Paul Newman @ 100: "The Verdict"

by Nick Taylor

First thing’s first: HAPPY (belated) BIRTHDAY PAUL NEWMAN!!!! Everyone say “Happy Birthday Paul!!” in the comments. As I said when giving backstory on my first Newman installment, Sidney Lumet's The Verdict was one of my first encounters with the actor’s filmography. Even admitting my many, many blind spots, I think it’s fair to say The Verdict stands apart in his retinue of troubled men.

So many of Paul Newman’s characters storm into their films as men to be reckoned with, men capable of announcing themselves as singularly indomitable without saying a word. This is not the case for Frank Galvin, a washed-up, alcoholic lawyer on his last legs. Frank is shorn of the charismatic showmanship Newman wielded so adroitly throughout his career. Instead we’re asked to see him as a failure, a man gunked onto the bottom of the barrel and finally fighting to get out after wasting years wallowing in pity and booze . . . .

We meet Frank in one unbroken shot during The Verdict's opening credits, playing pinball at a crummy bar in the middle of the day with the focused intensity of a man who’s had nothing better to do for a long time. It’s an introduction designed to capture exactly how small Frank is, and the next sequence puts him in an even less flattering light. Frank slips his way into several wakes, pretending to be passing acquaintances of the recently deceased so he can place his business card into the hands of stoic widows. He’s not an ambulance chaser, he’s a goddamn casket chaser, and even this racket gets broken up after the funeral parlor kicks his ass to the curb. So, cue a night of trashing his office and drinking even more.

There’s some hope of salvation for Frank to pay off his debts and retire in dignity, courtesy of his friend and colleague Mickey Morrissey (Jack Warden). It’s a medical malpractice case about a young woman at a well-respected Catholic hospital who suffered complications during childbirth, after which she began choking on her own vomit, was sent into an irreversible coma, and lost her baby. The likeliest culprit is the general anesthesia she was given, along with an unresolved discrepancy around how recently she’d eaten before she arrived at the hospital. The woman’s sister Sally (Roxanne Hart) and brother-in-law Kevin Doneghy (James Handy) are responsible for filing the suit. Her trial is due to start in a couple weeks, though the Doneghy’s and the Archdiocese are willing to settle out of court for a hefty sum.

By all accounts, it’s a case begging to be resolved neatly and quietly. Take the deal, pocket the money, no one’s feathers are ruffled by a trial and everyone gets something out of it. The only problem is that Frank has let this languish on his desk for almost 18 months, and now needs to sprint to get caught up before formal negotiations can begin. So Frank rushes, and Newman plays his flop sweat with sleazy, pitiful desperation. As he collects statements from relevant witnesses, a little twinkle begins to show up in Newman’s eye. Not because he’s back in the saddle or anything romantic like that, but because it looks as though this really will be as easy to wrap up as Mickey promised. There’s enough of a case to make the Catholics sweat, which means enough of a case for Frank to make his money and go back to a cushy life.

David Mamet’s script throws an unexpected wrench in Frank’s scheme, giving him an epiphany of moral clarity roughly one third of the way into The Verdict. It’s a nearly silent scene, punctuated by the flash of a Polaroid camera. Frank photographs the comatose woman lying in her hospital bed, and he’s suddenly, overwhelmingly ashamed of how he’s leering over her like a vulturre. She’s rotting away in that bed, and all anyone can do is calculate how they’ll profit off this tragedy. When Frank goes to his appointment at the Archdiocese's office, he’s still completely wrecked by this moment of clarity. As if in a daze, he tells them he is refusing their deal, the case will go to trial, and he will get justice for his client. The lawyers are almost as befuddled as he is.

What’s miraculous about all of this is how Newman, in concert with Lumet and Mamet, ensures this revelation is not the end of Frank’s characterization. There’s still the immense physical and psychic toll of the uphill battle he’s chosen to fight, a battle which quickly becomes much, much harder to win. What looked like a good case on paper quickly suffers after a key witness goes on vacation. This plus the wily machinations of the defense attorney (James Mason), the overly-scrutinous behavior of the judge (Milo O’Shea), and the arrival of a glacial, beautiful woman into Frank’s life (Charlotte Rampling), all of whom present new complications with the power to overwhelm him all by themselves, let alone as a seemingly combined collision of misfortune and opportunity.

Newman is not someone I’d have imagined to play a man on the verge of a nervous breakdown. There’s no room for matinee charm to cloud the role, no space to inflate Frank as a symbol or archetype. Even when Frank is described as just another money-grubbing suit in a sea of unreliable white collars, Newman’s sweaty, stubbled performance ensures Frank is never representative of a type of guy. Instead, he burrows deeper into regret, long-neglected mettle, abject self-pity, and desperate, angry determination to get a win for his client and himself. Frank’s growing moral certainty would not work if Newman didn’t commit to the cost and effort this mission exerted on his soul. I spent so much of this rewatch thinking of Newman's Frank Galvin in conversation with Marrk Ruffalo's powerful anti-charisma in Dark Waters, and with Charles Laughton nearly keeling over during the most roiling testimonials of Witness for the Prosecution. Like those men, Newman shows us how this specific case has kicked a dormat goodness into such an overdrive it might turn around and cause him to break beyond repair.

Nor would The Verdict work if Frank's morality was suddenly manifest as saintly self-righteousness. This guy’s a good lawyer, which means a lot of petty lies and abrasive interviews to get what he wants from potential witnesses. Frank’s also more than rough around the edges, up against inhospitable opponents, and out of practice at presenting himself in a mannerr suitable before the court. When he vents at the judge's bullying behavior, Newman makes these tirades ugly and self-sabotaging rather than crowd-pleasing denounements against petty injustice. There's some vindication to seeing Frank fully self-possessed and willing to push against being railroaded, but he's treading deep in dangerous waters for acting up the way he does. I admire Newman's commitment to making Frank so unappealing in key ways, somehow easy to root for without ever being great company. His relationship with Rampling reflects this dynamic further - his appreciation for her company functioons equally as grinning satisfaction he's bagged such a beaut, without seeming to consider why she's into him. When the hat drops, it's ugly, and Newman forbids us from being comfortable with how he dismisses her from his life.

But Newman's commitment to Frank's humanity doesn't solely manifest in his failures. When Frank gets a breakthrough, his enthusiasm is palpable. When he faces his client's family after turning down the initial deal, he's unexpectedly receptive to their outrage, and his attempts to comfort Sally when she asks about his odds are more sincere than his half-drunk assurances about a slam-dunk case. When he delivers his closing statement, he's hollowed out and weirdly spontaneous in a way I had no idea Newman could muster. Hell, I didn't know Newman's piercing eyes could look so fundamentally cloudly, so exhausted. You end up rooting for Frank, not out of some contract obligation between a star and his audience, but because Newman earns our investment in this man as fully as Frank earns the trust of his jury. It's an incredibly honest piece of acting, one of the most insight portraits of emotional bankrupcy I've ever witnessed on the big screen. It's inspiring how Newman continued to grow and challenge himself as an artist for his entire career. This counts as one of many career achievements in his indelible portfolio, but for my money, it might be his best.

Paul Newman Centennial Tributes:

• The Early Roles (1954-1959)
• The Hustler (1961)
• Hud (1963)
• Cool Hand Luke (1967)
• Sometimes a Great Notion (1971)
• The Sting (1973)
• Slap Shot (1977)

Comments

[Mr Ripley79]

I'll keep my comment simple.

Simply his best.

[jules]

I agree that this is Paul's best - and maybe one of the best movie star performances ever.

[Mr Ripley79]

All the effort you guys are putting into these posts makes me sad that only 1 or 2 people comment,Is Tik Tok and the like stopping people visiting here.