MartinHafer The IMDb trivia section is correct in pointing out that despite being a far-fetched plot, the story is essentially true. However, I researched the story a bit and found that although it was based on the sinking of the SS Morro Castle, the exact reason why the ship sank was never established beyond question. The ending of "The World Was His Jury" is fiction...pure fiction. Still, it's a dandy courtroom drama.The story begins on the seas. The ship's captain has just died and his First Officer is now in command as the ship heads back to the States. However, soon the ship catches fire and panic ensues--and 127 people are killed. Soon, the media goes crazy--declaring that the accident is the fault of this new captain. In essence, he was tried and convicted by the media. However, despite this sensational climate, a lawyer (Edmond O'Brien) is excited to take the case and prove that the man was not criminally responsible.The film is one that some might not like because it's very much confined to the courtroom. It does leave on occasion but is still a bit claustrophobic--and people who don't want a cerebral drama probably shouldn't watch. However, the script, while fictionalized, is terrific and Edmond O'Brien is at his best. Overall, great entertainment and well worth seeing. And the ending might be made up, but it's a dandy.

boblipton Courtroom dramas are tough to shoot with a big budget. Constrained, as they are, by location and focus, it is hard for them to be visually interesting. Given the obviously low budget of this movie, longtime B cinematographer Benjamin Kline can't do much here, although director Fred Sears and the script try to help out with fast editing, tight framing and long point-of-view shots --notice how when Edmond O'Brien is examining witnesses, there are frequently shots from the perspective of the District Attorney. The blocking is obvious and the scenes statics. Notice, for example, the early scene in which local children -- and reporters -- are hectoring the defendant's children.Given these technical issues, this movie starts under a handicap and despite O'Brien in the lead, never overcomes it. The movie looks like it is modeled on Perry Mason, including courtroom confessions, which may be fairly dramatic but is not the sort of thing that happens in the real world. All these issues make this movie substantially below par.

tireless_crank This was just a terrible turkey of a movie. Terrible low or no budget scenery, worse script. In order to pad this out to 81 minutes the script threw in some silly sub-plot of marital discord between Edmond O'Brien and his wife. She wanted to leave him because he had a record of one hundred and fourteen acquittals and his clients were all scum. The sets destroyed every possible illusion that this might be real; the inside of the bridge of the ship looked like a big room with two ship's wheels. In the first scene, six sailors walk in with a flag draped coffin and sit it up on sawhorses in front of the ship's wheels. The Captain died in some foreign port and now they are sitting his coffin up on the bridge? No explanation can make any sense out of this. Except for a couple of scenes in anonymous rooms and one action sequence, the entire rest of the movie is set in a courtroom, a courtroom run by rules made up by screen writers. This is a horrible waste of time, not even bad enough to be good.

aromatic-2 Naval man finds evidence stacked against him and his family support severely tested. Lawyer Edmond O'Brien does a nice star turn as a defense attorney who not only defends his client against the charges but fights personal injustice as well. Ah, if only we could find lawyers like him in real life.