- Underrated Alfred Hitchcock drama with chequered production history
- Courtroom intrigue with barnstorming performance by Charles Laughton
- Siren Alida Valli makes fools of the men in her life, including Gregory Peck
- Creative battles fought between the Master of Suspense and David O. Selznick
- The director conceded defeat and his overbearing producer took control
- Selznick cut the film by a third and most of the footage is sadly lost
Note: this is part of an ongoing series of 150-odd Hitchcock articles; any dead links are to those not yet published. Subscribe to the email list to be notified when new ones appear.
The Paradine Case: Making of a Masterpiece; Collectors Guide, Part 2: Home video, 3: Soundtrack
Belgian 1962 re-release poster
A barrister (Gregory Peck) becomes infatuated with his beautiful client (Valli) who is accused of murdering her wealthy, blind husband. Believing in her innocence, he jeopardises his career and marriage as he plots and schemes to save her at any cost. The fourth collaboration between the Master of Suspense and producer David O. Selznick (who also wrote the script) is an atypical Hitchcock drama, building suspense through dialogue rather than action and editing.
The Paradine Case is the last of the four films that Alfred Hitchcock directed for independent producer David O. Selznick from 1939 to 1947. Hitchcock was keen to work for an American studio and Selznick was building up a roster of directing and acting talent for his own company after leaving MGM. Rebecca, their first collaboration, was a solid critical and commercial success. Spellbound and Notorious, traded to RKO at an early stage of production, were less kindly viewed at the time.
By 1946 the balance of power between the two men had altered significantly in favour of Hitchcock. His contract was up for renewal and Selznick was anxious to retain him at a time when he was losing stars such as Ingrid Bergman and Vivien Leigh as well as long-time production staff who might otherwise have been able to intervene in the difficulties that were to beset The Paradine Case. The truth was that the era was changing – the studios’ iron grip on their major talent was weakening as directors and actors began to form their own companies. Hitchcock was in the protracted process of forming Transatlantic Pictures with British exhibitor Sidney Bernstein and these negotiations were perhaps a distraction from the film in production.

Caricatured: Charles Laughton, Gregory Peck and Alida Valli in promotional paper sculpture art by Jacques Kapralik
Selznick had originally bought the film rights to Robert Hichens’ 500-page novel The Paradine Case in 1933. Based on two true scandals, the story centres on an enigmatic Danish woman (Mrs Paradine) who is accused of poisoning her blind war hero husband. Her glittering defence barrister (Mr Keane) falls disastrously in love with her. Despite discovering a liaison between Mrs Paradine and her husband’s manservant, Keane persists in conducting her defence upon the premise that the manservant is guilty. Perjured testimony wins Mrs Paradine an acquittal but she commits suicide.
His career in tatters, Keane returns to the arms of his wife. A lecherous and sadistic judge completes the picture. Unsurprisingly, Joseph Breen at the American censor’s office had taken a dim view of a story that portrayed an adulteress and murderess in a basically sympathetic light and who furthermore escaped legal punishment. The British Board of Film Censors was also known to be sensitive about depiction of the judiciary. It was not until 1946 that an acceptable script was submitted in which Mrs Paradine is found guilty by virtue of her own confession in court and duly sentenced to death.
Selznick no doubt saw resemblances with the storyline of Rebecca – an otherwise strong man dominated by a malevolent woman and redeemed by his selfless wife – and hoped to emulate that film’s success. For Hitchcock the film offered the chance to go to England to research the script and to further his dealings with Sidney Bernstein. Thematically, The Paradine Case belongs to that group of Hitchcock films loosely grouped by critic Robin Wood as ‘The Story of the Guilty Woman’. The line stretches back to Blackmail and forward to Marnie. The barrister’s obsessive fixation for his client also anticipates the queasy James Stewart/Kim Novak relationship of Vertigo.
The casting proved problematic. Laurence Olivier, Hitchcock’s first choice, was unavailable for the central role and, with understandable misgivings, Selznick finally cast Gregory Peck as the British barrister. Greta Garbo declined to return to the screen as Mrs Paradine and Ingrid Bergman, increasingly disillusioned with Selznick’s treatment of her, also passed. In the absence of an available star, Selznick’s instinct was to create one. Alida Valli, here credited simply as ‘Valli’, had been an actress since the age of 15, and Selznick believed in her talent and capacity to be the dark temptress.
Hitchcock opposed the casting of the piercingly handsome Louis Jourdan, another European import, as Colonel Paradine’s manservant, lured against his better judgement into an affair with Mrs Paradine. Hitchcock’s initial inclination was to dwell on the degradation of Anthony Keane (Peck) and to present Maddalena Paradine (Valli) as both murderess and nymphomaniac. Thus Keane should have as rival not the suave valet Latour (Jourdan) but, in Hitchcock’s own words, ‘a man who really reeked of manure’. The inclusion of Charles Laughton, Charles Coburn , Ethel Barrymore and Ann Todd added further lustre to a distinguished cast, an object lesson from Selznick on the power of stars.
The script was the product of many hands making heavy work. First, Hitchcock worked on it with his wife Alma Reville and Selznick stalwart Barbara Keon. Then, at Hitchcock’s urging, James Bridle, a Scottish playwright, was commissioned to draft a dialogue script. Delays built up and Ben Hecht, screenwriter on Notorious and Spellbound as well as a frequently consulted – and uncredited – script doctor, made some revisions. Selznick, increasingly volatile and fuelled by arrogance and insecurity, started rewriting dialogue and continued well into production. Overnight script changes had to be sent to Joseph Breen’s office for prior approval, thus delaying the start of shooting until late morning. Hitchcock, a stickler for order and organisation, was not amused.
The production itself suffered delays and cost overruns. Hitchcock had insisted on ceilings being actually constructed rather than matted-in through special effects. The cost for scene design [and the whole film] outstripped that spent on Gone with the Wind (1939). Hitchcock’s growing enthusiasm for elaborate and time consuming tracking shots threatened the shooting schedule but his innovative approach to the final courtroom interrogations saved both time and money. Anticipating the multi-camera coverage of events by television, Hitchcock used as many as four cameras to shoot entire sequences. Innovative, maybe, but the heat and crowded confusion of the set made concentration difficult for the actors.
Hitchcock submitted an initial three-hour cut which Selznick cut by nearly an hour before commissioning his notorious retakes. After an indifferent reception by the press, the film was cut further. Selznick, still sore from the critical drubbing of Duel in the Sun (1946) and keen on retaining the services of Hitchcock, spent massively on the promotion of The Paradine Case but by 1950 the worldwide income from the film was $2.1 million against production and distribution costs of $4.3 million.
- Movie Locations/Hitchcock Zone
- Hitchcock’s London: A Reference Guide to Locations (2009, notes Oct 8-10) – Gary Giblin | review
- The Invisible Art: The Legends of Movie Matte Painting (2002) – Mark Cotta Vaz and Craig Barron; The Paradine Case, The Birds, Marnie and Torn Curtain
Conventional wisdom on The Paradine Case is that it is strictly minor-league Hitchcock – too slow and static, lacking in suspense and handicapped by a ponderous central performance by Gregory Peck. While it would be foolish to disregard these reservations, it would be equally foolish to overlook the interesting peculiarities of the film. The American critic Michael Anderegg has advanced a convincing argument, shorn of some of its psychoanalytical complexity, that all the men in the film are effectively powerless – Keane shatters his career because of his obsession, the blind Colonel Paradine is dead before the film starts, Latour is a guilt-ridden victim and the Judge can only achieve satisfaction by passing a capital sentence.
Although Maddalena seems tailor-made for the deadly female of film noir, the film effectively undercuts that role and Maddalena simply allows Keane to seduce himself with a ridiculously contrived view of her. The strangely perfunctory ending of the film is unsatisfying and fascinating in equal measure. We learn of Maddalena’s fate from an offhand remark by the Judge and witness Keane’s humiliation masquerading as forgiveness at the hands of his wife. The forced happy ending rings even falser when we recall that Gay Keane had earlier prophesied that her husband would be lost to her forever if he abandoned the case and Maddalena were to die. She dies… – Eu Pioneer LD (1994)

Passion killer: Hitch, Ann Todd and Gregory Peck on set. This photo apparently “received second prize in the 4th Hollywood studios still photography show.” – whatever that was; anyone have any further info?
The Paradine Case: Making of a Masterpiece; Collectors Guide, Part 2: Home video, 3: Soundtrack
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This is part of a unique, in-depth series of 150-odd Hitchcock articles.