1962: The Trial (92nd)

What else happened this year? Cuban Missile Crisis. Me thinks.

What is the plot - in one sentence? A man is arrested and becomes lodged in the labyrinthine legal system, and struggles to defend himself and find what his suspected crime was.

I don't have time, just spoil it for me? He works hard to rally aid, and defend himself, but he’s eventually blown up in a gravel pit by a couple of idiotic policemen.

What is the meaning of the title? The entire movie hinges around the opaque, Kafka-esque legal system he’s thrown into. and the trial that happens. You’ll notice I said Kafka-esque because it’s based on one of his works.

Here's Norman Bates talking to his uncle, in a gigantic office room that was pretty impressive. I guess.

Anything that's not aged well? Does a woman get slapped around? No, amazingly. It’s directed by Orson Welles though, so he gets to paw at some women it looks like he would consider a snack.

Any thoughts? Anthony Perkins, of Psycho fame, is the innocent at the heart of the story. I hadn’t ever seen him in anything but Psycho before. He does ok. Orson Welles pops up as a bloated, pussyhound judge, which must have interfered with his time as a bloated, pussyhound director of the movie.

Would you recommend this? The book it’s based on is a brief read. This is not a brief movie. Scenes which are too long don’t help, and add to the sense of bloat. While some scenes are genuinely impressive in their scale – the court room FULL of people, or a seemingly endless office that he works in, but the whole thing is a bit too bloated which makes it drag, when it would have been better to make it tight, tense and claustrophobic.

Final thoughts? The book is better, but it’s still a reminder that so much of the society we believe in is just a whim and that in most countries this can still easily happen. Anyway, that’s enough there.

Want to read others? Some are longer, few are shorter. All can be found right here mf.