Verdict (1974)
Directed by André Cayatte

Film Review

For the better part of his career as a film director, André Cayatte was an effective commentator on the the failings of the French judicial system, to the extent that his legal-oriented films played a significant part in influencing public opinion and bringing about the abolition of the death penalty in France in 1981.  By the 1970s, he had said all that he had to say on the matter - in a powerful series of dramas that included Justice est faite (1950) and Nous sommes tous des assassins (1952).  In Verdict, Cayatte is re-treading old ground and tries, perhaps a little too earnestly, to rework his valid arguments against the death penalty as a dark, modern thriller.  The result is a compelling entertainment, but, more concerned with style than substance, the film's moral subtext is somewhat less clear, and less convincing, than in the director's earlier judicial dramas.

In his last-but-one role, Jean Gabin is looking distinctly worse for wear as the committed judge who is driven, by concern for the well-being of his kidnapped diabetic wife (an excellent Gisèle Casadesus), to gently pervert the course of justice - and who can blame him when he is beleaguered night and day by a laughably neurotic Sophia Loren?   Since Gabin's last screen turn would be a comedic one, in the distinctly lacklustre comedy L'Année sainte (1976), this was his last dramatic performance, and, despite the film's not entirely convincing premise, it proves to be one of his finest.  The moral dilemma that Cayatte paints in none too subtle tones is powerfully rendered through Gabin's typically restrained portrayal, which chillingly exposes not only the flaws in the judiciary, but also the apparent ease with which the system can be manipulated to achieve a wished-for outcome.  Justice appears to be what you want it to be, or rather what those who have the power want it to be.

Although it fulfils its author's moral objective, Verdict makes grim viewing and is easily one of the director's more pessimistic films.  A well-constructed courtroom drama ends up as overblown melodrama - not the considered conclusion we might have expected of a serious polemical filmmaker of Cayatte's standing.  (Compare this with the more measured ending to Les Risques du métier and you have no doubt which is the better film.)  It is probably unfair to accuse Cayatte of trading sobriety for populism, but Verdict does occasionally tip over into cheap sensationalism.  There is a lengthy nude sequence that, at the time, would have been considered pornographic, and a shock ending that feels a tad gratuitous.  Sophia Loren was presumably given the lead female role to boost box office receipts, but her melodramatic 'Italian momma' histrionics are completely out of place in the kind of contemplative, realist drama that Cayatte presumably envisaged.  All that the film has to say about the glaring inadequacies of the jury system is contained in a damning sequence in which Gabin effectively convinces each and every jury member that he is about to become complicit in cold-blooded murder.  Everything else is merely crowd-chasing superfluity.

Film Synopsis

André Léoni is put on trial for the rape and murder of his girlfriend Annie Chartier, the daughter of a respectable middle-class couple.  The evidence against Léoni is pretty damning, but he protests his innocence, knowing that if he is found guilty he is likely to be executed.  One evening, the judge leading the trial, Leguen, is visited by Léoni's mother, Térésa, who begs him to intervene to save her beloved son.  Leguen refuses to be influenced in this way in what he knows will be his last case before he retires.  Not long afterwards, the judge returns home to find that his wife Nicole has been abducted.  Térésa then contacts Leguen and tells him that his wife will be returned to him alive only if her son is acquitted.

Concerned for his wife's health (she is a diabetic and needs regular shots of insulin), Leguen has no choice but to cooperate with the kidnappers.  Fully aware that in doing so he is jeopardising his reputation, the judge begins to show greater leniency towards the accused man, never missing an opportunity to stress the weaknesses in the prosecution's case.  Unwilling to allow her husband to dishonour himself to save her, Nicole discards her medicine and accepts her death.  Oblivious to his wife's sacrifice, Leguen takes time to point out to the jury the absurdity of what the French legal system requires of them - to condemn a potentially innocent man to death according to their gut instinct.  This responsibility proves too much for the jury and Térésa gets the verdict she wanted - but at a far greater price than she bargained for...