Hitchcock was able to do a great deal of portraying of facts and emotions through the actions of his actors and cut down on the amount of title cards needed to project dialog. That’s good. But Hitchcock had little passion for the project from the beginning and was contractually bound to do it resulting in a moderately drab film. That’s bad.

The opening trial sequence was able to cut back and forth between the court room and the back story almost seamlessly and was very well done. That’s good. But the film took a screeching halt after that and we never really cared what happened to anyone from then on out. That’s bad.

Matt and Scott of
The Gods of Filmmaking
www.godsoffilmmaking.com