Talk:Witness for the Prosecution (1957 film)

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Merge[edit]

I do not believe this should be merged with a topic that describes films. The purpose of this article is to discuss the short story, which has been made into a play and a few films. If you merge this item into the film section, should you then also merge the play atricle?--xodarap 14:09, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I revised this article to be more clearly about the film, with a link to the short story article and the play article. Her Pegship 01:56, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Legality[edit]

In the "Legality" section, the link to "spousal privilege" is to an article about spousal privilege in the United States. But, this story takes place in England. In the U.S., someone cannot be compelled to testify against his/her spouse, but may volunteer to testify against his/her spouse. Is the situation the same in England? If different, the article should clarify this, and, possibly, not link to the article on the U.S. law. Alternatively, the article about spousal privilege could/should be updated to reflect the law in other countries. SlowJog (talk) 18:30, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Good call. Given that the article on spousal privilege still deals exclusively with American law, which is irrelevent to an English court case, I'm removing that segment from the "Legality" section. It can be restored if someone provides a source showing that spousal privilege is (or was at the time) equally applicable in England. Aridd (talk) 11:40, 15 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Upon reviewing the last two years' revisions in the Legal Inaccuracies, I prescribe removing it the whole section. Most entries have been unsourced commentary or well-meaning conjecture accompanied by weasel phrases like "It could be argued that..." and "Legal scholars are surprised to find..." That last one is unintentionally amusing: legal scholars wouldn't be surprised by an incident that occurred in a fictional court room.VeryWetPaint (talk) 07:47, 30 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

American?[edit]

This article starts with "Witness for the Prosecution is a 1957 American courtroom drama film ...". It might be an American film, but it is an English courtroom drama. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.53.226.160 (talk) 02:37, 10 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Adaptation[edit]

I've tagged the Adaptation section as needing references. Although the material is interesting and even amusing, it is little more than anecdotal without references. If none appear within a few weeks and no objections are registered here, I'll delete the section. JimVC3 (talk) 03:43, 13 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It's been over two months and there seem to be no objections to the deletion of this completely unreferenced section. I'll delete it. JimVC3 (talk) 19:16, 22 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

They missed it[edit]

Marlene Dietrich's character on oath has her testimony believed because of the penalty of jail for lying on oath. However she had ignored the penalty of jail for committing bigamy, which was not mentioned.(84.236.152.71 (talk) 18:27, 24 February 2015 (UTC))[reply]

I'm sure I've seen a version where someone points out that she didn't commit perjury as she correctly gave evidence to begin with and later correctly only admitted to writing the letters. But I can't find the version.. I'm sure also it doesn't end with the murder or the other woman but it's been a long time.. John Decker NZ (talk) 21:29, 15 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Revisions vs. Short Story and Play[edit]

I may not have scrutinized this article sufficiently to find what I believe to be missing ,and maybe it's there, but is it not true that the short story and play end with evil in triumph? Something like "and how much FURTHER a woman must, therefore, go, my dear learned counsel, to get an acquittal for a husband she knows is GUILTY", drop mic on stage, walk off, curtain. Is it not true that the producers wanted USA release on this? Is it not true that they knew that a movie in which evil triumphs couldn't get the Seal? Isn't that why they add all the extra pages of script in which the evildoers "get what's coming to them"? It may be that I have imagined all of this but someone who knows more about how to research backgrounds on films, or on Agatha Christie, should look into this, because the ending of the movie has clearly been rewritten vs. the short story to make it "moral". Or is this all the machinations of my memory being false with me?2604:2000:C682:B600:4A9:1C47:C70A:4A54 (talk) 18:45, 8 April 2016 (UTC)Christopher L. Simpson[reply]

External links modified[edit]

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Witness for the Prosecution (1957 film). Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 14:34, 6 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]