Pun Salad

I thought I'd seen this 1957 monochrome drama before, but after watching it, I'm pretty sure not.

It's adapted from an Agatha Christie play, and directed by Billy Wilder. Charles Laughton plays a barrister in ill health who (against the wishes of his nurse, Elsa Lanchester) takes on the defense of Tyrone Power, accused of murdering the rich dowager who left him a pile of money in her will.

Tyrone is married to Marlene Dietrich. Or is he? Everybody's kind of shocked when she is called as a (drumroll) Witness for the Prosecution.

So it's pretty good, although there's a lot of scenery-chewing acting from Marlene and Tyrone. Comic relief is provided via the banter between Laughton and Lanchester which is hilarious.

Also slightly amazing is Ian Wolfe, who plays Charles Laughton's secretary. According to IMDB, he was born in 1896 which would have made him about 60 here. Or you might remember him from a couple of Star Trek episodes when he was in his early 70s. Or (if you're really lucky) you watched him in a small recurring role on WKRP in Cincinnati, Mother Carlson's uppity butler Hirsch; he was in his mid-80s there.

Or any one of a zillion other things. He kept working, his last role in Warren Beatty's Dick Tracy movie in 1990, when he would have been about 94 years young.

And in all those roles, he looks pretty much the same. I suppose he was young once. Maybe I'll rent The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934) to test that theory.