The Verdict (1982) on Netflix
Frank Galvin, a Boston lawyer drinking his career away, is handed a malpractice case that everyone expects to settle. Seeing Deborah Ann Kaye's condition, he decides to take it to trial.
- Netflix3.9/5
- IMDb7.7/1051,379 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes87%
Trailer
Plot summary
Frank Galvin once had a future as a Boston lawyer; he now drinks and chases accident cases that he mostly loses. His former partner, Mickey Morrissey, hands him a medical malpractice suit to settle. Deborah Ann Kaye choked on her vomit after general anesthesia in childbirth at a Catholic hospital, leaving her comatose, and her sister and brother-in-law, Sally and Kevin Doneghy, mean to cover the cost of her care with the money. A representative of the diocese offers him $210,000. After seeing Kaye, Galvin refuses the settlement and declares he will try the case.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Verdict (1982)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Robert Redford recommended James Bridges as the film's writer-director and had him create successive screenplay drafts, each one further sanitizing the lead character because Redford was concerned about playing a hard-drinking womanizer; when Redford began meeting director Sydney Pollack without telling the producers, they fired him.
- In David Mamet's original adaptation the film ended after the jury left the courtroom, giving no resolution to the Deborah Ann Kaye case. The producers did not believe they could make the film without showing what happened in the trial, and Zanuck met Mamet to convince him to rewrite the ending.
- After reading the various drafts Lumet decided the story's grit was fast devolving, so he told the producers he would do the film, but only with Mamet's original script - which they did not know he was even aware of.
- Future stars Tobin Bell and Bruce Willis both appear in the film in small, uncredited roles as courtroom observers, years before either became well known.
- During production, Newman narrowly escaped serious injury when a stage light weighing several hundred pounds, its supports weakened by overnight rain, broke loose and crashed to the floor only about three feet from where he was standing.
- Roy Scheider, William Holden, Frank Sinatra, Cary Grant and Dustin Hoffman all expressed interest in the project because of the strength of the lead role.
- The film's palette was restricted to autumnal colors with a feeling of age - browns, russets, deep yellows, burnt orange, burgundy reds - which immediately eliminated blue, pink, light green and light yellow; the studio sets were done in those colors too.
