Counsellor at Law (1933) on Netflix
George Simon, a successful attorney, once let a guilty client lie in court. A rival lawyer threatens to expose him, and George's wife Cora dreads the public scandal.
- Netflix4.4/5
- IMDb7.5/101,703 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes100%
Plot summary
George Simon grew up poor in a Jewish ghetto on Manhattan's Lower East Side and is now a shrewd and successful attorney. The story covers a few days at a critical point in his life. Earlier in his practice, he let a guilty client take the stand and lie, convinced that freedom could set the man right. Francis Clark Baird, a rival lawyer, has learned of that incident and threatens to expose George, which could cost him his license to practice. Cora, George's socialite wife, is horrified by the prospect of a public scandal and plans to leave for Europe with Roy Darwin. Regina Gordon is his secretary.
Cast
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Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Counsellor at Law (1933)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- John Barrymore's $25,000-a-week salary meant William Wyler had to film all his scenes fast, but what should have taken two weeks took three and a half because Barrymore could not remember his lines; one brief scene took twenty-seven takes before Wyler used cue cards. Heavy drinking also puffed the actor's face, so the makeup crew taped his jowls.
- Carl Laemmle wanted Paul Muni, who had created George Simon on stage, for the film, but Muni turned it down because he feared being typecast as Jewish. Edward G. Robinson, Joseph Schildkraut and William Powell were considered before Laemmle cast John Barrymore against type for his box office appeal.
- Producer Carl Laemmle Jr. paid $150,000 for the screen rights to Elmer Rice's play, an unusually high price tag during the Great Depression, and hired Rice to adapt his own play for the screen.
- Soon after filming started, William Wyler found that much of the material Elmer Rice had cut from his play was needed to build scenes, so he put it back in and worked from both the screenplay and the play script, a method he used again on The Little Foxes.
