dream that younglawyers hope to achieve and that old law-yers regret having lost. Atticus is anideal, a standard of aspiration. He is, inso many ways, like a modern AbrahamLincoln, who is the favorite Americandream of the country lawyer. Lincoln,himself, has been brought to the screenin films as heroic as John Ford's YoungMr. Lincoln (1939) and as poetic as RobertSherwood's Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940).If lawyers could choose but one film toargue for their role in civilization, surelyit would be To Kill a Mockingbird.

Satirical comedies give us a less ideal-ized lawyer. The attorney's professionalpomposity is perfect for pricking andnobody did it better than Groucho Marx

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as lawyer Thaddeus J. Loophole in At TheCircus (1939). What a crazy, helter-skelterview of the self-important lawyer! And,of course, in the end Groucho saves theBig Top from bankruptcy while singing"Lydia the Tattooed Lady." In I'm NoAngel (1933) Mae West argued her owncase as her own attorney before a Judgeshe attempted to seduce. This courtroomscene is one the true masterpieces of hercomedic art. The antics of lawyer EdwardEverett Horton and his fraudulent effortto establish adultery provide the back-ground for The Gay Divorcee (1934), thefirst Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogersstarring -vehi cle.

What red-white-and-blue-bloodedAmerican does not thrill at the thoughtof the American judicial system in actionin Bedtime for Bonzo (1951)? District Attor-ney Jess White (destined to find morepermanent employment as a May tagrepairman) and college professor RonaldReagan (also to go on to other work) pleabargain the fate of the burglarizingchimp. Highlights among lawyer come-dies include the slapstick of the ThreeStooges in Disorder in the Court (1935);the Disney dilemma of our webfootedhero in Donald Duck on Trial (1947); theflower child antics of attorney Peter Sell-ers in I Love You, Alice B. Toklas (1968);the revelation of good-natured lawyerJack Benny that he can win only by beingnasty in The Meanest Man in the World(1943); the vaudeville sketch in whichEdward Arnold propelled his client froma $2 fine for littering to death row inZiegfeld Follies (1946); and that wonder-fully free-spirited trial at the conclusionof the musical Oklahoma! (1955) whenCharlotte Greenwood threatens the terri-torial marshal with a fabricated tale ofhis indiscretion. And is there anythingsillier than Benji in The Shaggy D.A.(1976)?

The lawyer both acts and is actedupon but seems always trapped byforces and fates which suggest theinevitability of defeat.

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Comedies like The Fortune Cookie(1966)and the more recent From the Hip(1987)raise serious questions about theactual operation of the legal system.Much of the popularly expressed dissat-isfaction with the tort system flashesacross the screen in The Fortune Ccohie.Director Bill Wilder tells the tale of JackLemmon, the television sports camera-man, who is knocked down on the side-lines at a football game and of WalterMatthau, his ambulance-chasing lawyer!brother-in-law, who pressures this plain-tiff into exaggerating damages. Thus, anall-tao-familiar and popularly perceivedlawyer-client-insurance company battleis underway. Matthau won a much-deserved Oscar for his on-target portrayalof the lawyer as shyster.

The struggle of law and outlaw is cen-tral to the world of the movie west. Thebroader American historical myth of aNew Eden and of the coming of civiliza-tion to a savage land is intimately tied tothese same struggles. The words "law,""lawless," "code," and "justice" appearin the titles of hundreds of westerns, par-ticularly the backlot "B" Saturday Mati-nee films of Johnny Mack Brown, RexAllen, the "Durango Kid," Whip Wilson,Tim Holt, and even Roy Rogers, GeneAutry, John Wayne, George O'Brien, andHopalong Cassidy. Standards of the Cow-boy genre include films with titles such

as Buck jones' Law for Thcson (1936)orJohnny Mack Brown's Oklahoma justice(1951).Just a few of the titles tell thestory: Ghost Town Law, Gun Law, Six-Shooter justice, Land Without Law, Law ofthe Range, Lawless Range, Lawless Prairie,and Beyond the Law.

In fact, there were probably morewomen lawyers on the screen inthe thirties than there were in thecourtroom. And yet the portrayalwas tragically stereotypic.

All of the elements of law and orderin the settlement myth come together inJohn Ford's often underrated masterpieceThe Man Who Shot Liberty Valence (1962).Jimmy Stewart as Ransom Stoddard is theyoung lawyer come west to Shinbonewith law books in a valise. John Wayneas Tom Doniphon is the old hand readywith a gun, standing alert to protect hisgirl and even the greenhorn lawyeragainst the likes of Lee Marvin as LibertyValence. In the opening scene Valencehas stopped the stage, robbed the passen-

gers, and then to show his contempt forStoddard actually tears the pages fromhis law books. In the final showdown, ofcourse, it is Wayne with his gun who pre-pares the way for the election of the newUnited States Senator, Ransom Stoddard,known forever as "The Man Who ShotLiberty Valence." As the newspapermannotes when the aged senator tries to setthe record straight, "This is the West andwhen the legend becomes fact, we printthe legend." Law and lawyers are centralto that legend.

The world of film nair or the dark cin-ema is inhabited with as disreputable abunch of lawyers as ever flickered acrossthe screen. Some of these attorneys arescheming and corrupt, like Calhern inThe Asphalt jungle (1950),others are theweak pawns of powerful, devastatingfemme fatales like Barbara Stanwyckwho dominates Kirk Douglas in his veryfirst film The Strange Love of Martha Ivers(1946).From works like The Lady fromShanghai (1948),through the neo-noirclassic Body Heat (1981),the lawyer usesand is used in a world which is dark, bit-ter, and doomed. The lawyer both actsand is acted upon but seems alwaystrapped by forces and fates which sug-gest the inevitability of defeat. Thesepowers of moral corruption have rarelybeen more chillingly combined than inthe story of John Garfield's ambitiouslawyer in Force of Evil (1948).

Race, the great and haunting issue ofAmerican civilization, has tested law andlawyers on the screen just as it continuesto test every fiber of American society. ToKill a Mockingbird (1962)is, in the finalanalysis, about how law and lawyers dealwith justice and race. Similarly, Intruderin the Dust (1949)places Faulkner's law-yer Gavin Stevens in the center of anexploding racial crisis. Hollywood'sreflection of society's cowardice, fear,and ambivalence on the hard questionsof race surfaced in Twentieth CenturyFox's cutting of John Ford'sjudge Priest(1934).In the version Fox ultimatelyreleased, Will Rogers seems to be theclassic Southern benevolent bigot whileold Steppin Fetchit comes across as theworst of the shuffling stereotypic Blackclowns. Unfortunately, the sensitivemotion picture Ford believed he createdcannot be reconstructed because aftertheir editing Foxdestroyed the film nega-tives. Ford later remade the picture asThe Sun Shines Bright (1953)because inthe earlier version Foxhad excised thepivotal and humanizing scene in whichJudge Priest saves the Black from lynch-

Courtroom films are notoriouslyinaccurate. Critics and lawyerswho see these errors generally passthem over in the name of dramaticlicense. Occasionally the mistakesare so irritating and grossly inerror that the profession rises up.

ing. Whatever his presidential record oncivil rights, the actor Ronald Reaganstood up as the battling Southern liberaldistrict attorney fighting the Ku KluxKlan in Storm Warning (1950).

Many of the best films about law wererooted in real cases or actual incidents.Dramatic conflicts as in the Dreyfus casehave appeared again and again in criti-cally praised films such as The Life ofEmile Zola (19371and the lesser I Accuse!(1958).Maxwell Anderson's Winterset11936),the popular poetic verse renditionof a Sacco-Vanzetti-like drama, was liftedalmost directly from stage to screen,bringing to Hollywood experienced NewYorkactors who were prepared to handlethe difficult dialogue. Films such as

Inherit the Wind (1960),Witness for theProsecution (1957),The Night ofJanuary16th (1941),Rope (1948),and The Magnifi-cent Yankee (1950)originated on the stage.Others such as Twelve Angry Men (19571were first performed on television. Theepic historical dimension of the stagedrama A Man for All Seasons (1966)translated into a truly great film whichraises fundamental questions about lawand the law's servants.

Films recognize that in law there isboth formal and informal authority. FritzLang captured this in the classic M (1931),his transcendent view of the ambivalenceof justice in Berlin between the wars.Peter Lorre, the tragic child murderer, iscornered by criminals of the Berlinunderworld who bring him to trial intheir own way and on their own terms.ValLewtons's Bedlam (1946)is an equallysatisfying depiction of the ironic turningof justice. Boris Karloff, as the sadistichead of the infamous English asylum, istried by inmates including Anna Lee whohas been falsely committed by Karloff.The question of the law, and what law is,troubles the trapped passengers in AlfredHitchcock's Lifeboat (1944).John Hodiakasks: "Whose law? We're on our ownhere. We can make our own law."

Not surprisingly, the broadest juris-

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prudential questions come to the screenin the filming of important literaryworks. Not often successful films, eitherartistically or financially, the "classics"nonetheless ask significant questionsabout law. The dilemma is there on thescreen in Herman Melville's Billy Budd(19621and the film of William Golding'sLord of the Flies (1963)raised the frighten-ing spectre of the origins and enforce-ment of law. Ronald Coleman made law-yer Sidney Carton truly heroic in A Taleot Two Cities (1935);there was somethingmagical about Lillian Gish's Hester in thesilent adaptation of Nathaniel Haw-thorne's The Scarlett Letter (1926).Onewishes that The Brothers Karamozov(19581could have been more lively butthe ultimate questions of the GrandInquisitioner are still shattering.

Women and minorities as lawyers arenot as new to the screen as might be sus-pected. In fact, there were probably morewomen lawyers on the screen in the thir-ties than there were in the courtroom.And yet, the portrayal was tragicallystereotypic. The Lady Objects (19381is the"lady lawyer" film at its most absurd. Itis a sort of combination musical, gang-ster, romance in which, as the one-sheetadvertising poster proclaims, "a man [is]on trial for his life with his wife [as]hismouthpiece." The message was as sexistas it was mixed. A promotional card forThe Lady Objects, distributed to theatersto be displayed in the lobby, containedthe following confession of the lawyer/wife: "Gentlemen of the Jury! If my hus-band murdered this other woman ... Iam to blame! I've been a success as alawyer ... but a failure as a wife!" Is itany wonder that women must still strug-gle against such images? Another film ofthis time which featured a female lawyeris Claire Trevor's Career Women (1936)which proclaimed in the one-sheet, "All IWanted was Love and Now They Want toHang me!"

Adam's Rib (1949)was probably thebest of the Tracy/Hepburn comedies andpresents a woman as a lawyer who is theequal of her lawyer husband. As the end-ing reveals, it is still a product of thetimes. As early as Bordertown (1935)theHispanic lawyer came to the screen buthardly in a flattering profile. With fewexceptions, early black attorneys werethe intellectual and moral equivalents ofAmos 'n Andy's Lawyer Calhoun.Recently black lawyers have been subjectto the same screen indignities as whiteattorneys in films like Action Jackson

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(1988) about a Harvard Law School grad-uate who takes law into his own power-ful fists. By contrast, the young blacklawyer in A Soldier's Story (1984) is bright,sensitive, and determined.

With the present law school enroll-ment hovering around fifty percent menand fifty percent women, the screen hasfound the attorney a glamorous role forrising lady stars and aging superstars.Most actresses of the seventies andeighties have had a turn at the counsel-or's table. Included are: Glenn CloseJagged Edge (1985); Debra Winger, Le~alEagles (19861; Luci Arnez. SecondThoughts (1983); Ellen Barkin, The BigEasy (1986); Goldie Hawn, Seems Like OldTimes (19801; Cher, Suspect (19871; andMary Kay Place, The Big Chill (1983).Many of these roles must have been asembarrassing to the actress as to the legalprofession. A few have been funny in thebest tradition of the old slapstick comedyand others have been gripping, eventouching. On the whole, even the thirtiesmay have been better times for the cine-~a's women at the bar. It is hard to imag-me even poverty-row quickie producersturning out anything as tasteless, stupid,and insulting to men, women, and as-sorted racial groups including the Ameri-can Indian as Second Thoughts (1983).

Law students and law professors havenot escaped from harsh and comic treat-ment. The most widely known drama ofthe law school is Paper Chase (19731forwhich John Houseman won the Best Sup-porting Oscar as Professor Kingsfield,Ronald Coleman's professor in The Talkof the Town (1942) makes it to the UnitedStates Supreme Court but only after CaryGrant and Jean Arthur expose him to ascrewball comedy treatment of thehuman side of justice. Even earlier,Edward G. Robinson played a law schooldean who becomes a public prosecutorto rid his city of corruption in I Am theLaw (1938). Joy in the Morning (1965) is aro.mantic but hard-edged story of a strug-glmg law student and his young wife.Diary of a High School Bride (19591 is atypical domestic drama about a lawschool husband and his teenage wife. Anot-so-typical story is j.D,« Revenge(19761, a black horror melodrama inwhich the body of law student Lou Gos-sett is possessed by a dead gangster'svengeful spirit. The entertaining To Racethe Wind (19801 follows a blind student

Movies-especially social dramasabout law and lawyers-are, likeall of us, products of a specifictime.

through Harvard Law School and the pas-sage of his bar examination.

Movies-especially social dramasabout law and lawyers-are, like all of us,products of a specific time. Jack Nichol-son's drunken philosophical lawyer inEasy Rider (1969) is a late-sixties film ver-sion of alienation, just as his impotentbarrister seeking the service of RitaMoreno in Carnal Knowledge (1971) is aman of the fifties seen through the eyesof the early seventies. The Court-Martialof Breaker Morant (1979) may be about anAustralian in the Boar Wars but it isinformed and inspired by the experiencesof the Vietnam era. The somber blackand white feature Trial (19551, centeredon the defense of a Mexican boy accusedof a murder-sex crime, is a McCarthy eraanti-communist drama questioning the

balancing of individual interest in favorof a larger party cause in the use of alegal defense fund. An eighties filmmakerintroduced the crisis of the "biologicalclock" of lawyer Mary Kay Place in TheBig Chill (19831. Film historians have?etailed the fifties consensus psychologyin Twelve Angry Men (1957) and the fortiesview of juvenile crime in Knock On AnyDoor (1949). Film-time and real-timecame together in the fall of 1981 whenSandra Day O'Connor was named to theUnited States Supreme Court just as JillClayburgh's First Monday In October(19811about the first woman on the highcourt was being released.

The seventies and eighties sense of thefailure of criminal justice and the aliena-tion of the middle classes was apparenton the movie screen before it wasreflected at the ballot box. Dirty Harry(1971) is probably the most visible butcertainly not the most violent of the reac-tions against the public perception of"turn 'em loose justice." Titles like DeathWish (1974), and Victims (1982) conveythe anger and hostility of these dramas.In a more specifically legal setting arefilms like And Justice for All (1979) inwhich attorney Al Pacino fights against

In truth, most lawyers are neitherSantas nor sadists. Much of theeveryday life of the Americanattorney is not the stuff of whichdreams are made; the real worldlawyer is rarely the subject ofcinematic drama.

the horrors of a legal system in which theends of justice seem lost. The Star Cham-ber (1983)chronicles the perceived fail-ures of courts which let loose guilty crim-inals on "mere technicalities" and theeven greater dangers when officers of thelaw surrender to lawlessness. Cape Fear(1962)is a thoughtful and disturbinglyviolent enactment of the dilemma of thelawful lawyer versus the lawless outlaw.In this film, Gregory Peck is driven toviolate the law by the savagery of RobertMitchum whom he has earlier sent toprison. The human dimensions of thisfilm make Peck's seeming inevitablechoice of violence truly devastating.The film provides a brutal contrast withTo Kill a Mockingbird which was releasedin the same year.

Courtroom films are notoriously inac-curate. Critics and lawyers who see these

errors generally pass them over ~nthename of dramatic license. Occasionallythe mistakes are so irritating and grosslyin error that the profession rises up. Sid-ney Lumet's highly acclaimed film TheVerdict (19821was at the center of suchserious attacks from the bar. Attorneyswere particularly offended at the cavaliermisuse of the rules of evidence, thepatently absurd conduct of James Masonand his twelve associates, and the heroPaul Newman's own less-than-ethicalbehavior. The concern was not that thescreen must portray all lawyers as pure,or the legal system as incorruptible, butthat the arena in which the struggles takeplace ought at least reasonably to reflectthe way the law itself operates.

In conclusion, let us look at contrast-ing movie images of a lawyer as shysterand a lawyer as savior. A pair of classicfilms released in 1947,Kiss of Death andMiracle on 34th Street, represent theextremes of the screen lawyer. Kiss ofDeath is remembered as the nair classicin which Richard Widmark laughinglypushed Mildred Dunnock in her wheel-chair down a flight of stairs. And yet thereal villains of Kiss of Death are DistrictAttorney D'Angelo, played as a corrupt-ing destroyer of the downtrodden, andthe backroom lawyers who protect thecriminal and betray the law itself. Theselawyers are at best an extremely dirtygray. The ethical failure of Brian Donlevy

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as the district attorney sets into motionthe tragic and escalating dilemma of ex-con Victor Mature. In Miracle on 34thStreet, bachelor lawyer John Payne savesEdmund Gwenn's Santa Claus, restoreslittle Natalie Wood's faith, and marriesher mother, the beautiful MaureenO'Hara. And all of this occurs because asKris Kringle's attorney, Payne gets intro-duced into evidence in Santa's sanityhearing several tons of Santa's mailwhich the U.S. Post Office delivers tothe courtroom.

In truth, most lawyers are neither San-tas nor sadists. Much of the everyday lifeof the American attorney is not the stuffof which dreams are made; the realworld lawyer is rarely the subject of cine-matic drama. In a society dominated bythe mass media, the Atticus Finches andThaddeus J. Loopholes inevitably seizethe screen, understandably overshadow-ing the lawyer who reads abstracts, fileswills, and defends shoplifters. For thisreason the intelligent and entertainingdocumentary is so important.

The legal profession, indeed, the orga-nized bar itself, ought to be about thebusiness of supporting the production ofvivid and interesting accounts of theworld of law and lawyering. The profes-sion needs first-rate, highly accurate por-trayals of the important real world workof the American lawyer. The last thingwe need is chauvinistic lawyer propa-ganda trumpeting a message that theworld is getting better and better becausein America the lawyer is our most impor-tant product. . .

Production of honest, entertaining.and exciting films is possible; there couldeven be an audience, particularlythrough educational television. It is notaccidental that the most gripping-indeed, the most disturbing and energiz-ing-documentaries of the post-War eraare the work of Frederick Wiseman, alawyer turned cinema master. The com-mercial film is not able to be so honest.Without documentary film, the lawyer inthe mind's eye will no doubt remain abizarre combination of Groucho Marx,Gregory Peck, and Mae West.

One of the reasons for the extremelylow level image of the legal professiontoday is that too many lawyers like H~m-phrey Bogart's Rick have closeted then.humanity and are reluctant to reveal thisside of their professional as well as per-sonallife. Rick says, "I don't stick myneck out for nobody." We love Rick andwe love the movie Casablanca preciselybecause that is not so-and we know thatit is not so.