John Corda I'm crazy about Alida Valli. I'd seen every film she's ever done except "The Paradine Case" until today that is. Today I met Mrs Paradine for the first time. Strangely enough it doesn't feel like Hitchcock it feels more like Carol Reed the director who gave her a major International hit with "The Third Man" a couple of years later. I fell in love with Alida Valli in the 1954 Luchino Visconti's tragic romantic epic "Senso". Now having seen "The Paradine Case" I see a glimpse of the woman in "Senso" where her actions, are also atrocious but govern by love. A love who will only lead to tragedy. Visconti showed us an Alida Valli that other than a great beauty was also a great actress. Hitchcock introduced her as VALLI in this film, a gimmick with very short legs. Here she plays the widow of a blind man that "allegedly" she killed. The casting of Gregory Peck is a major problem, maybe not for the box office in 1947, but it certainly detrimental to the suspension of disbelief, so needed in a thriller. Charles Laughton is superb in his few, short scenes. I wonder if Hitchcock himself was the inspiration for his role. A judge, a lascivious man with an roving eye for young pretty women. Ethel Barrymore plays his wife, to absolute perfection. Then, Louis Jourdan, beautiful of course, Charles Coburn, Ann Todd but, it is Alida Valli who gives this film that extra something. Considered a "minor" Hitchcock by most but not by me. 9/10

tomsview There was always subtext in Alfred Hitchcock's films, but "The Paradine Case" has subtext to spare.Successful London barrister, Anthony Keane (Gregory Peck), takes the case of Anna Paradine (Alida Valli) who is charged with murdering Colonel Paradine, her rich, blind husband. Although happily married, Keane becomes infatuated with his beautiful client and his judgment, his career and his marriage begin to unravel.On the surface this may have seemed like lesser Hitchcock; although sharply written there isn't much warmth in evidence. The edginess of the film comes in the uncomfortable way Keane obsesses over Mrs Paradine, which hurts his wife, Gay (Ann Todd). The casting of good-looking Louis Jordan is often cited as a weakness, but I think he was fine - Hitchcock and producer David O Selznick just hit a nerve with the whole thing.If ever there were two men who knew something about obsessing over beautiful women it was Selznick and Hitchcock.Selznick's adoration of his wife Jennifer Jones, beginning with cutting-in on her first marriage, is well known. Hitchcock famously obsessed over just about all of his leading ladies culminating in all that weird stuff with Tippi Hedren.Here, the main character's destructive obsession with a beautiful, duplicitous woman was a warm-up for Hitchcock's "Vertigo" made ten years later. The telling scene is when Keane first meets Mrs Paradine and observes that her blind husband didn't realise the sacrifice his wife had made in marrying him because he hadn't seen her - Anna Paradine knows she's got Anthony Keane hook, line and sinker.Although she wasn't one of his famous blondes, Hitchcock and cinematographer Lee Garmes went to town on her look. Alida Valli was stunning, and that haunting beauty was never captured more effectively than in this film.The cast is fabulous. If you are a Laughton fan this is one of his best. It's a delicious performance, but he is totally odious as Judge Tommy Horfield complete with cruel observations on the impermanence of beauty.This film is a class act from beginning to end and Franz Waxman's velvety score gives it a sumptuous quality.I think Hitchcock fans can watch his best films over and over; "Rear Window", "North by Northwest" and others - "The Paradine Case" is one I would add to the list.

PimpinAinttEasy THE PARADINE CASE is an interesting but slightly contrived Hitchcock film fraught with sexual tension. I enjoyed most of this film but it could have used better editing and lesser number of characters. The film has some truly strange characters for eg. the wife who longs for her lawyer husband to save her sexual rival in court so that they can fight fairly over the man. ANN TODD and ALIDA VALLI are smoking hot, the two of them even look alike. Hitchcock knew how to select beautiful women for his movies.CHARLES LAUGHTON provides some comic relief during the intense court proceedings.

rightwingisevil most of all, a very unnatural and again, very pretentious movie. the whole film just looked so badly scripted. watching it was like watching those characters on a staged theater. the poor dialog had forced every one in this film to act awkwardly and again, very pretentiously. peck's performance was one of the worst in his career. the young wife of the attorney already slept in a separate room. why all the couples in most of the films came out of that era were without any kids? why this specific director always wanted to show himself in all the films he directed as a passersby, a non-described person? and he walked out of the Cumberland train station this time. this film storyline was so flat and boring with a terrible scenario and plot, and the courtroom part was extremely boring too. there's nothing to be praised, no wonder it's been overlooked so far.