August 19, 2016

A New Version of "Witness for the Prosecution" May Be Headed For the Screen

Ben Affleck may remake Witness for the Prosecution for Fox, according to the Hollywood Reporter.  Billy Wilder famously made the Agatha Christie short story into a hit film in 1957; it starred Tyrone Power, Charles Laughton, Elsa Lanchester, and Marlene Dietrich. Diana Rigg and Beau Bridges starred in a 1984 adaptation for television (Dame Diana taking the Marlene Dietrich role. There was also another 1949 television version.

Below, a selected bibliography on Witness for the Prosecution and the law.


Chase, Anthony, Lawyers and Popular Culture: A Review of Mass Media Portrayals of  American Attorneys, 11 Law and Social Inquiry 281 (April 1986). 

Corcos, Christine Alice, Legal Fictions: Irony, Storytelling, Truth, and Justice in the Modern Courtroom Drama,  25 U. Ark. L. Rev. 503 (2003).

Papke, David Ray, Conventional Wisdom: The Courtroom Trial in American Popular Culture:  Essay, 82 Marquette Law Review 471 (1999). 


Papke, David Ray, American Courtroom Trial: Pop Culture, Courthouse Realities, and the Dream World of Justice, 40 South West Texas Law Review 919 (1999).

Singer, Eliot A., The Whodunit as Riddle: Block Elements in Agatha Christie, 43 Western Folklore 157 (July 1984).

Links available if you are a subscriber to Hein Online or JSTOR.

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