The Paradine Case

The Paradine Case is a 1947 American film noir courtroom drama film, set in England, directed by Alfred Hitchcock and produced by David O. Selznick. The screenplay was written by Selznick and an uncredited Ben Hecht, from an adaptation by Alma Reville and James Bridie of the novel by Robert Smythe Hichens. The film stars Gregory Peck, Ann Todd, Alida Valli, Charles Laughton, Charles Coburn, Ethel Barrymore and Louis Jourdan. It tells of an English barrister who falls in love with a woman who is accused of murder, and how it affects his relationship with his wife.

Mrs. Paradines solicitor Sir Simon Charles Coburn hires Anthony Keane Gregory Peck, a brilliant and successful barrister, to defend her in court. Although Keane has been happily married foryears, he instantly becomes deeply infatuated with this exotic, mysterious, and fascinating client. Keanes kindhearted wife Gay Ann Todd sees his infatuation, and although her husband offers to get off the case, she presses him to continue. She knows that a guilty verdict, followed by Paradines hanging, will mean that she will lose her husband emotionally forever. The only way that she can regain her husbands love and devotion is if he is able to obtain a not guilty verdict for Mrs. Paradine.Meanwhile, Keane himself starts to focus his legal efforts on Colonel Paradines mysterious servant, Andr Latour Louis Jourdan. Consciously or unconsciously, Keane sees Latour as a suitable scapegoat on whom he can pin the crime of murder, but this strategy backfires. After Keane has pressured Latour in court, triggering an angry outburst, word comes that Latour has killed himself. Anna Paradine is coldly furious that Keane has destroyed Latour, who was in fact her lover. On the witness stand she tells Keane she hates him, and that he has murdered the only person she loved. She goes so far as to say that she poisoned her husband in order to be with Latour. ........

Source: Wikipedia