Witness for the Prosecution by Billy Wilder is a cleverly written movie with a concise version of the Agatha Christie story that was then turned into a play. The movie takes the play version and works off of that to bring this story of the Witness for the Prosecution to the big screen. Billy Wilder brings us this movie. Billy Wilder was born in 1906 and died in 2002 at the ripe old age of ninety five. He was born in Australia and was an amazing screenwriter, movie director and producer. He career in this industry lasted over fifty years and during that time, he worked on over sixty movies. Many critics agree that Billy Wilder was one of the most intelligent and gifted movie makers in Hollywood during his time. He has won awards and the hearts of those who have seen his movies.
Witness for the Prosecution by Billy Wilder has many great characters. One of them is Sir Wilfrid Robarts who is an ill man who is told by physicians that he must retire from solving criminal cases so that he can rest. He has a nurse who makes sure that he follows the doctor’s orders. The movie takes off when a character named Mayhew brings a murder suspect over to Sir Wilfrid Robarts. The murder suspect is Leonard Vole. Listening to the story of what he is told, Sir Robarts is certain that the man is indeed innocent. The problem is that the man only has his wife as his alibi, and many in the court system would think that she might be covering up for her husband. Another tidbit of a problem is that the murder made Mayhew a rich man; he inherited a great deal of money from the estate of the murdered victim. This unfortunately shows that he would have had a very great motive for committing the ghastly crime.
Mayhew, the murder suspect is put under arrest by Scotland Yard, based mainly off of the fact that he was the one with such great motive for wanting to murder the victim. It is Sir Wilfrid Robarts who decides that it is his duty to find the real killer and prove that Mayhew is innocent. He goes about doing so by examining clues and finding out so much more information than he ever expected that he would. This brings the viewers on a great journey; they learn bits and pieces just as Sir Robarts does. Those who watch this movie may try to find out the mystery; but most likely they will need to wait for the ending to see who really did it!
Critics say that Billy Wilder did such an amazing job on Witness for the Prosecution because he took the boring element out of the court room scenes of the movie. He instead, made the court room scenes to be very exciting and dramatic. He did this by adapting several methods to make the audience drawn into the movie. It was the way in which he used the movie camera, the use of flashback scenes and the actual elements of the characters themselves, for example the illness of Sir Robarts. Billy Wilder found a great way to make this story interesting and keep viewers glued to the screen. He removed any boring pieces; this is something that many have not been able to do when it comes to showing scenes that happen in a court of law. In addition, Witness for the Prosecution by Billy Wilder has a touch of comedy as well, this keeps the viewers very satisfied.