The Verdict

 

Sidney Lumet's riveting courtroom thriller The Verdict was released 40 years ago and retains its relevance.

Paul Newman starred as a drunken Boston lawyer who takes a wrongful injury case against a powerful hospital that is owned by the archdiocese. His first inclination is to sue for a quick payoff for himself and his client but his conscience kicks in and with the aid of another older attorney, played by Jack Warden, he raises the stakes and pushes for a negligence jury trial before a judge who dislikes him (Milo O'Shea). The church's attorney is a witheringly condescending Boston Brahmin played by James Mason. Lumet, Newman and Mason were all nominated for Oscars.

The sizzling Oscar-nominated screenplay was by David Mamet (Glengarry Glen Ross, American Buffalo) and based on a novel by Barry Reed. It is a familiar story of professional and spiritual redemption for Newman's Frank Galvin but it is also a morality tale that reminds us that "powerful" does not always (if ever) mean "right."

One of the high points in the film was the arrival of an anesthesiologist with a small women's clinic to challenge the hospital's narrative. It is clear when Dr. Thompson (played by Joe Seneca) deboards from the bus and is shown to be an older Black man that Galvin -- and presumably the audience -- is disappointed and fearful that Mason's viperous Ed Concannon will devour the gentle, old man on stand. It doesn't quite work out that way but the sequence is memorable in its depiction of pervasive race and class prejudice.