Blu-ray Review: The Paradine Case

Distributor: Kino Lorber

Release Date: May 30, 2017

Region: Region A

Length: 01:54:16

Video: 1080P (MPEG-4, AVC)

Main Audio: 2.0 English DTS-HD Master Audio (48 kHz, 1556 kbps, 16-bit)

Subtitles: English SDH

Ratio: 1.37:1

Bitrate: 23.92 Mbps

Notes: This is the film’s North American Blu-ray debut.

“Robert Hichens [who wrote the original novel] also wrote ‘The Garden of Allah,’ ‘Bella Donna,’ and many other novels; he was famous in the early part of this century… Let’s go over some of the apparent flaws of that picture.” —Alfred Hitchcock (Hitchcock/Truffaut, 1966)

This quote from Alfred Hitchcock’s legendary interview with François Truffaut reveals an underlying dissatisfaction with The Paradine Case that probably has as much to do with the painful experience that he had making the film for David O. Selznick than with any perceived deficiencies in the finished film. The project was an assignment that Hitchcock chose out of a number of possible properties for the simple reason that it was the least objectionable. To put it simply, he owed the producer one more film before he could escape what he saw as the producer’s tyranny. Luckily, the director found certain aspects of the story appealing.

“What interested me in this picture was to take a person like Mrs. Paradine, to put her in the hands of the police, to have her submit to all their formalities, and to say to her maid, as she was leaving her home between the two inspectors, ‘I don’t think I shall be back for dinner.’ And then to show her spending the night in a cell, from which, in fact, she will never emerge. There is an echo of that situation in The Wrong Man. It may be an expression of my own fear, but I’ve always felt the drama of a situation in which a normal person is suddenly deprived of freedom and incarcerated with hardened criminals. There’s nothing to it when a habitual law breaker, like a drunk, is involved, but I am intrigued by the contrast in shading when it happens to a person of a certain social standing.” —Alfred Hitchcock (Hitchcock/Truffaut, 1966)

Such material relies heavily on appropriate casting which was an element of the film’s production that Hitchcock found particularly problematic.

“First of all, I don’t think that Gregory Peck can properly represent an English lawyer… I would have brought in Laurence Olivier. I also considered Ronald Coleman for the part. For a while, we hoped we might get Greta Garbo to make her comeback in the role of the wife. But the worst flaw in casting was assigning Lois Jourdan to play the groom. After all, the story of The Paradine Case is about the degradation of a gentleman who becomes enamored of his client, a woman who is not only a murderess but also a nymphomaniac. And that degradation reaches its climactic point when he’s forced to confront the heroine with one of her lovers, who is a groom. But that groom should have been a manure-smelling stable hand, a man who really reeked of manure… [Selznick] had Louis Jourdan under contract, so I had to use them, and this miscasting was very detrimental to the story.” —Alfred Hitchcock (Hitchcock/Truffaut, 1966)

The director claimed that Robert Newton would’ve made a much better André Latour, and one can immediately understand how his casting would change the dynamic. What’s more, it is impossible not to agree that Peck isn’t particularly believable as an English solicitor. More interesting, however, is a point that sometimes becomes confused in various writings about the film. Readers should pay close attention to the fact that Hitchcock mentions that he wanted Greta Garbo to portray Gay Keane (Anthony Keane’s wife)—and not Mrs. Paradine. Books, articles, and essays are split as to which role she was offered, and it seems like the confusion lies in the fact that MGM had tried in vain to bring the Robert Hichens novel to the screen in the early to mid-thirties as a vehicle for Greta Garbo. Greta Garbo was the biggest star in the Hollywood galaxy at that time, and she would have no doubt been offered the role of Mrs. Paradine at this point in her career. It seems reasonable that this is the source of confusion. When Selznick dusted off the property over a decade later as a potential project for Alfred Hitchcock, Garbo had retired from acting and was a decade older. On this occasion, she would’ve been more appropriate for the role of the wife. In other words, she had been offered both roles at two very different stages in her life. Of course, this is conjecture based on everything that is currently known about the production.

In actuality, Hitchcock preferred to cast Ingrid Bergman in the role of Mrs. Paradine (and Selznick probably would’ve agreed). Bergman had a special fondness for Hitchcock, but she had grown to bitterly resent Selznick and didn’t want to work with the producer again. It was up to Selznick to manufacture another Bergman and Alida Valli was the product of those efforts. Valli actually does a rather good job in her role as does the star-studded supporting cast.

As the film’s casting was already being compromised by Selznick’s “tradition of quality” meddling, Hitchcock and Alma were busy working on a draft of the screenplay so that the producer could see how much the film would cost. Luckily, the Hitchcock team had eighteen inches of abandoned screenplays that were written a decade earlier to guide them. In fact, Patrick McGilligan suggests that their draft was essentially a 195-page amalgam of these previous scripts. In fact, in Hitchcock’s Notebooks, Dan Auiler provides a detailed chart chronicling the evolution of the script, and it suggests that the final draft of the screenplay maintains much that was in the original Hitchcock draft. However, other writers were instrumental in bringing The Paradine Case to the screen.

“…I recommended James Bridie, a Scottish playwright who had a big reputation in England as well. He was in his early sixties and a very independent man. Selznick brought him to New York, but when he wasn’t met at the airport, he took the first plane back to London. He worked on the script in England and sent it over to us; the arrangement wasn’t too successful. But Selznick wanted to do the adaptation himself; that’s the way he did things in those days. He would write a scene and send it down to the set every other day—a very poor method of work.” —Alfred Hitchcock (Hitchcock/Truffaut, 1966)

Hitchcock doesn’t mention that Ben Hecht made some minor contributions to the script before Selznick took over, but it seems more than likely that his contributions were undone by Selznick’s insistence on adding paragraphs upon paragraphs of constant decorative dialogue directly from the original novel.

“The Selznick rewrite inevitably slowed production. Hitchcock would ‘see those blue pages in the morning and he would just retreat to his bungalow,’ Gregory Peck recalled; ‘in all fairness to Hitch, the dialogue was invariably worse, not better.’ As the actors memorized their new lines, Hitchcock revised his prearranged setups to accommodate the changes. Meanwhile, a studio car sped the rewrite, four and five pages daily, to Joe Breen; only after the censorship office approved the alterations could Hitchcock begin. ‘So very often we didn’t shoot anything until eleven o’clock or twelve o’clock or even until after lunch,’ Peck said. Hitchcock naturally resented the violation of his sense of order. Moreover, the tension between producer and director cause an undesirable imbalance between director and actors, director and crew.” —Leonard Leff (Hitchcock and Selznick, 1987)

To make a long story short (something that Selznick rarely did), the script had a lot of unfortunate issues that were only compounded by the Selznick rewrites. The source material was already rather convoluted and efforts should’ve been made to simplify the complicated murder plot that served as the backstory. Hitchcock admitted in later interviews that he “was never too clear as to how the murder was committed, because it was complicated by people crossing from one room to another, up and down a corridor. I never truly understood the geography of that house or how she managed the killing.”

Instead of allowing such things to overwhelm him, Hitchcock concentrated on elements of the production that were of greater interest to him—especially those concerning the Old Baily sequence.

“In London, Hitchcock and Ahern asked a prominent judicial wig and robe maker to add Paradine to his case load. Hitchcock also attended a session at Old Bailey, sketchbook in hand. He intended to rebuild the most famous of English criminal courtrooms and, like Selznick, insisted on accuracy; he even persuaded the Keeper to permit a camera crew to film the vacant court. Talking with reporters later, Hitchcock emphasized the preparation that he would bring to the picture. ‘As I watched the judge,’ the director said, ‘I even knew what lens I would use to photograph him.’ Hitchcock projected imperturbability, utter confidence, [and] supreme knowledge.” —Leonard Leff (Hitchcock and Selznick, 1987)

Unfortunately, some of the verisimilitudes that Hitchcock tried to work into the film were undone by Selznick’s insistence upon glamor at the expense of realism.

“Selznick wanted both Valli and Ann Todd smartly dressed in The Paradine Case. Hitchcock cautioned Selznick that English audiences would laugh at Mrs. Paradine if she wore clothes obviously beyond the means of a wealthy English woman in postwar London; the producer snapped that he would not drape Valli in suits that a moviegoer could find ‘in Dubuque and in Dallas.’ Hitchcock conceded the point, partially because he shunned confrontation. When Selznick chose an enormous brocade dressing gown for Ann Todd, which she deemed inappropriate, the director suggested that she take up her dissatisfaction with the producer.

‘I marched into Selznick’s office,’ Todd later recalled. ‘Mr. Selznick, I don’t think I want to wear this dressing gown; a husband and wife in their bedroom alone. I wouldn’t be wearing a brocade.’ ‘Yeah, you would.’ ‘Well, I don’t like it and you brought me all these thousands of miles from England and told me, “We’re very real with our films.”’ So he said, ‘People in Arizona have got to know you’re rich.’” —Leonard Leff (Hitchcock and Selznick, 1987)

The producer’s insistence on a glamor also compromised Hitchcock’s intended chiaroscuro lighting designs for the film. For the director, the proper mood was more important than presenting an actor in a flattering manner.

“Director of photography Lee Garmes felt caught between Selznick’s increasing involvement in bringing glamor to the picture and Hitchcock’s demand for harsh tonality. Although in earlier years Selznick let the director guide the cinematographer, the producer himself had written pointedly to Garmes about elements of footage that needed correction. He paid fastidious attention to his nascent stars. Striving for a chiaroscuro effect, Hitchcock ordered Jourdan photographed in shadow (Latour being a shadowy figure); Selznick ran the rushes and ordered the Frenchman brought into the light, especially so that filmgoers could see his best feature, his eyes. Garmes tried to strike a middle path but succeeded only in bringing both Selznick and Hitchcock down on him. In a memorandum to the director about the flat photography, Selznick wrote:

‘There is no shading or attempt to photograph Jourdan interestingly as there was the first few days, and if we’re not careful this will be true of Valli. In filling in light for the eyes, [Garmes] failed at his objective and lost what he had before. I can’t figure out for the life of me why he can’t give us eyes that are not black sockets that give us nothing.’

The problem may have been that Selznick perceived Garmes as Hitchcock’s man, while Hitchcock perceived him as Selznick’s man.” —Leonard Leff (Hitchcock and Selznick, 1987)

The producer and director were constantly at odds as their agendas and creative visions clashed, resulting in scenes having to be re-shot to the producer’s specifications (often with yet another re-write including dialogue that was even more ornate than the previous pages). Ann Todd remembered one particularly difficult sequence that never made it into the final picture in its original form.

“In one scene, as Ann Todd recalled in her memoirs, a camera tracked her smoothly as she entered the front door of her house, called up to her husband (Peck), doffed her coat and kicked off her shoes, ran upstairs two flights, entered her sitting room, and made a long telephone call, all the time speaking nonstop to Peck, ‘who was off-screen with his feet up reading his few lines.’ Thereupon—with the camera still rolling—Peck entered the frame, and ‘we had a long and elaborate love scene to play…’

‘We had to film all [of] this thirty-five times! First the front door kept sticking,’ the actress recalled, ‘then there were many difficulties with the camera crane that had to follow me all the way up the stairs, then the trouble for camera, microphone, etc., getting through the doors—either I went too quickly or the camera was too slow, and various people on the set had to crouch on the floor to pull away the furniture as the camera and I passed. Last of all, on the twentieth take, I started to forget my lines and we had to go right back to beginning again. I think it was a marvelous notion of Hitchcock’s because it gave [a] flow of continuity to the scenes. Unfortunately, it was mechanically very nearly impossible to hold for so long.’

Also, unfortunately, the producer hated it. After seeing the dailies, Selznick stormed down to the set screaming, ‘we’re not doing a theater piece!’ The Hitchcockian approach was ordered re-shot ‘conventionally.’ For this and other attempts at bravura camera work, the producer took pains to curtail Hitchcock’s vision during filming and editing.” —Patrick McGilligan (Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light, 2003)

The director was obviously already experimenting with longer takes—an approach that he exercised exclusively in Rope and rather liberally in Under Capricorn. In fact, other scenes that were similarly complicated also went unused.

“Hitchcock’s favorite effect, he told Charles Higham, had been planned since the inception of The Paradine Case. Keane (Peck) and Sir Simon Flaquer (Charles Coburn) walk toward the camera as they enter Lincoln’s Inn, part of the venerable fourteenth century London Law complex. The two are seen entering the building, closing the door, walking up the stairs, turning a corner, heading along a landing into an office, and then continuing into the office, all without a single cut. It was one of Hitchcock’s signature composites, using background projection and a treadmill, elaborately planned and prepared in advance by his second unit in London. Opposed to the long take, and oblivious [to] the significance of Lincoln’s Inn, Selznick deleted the shot. Indeed, Selznick threw out so much of Hitchcock’s second unit footage that any sense of English atmosphere the film might have boasted was lost.” —Patrick McGilligan (Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light, 2003)

The film might have lost its English atmosphere, but it still maintains a few brilliant directorial touches. The most famous shot in the film is one that the director was especially fond of discussing.

“There is an interesting shot in the courtroom when Louis Jourdan is called in to give evidence; he comes into the courtroom and must pass behind Alida Valli. She’s turning her back to him, but we wanted to give the impression that she senses his presence—not that she guesses he’s there—that she actually can feel him behind her as if she could smell him. We had to do that in two takes. The camera is on Alida Valli’s face. And in the background you see Louis Jourdan coming down to the witness box. First, I photographed the scene without her; the camera panned him all around, at a two-hundred-degree turn, from the door to the witness box. Then, I photographed her in the foreground; we sat her in front of the screen, on a twisting stool, so that we might have the revolving effect, and when the camera went off her to go back to Louis Jourdan, she was pulled off the screen. It was quite complicated, but it was very interesting to work that out.” —Alfred Hitchcock (Hitchcock/Truffaut, 1966)

Production finally wrapped on March 13, 1947, after 92 days of soul-crushing production—and thanks to Hitchcock’s multi-camera approach to shooting the courtroom scenes (there were sometimes as many as four cameras shooting different aspects of the scene at one time), the production came in $100,000 under budget. Unfortunately, this bit of good luck and saved money was squandered by Selznick’s insistence on numerous retakes after Hitchcock turned in his rough cut of the film later that April.

Interestingly, Bernard Herrmann was considered to score the picture, but this job would eventually be handed to Franz Waxman. Waxman provided the sort of syrupy score that Selznick adored and Hitchcock loathed—another excuse for the director to be unhappy with the final result.

It was now time for Selznick to put his new Hitchcock film out into the world and he spared no expense. The film was given an aggressive advertising campaign that exceeded the publicity budget of any other Selznick release. The campaign brought people to the box-office, but critical reception of the film was mixed. The general consensus about the film was that its drama was limited by the courtroom setting but that Hitchcock adequately met the challenge and elevated the less than satisfactory material. Praise was often somewhat unenthusiastic and seemed to be given grudgingly. It is interesting, however, to report that the American critics responded enthusiastically to Gregory Peck’s performance and didn’t seem to notice that the actor was horrendously miscast in the role. One critic went as far as to say that it was “one of the most successful of his characterizations.”

Most of the reviews concentrated on Alfred Hitchcock’s direction while sometimes—as in a review published in Harrison’s Reports—giving him more praise than he really deserved.

“Alfred Hitchcock’s superb directorial skill, the powerful dramatic material, and the superior performances by the entire cast make The Paradine Case one of the most fascinating murder trial melodramas ever produced. It should turn out to be a foremost box-office attraction, not only because of the players’ drawing power but also because it is a gripping entertainment from start to finish…” –Harrison’s Reports (January 03, 1948)

Bosley Crowther’s review in the New York Times was more reserved in his praise of the director and quick to criticize Selznick’s script.

“With all the skill in presentation for which both gentlemen are famed, David O. Selznick and Alfred Hitchcock have put upon the screen a slick piece of static entertainment in their garrulous The Paradine Case. Call it a mystery melodrama—although that doesn’t fully wrap it up… Call it a courtroom tragi-romance or a husband-wife problem play. Call it, indeed, a social satire and you won’t be entirely wrong. For it’s all of these things rolled together in one fitfully intriguing tale, smoothly told through a cultivated camera…

…It isn’t a significant story, not by any means, except in so far as it hints at the old Adam that lies deep in men, beneath all their polished manners and solid virtues and barristers’ wigs. And it isn’t a too-well-written story—for the purposes of cinema, that is—in the script derived by Mr. Selznick from Robert Hichens’ fifteen-year-old fiction book… But, as usually happens, Mr. Hitchcock has made the best of a difficult script and has got as much tension in a courtroom as most directors could get in a frontier fort. His camera has a way of behaving like an accomplished trial lawyer, droning quietly along with routine matters and suddenly hitting you dramatically in the face. And out of his cast of brilliant actors, he has pulled some distinguished work… Needless to say, the picture’s décor has a rich, enameled, David O. Selznick look.” -Bosley Crowther (New York Times, January 09, 1948)

A review published in Film Bulletin follows suit and offers reserved praise for the director while criticizing the producer’s indulgent script. More interestingly, however, is the enthusiastic praise given to Peck’s performance.

“David O. Selznick’s latest production, The Paradine Case, while not a wholly satisfying film, spells good box-office because of its top-flight cast (including a couple of highly-publicized Selznick discoveries), the renown of director Hitchcock, and a typically smooth [and] glossy DOS veneer. It has the pull and it offers above-average entertainment for all types of audiences. As the British barrister who becomes infatuated with the women he is defending on a murder charge, Gregory Peck again demonstrates the wide range of his talents. He excels his performance in Gentleman’s Agreement…

…Selznick’s screenplay is somewhat static and a bit overlong. Limited as he is, Alfred Hitchcock, in his inimitable style, has squeezed considerable suspense and movement out of the tale by his unique effects and fluid camera. Lee Garmes’ photography is superior, and recording by Richard Van Hessen and music by Franz Waxman are all that could be desired.” -Film Bulletin (January 19, 1948)

One imagines that the American critics weren’t as sensitive to Peck’s inappropriate casting as were the critics in Britain when the film was released in that country a year later (after Rope). This review for The Times seems to support this theory as it directly criticizes Peck’s casting.

 “Mr. Alfred Hitchcock in Rope asserted himself by the paradoxical method of withdrawing his immediate influence and allowing the camera to photograph the play without interruption; in The Paradine Case he is once more content to remain in the background and relies on a faithful transcription, of criminal proceedings at the Old Bailey to provide sufficient excitement and suspense. The Paradine Case runs for 110 minutes, and for what seems nearly half of that time the film is, as it were, a report of a trial… The film deserves the greatest credit for the care it brings to the business of conveying the feel and atmosphere of an English murder trial… Mr. Peck is never quite convincing and Valli is content simply to exist and allow her loveliness to act her part for her. Miss Ann Todd [has an] adequate command of the domestic interludes, and the film for long stretches at a time is mercifully free of all musical accompaniment. A moderate Hitchcock; no more, no less.” -The Times (January 17, 1949)

Some British critics never quite forgave Hitchcock for exporting his talents to Hollywood, and their reviews for his American films sometimes focused on their perceived degradation of the director’s work since moving to America instead of on the film in question. Such a review was published in the Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette. It was titled, “Has ‘Hitch’ Lost His Touch?”

“Through a series of glossy popular films, Hitchcock has sunk his sense of real cinema in his efforts to cater for popular taste. He has produced faulty films and the greatest of these is The Paradine Case. There was little or no suspense and no relation to reality in a film which looked as if it had been produced by Cecil B. de Mille [and] not our Hitchcock.” –Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette (April 11, 1949)

It is interesting how what would eventually amount to four perceived failures in a row can cause certain critics (like the hack employed by the Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette) to turn on a director. Most of the director’s best films were still ahead of him. Today, The Paradine Case is usually seen as one of Alfred Hitchcock’s rare misfires—an overwritten and verbose soap opera. However, there are fans among us who will declare the film an underrated and misunderstood work with interesting thematic material that looks forward to such later masterworks as Vertigo. Both assessments are absolutely accurate.

The Presentation:

4 of 5 MacGuffins

Kino Lorber houses the Blu-ray disc in the standard Blu-ray case with a reversible sleeve that makes use of two different vintage one-sheet designs. The first side makes use of the 1949 French Re-release poster design (with some slight alterations) while the second side showcases the original American one-sheet. It is surprising to find that we actually prefer the French Re-release design better than the American one sheet—which actually looks forward to the terrible “faces of the stars” concept that has debased poster and video art for years. One might argue that the French design could also be criticized for doing this, but it at least does it in a more interesting manner than is usual.

There is also a small Kino Lorber catalog included that features box art for many of their other releases.

The disc’s static menu also utilizes vintage poster artwork (albeit different artwork than is utilized for the two covers). Music from the film’s opening credit sequence can be heard underneath this image. The result is aesthetically pleasing.

Picture Quality:

3.5 of 5 MacGuffins

The image transfer of The Paradine Case is something of a mixed bag. It is an improvement over the previous DVD releases, but there are too many inconsistencies to make any blanket statements about various aspects of the image. It can exhibit incredible sharpness and wonderful gradients between the various shades present in the film’s often interesting cinematography. Blacks can be incredibly rich as the result of the sometimes excellent contrast. However, the quality of all of these elements is somewhat erratic. Scratches, dust, dirt, hairs and other anomalies occasionally appear throughout the film, but these never become distracting. There is a reasonably well resolved layer of grain that adds a filmic texture to the proceedings and the film looks beautiful in motion.

Sound Quality:

4 of 5 MacGuffins

The Mono DTS-HD Master Audio mix is a decent reflection of the film’s original audio and is well served by the lossless transfer. There are no noticeable anomalies (such as distortion, hiss, hum, crackle, or dropouts) and the various elements are clearly rendered for a film of this vintage. Some viewers might wish for a more dynamic sonic experience, but purists will be thrilled to experience the intended original mix in an HD environment.

Special Features:

3.5 of 5 MacGuffins

Audio Commentary with Stephen Rebello & Bill Krohn

Stephen Rebello and Bill Krohn give a generally informative blend of theoretical analysis and “behind the scenes” context to the film that covers a wide variety of relevant topics. The most interesting of these usually involve the troubled creative struggle that resulted from a producer and a director at cross purposes. Both tend to agree that the physical evidence and information that is known about this struggle suggest that much of the producer’s meddling was at the expense of the film. There are a few interesting tidbits of information that will be of special interest to anyone coming to the track without any prior knowledge about the film’s backstory. Particularly revelatory will be the comments made about some of the scenes deleted from the final film. The commentary is surprisingly affectionate as both Rebello and Krohn are of the opinion that the film deserves reevaluation despite its flaws.

Isolated Music and Effect Track

This feature will please anyone who admires Franz Waxman’s score for The Paradine Case as viewers can now experience it free from the distraction of other elements of the soundtrack. It certainly illuminates Waxman’s contribution to the film be it good, bad, or indifferent.

Interviews with Cecelia Peck and Carey Peck – (08:36)

It was a nice surprise to find this new featurette included on the disc. This short segment finds Cecelia and Carey Peck discussing The Paradine Case and their father’s work on the film as well as his relationship with Alfred Hitchcock. It isn’t a particularly frank discussion as neither mentions that Peck named the film as the one that he would like to burn. They instead talk generally about the qualities that their father brought to the film and the trouble that Hitchcock had during the production due to Selznick’s interference.

François Truffaut Interviews Alfred Hitchcock (Audio) – (12:57)

These excerpts from François Truffaut’s landmark interview with Hitchcock are illustrated by stills and marketing materials for the film. They make an extremely fascinating listening experience. In fact, this may be the disc’s strongest supplemental feature as it finds the director speaking frankly about the film’s weaknesses without completely disregarding the film. The included excerpts are rightly restricted to portions of the interview that have a bearing on The Paradine Case.

Peter Bogdanovich Interviews Alfred Hitchcock (Audio) – (15:57)

The excerpts from Peter Bogdanovich begin with the two men discussing The Paradine Case but eventually trail off into other more general territory. Those portions regarding the film cover some of the same territory as the Truffaut interview but in less detail. It is nice to have this featured on the disc, but it might prove a slight disappointment to anyone expecting it to live up to the previous Truffaut segment.

Original Theatrical Trailer – (01:43)

This might be the first time that the film’s trailer has been included on a home video release. It is interesting to see how this rare misfire was marketed. One can’t say that it is particularly interesting as it falls in line with other trailers during that period, but it is good to have it included for posterity if for no other reason.

1949 Lux Radio Broadcast (Audio) – (56:37)

Vintage radio adaptations are always interesting and this one is no exception. This particular adaptation fairs better than similar adaptations of Hitchcock films due to Selznick’s loquacious screenplay. The Paradine Case is a rare instance of Hitchcock’s visual treatment being almost secondary to the dialogue, and this radio adaptation only serves to highlight this fact. Interestingly, Joseph Cotton’s casting as Anthony Keane is even more problematic than Gregory Peck’s casting in the film. Alida Valli and Louis Jourdan both reprise their roles.

Restoration Comparison – (01:27)

Kino Lorber also provides a restoration comparison that highlights the film’s digital restoration for this release.

Final Words:

Alfred Hitchcock’s final picture for David O. Selznick is decidedly more a Selznick production than a Hitchcock picture. It is undoubtedly one of the director’s rare misfires but it is an extremely interesting misfire that is worthy of repeated viewings.

Review by: Devon Powell

Source Material:

Staff Writer (Harrison’s Reports, January 03, 1948)

Bosley Crowther (New York Times, January 09, 1948)

Staff Writer (Film Bulletin, January 19, 1948)

Staff Writer (What the Newspaper Critics Say about New Films: The Paradine Case, Film Bulletin, January 19, 1948)

Staff Writer (Gloucestershire Echo, January 14, 1949)

Staff Writer (The Times, January 17, 1949)

Staff Writer (Has Hitch Lost His Touch, Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette, April 11, 1949)

Peter Bogdanovich (The Cinema of Alfred Hitchcock, 1963)

François Truffaut (Hitchcock/Truffaut, 1966)

John Russell Taylor (Hitch: The Life and Times of Alfred Hitchcock, 1978)

Leonard Leff (Hitchcock and Selznick: The Rich and Strange Collaboration of Alfred Hitchcock and David O. Selznick in Hollywood, 1987)

Dan Auiler (Hitchcock’s Notebooks, 1999)

Patrick McGilligan (Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light, 2003)

Lesley L. Coffin (Hitchcock’s Stars, 2014)