美国国家公共电台 NPR How Do Americans Feel About The Courts? Let Hollywood Be The Judge

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

There has been drama in Washington lately over the judiciary. Take the political fight over the vacant Supreme 1 Court seat or the president calling some in black robes so-called judges. All this has got movie critic Bob Mondello thinking about the judges he's seen in movies and how their depiction 2 has intersected with public opinion through the years.

BOB MONDELLO, BYLINE 3: When a teenaged Mickey Rooney had a problem in the Andy Hardy 4 movies, he turned to his onscreen dad, Judge Hardy.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "A FAMILY AFFAIR")

MICKEY ROONEY: (As Andy Hardy) I need $5.

LIONEL BARRYMORE: (As Judge Hardy) What for?

ROONEY: (As Andy Hardy) Well, for things.

BARRYMORE: (As Judge Hardy) Now, look, Andy. When you're earning your own money, you won't ever have to explain to anybody - theoretically, that is. But when you're spending someone else's, it's only fair to the partner that's supplying it to know where it's going.

ROONEY: (As Andy Hardy) Gee 5, Pa, sometimes I wish you weren't a judge.

BARRYMORE: (As Judge Hardy) Why?

ROONEY: (As Andy Hardy) Because it's kind of taking advantage of a guy to keep showing him two sides of a question.

MONDELLO: Two sides of a question - this was the 1930s, and the fact that Judge Hardy was a judge made him unassailable, thoughtful, wise, all-American-rectitude-made-flesh. Somewhere along the way - in Hollywood, at least - judges lost a bit of the rectitude.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "WHAT'S UP, DOC?")

LIAM DUNN: (As Judge Maxwell) They're a foul 6 and depraved-looking lot, bailiff.

GRAHAM JARVIS: (As Bailiff) Those are just the spectators, your honor.

MONDELLO: The farce 7 "What's Up, Doc?" in 1972 featured a judge who'd adopted the rhythms of vaudeville 8.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "WHAT'S UP, DOC?")

DUNN: (As Judge Maxwell) What are these people being charged with?

AUSTIN PENDLETON: (As Frederick Larrabee) They broke into my home.

DUNN: (As Judge Maxwell) That's breaking and entering.

PENDLETON: (As Frederick Larrabee) And they brought her with them forcibly.

DUNN: (As Judge Maxwell) That's kidnapping.

MADELINE KAHN: (As Eunice) They tried to molest 10 me.

DUNN: (As Judge Maxwell) That's unbelievable.

MONDELLO: Call him a precursor 11 of sorts for the small-town accent-perplexed judge in "My Cousin Vinny."

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "MY COUSIN VINNY")

FRED GWYNNE: (As Judge Chamberlain Haller) Did you say yutes (ph)?

JOE PESCI: (As Vinny Gambini) Yeah, two yutes.

GWYNNE: (As Judge Chamberlain Haller) What is a yute?

MONDELLO: And they're both descendants of a comic tradition that goes back at least as far as the Marx Brothers, Groucho having picked up a gavel in "Duck Soup," remember?

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "DUCK SOUP")

GROUCHO MARX: (As Rufus T. Firefly) I suggest that we give him ten years in Leavenworth, or eleven years in Twelveworth.

CHICO MARX: (As Chicolini) I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll take five and ten in Woolworth.

MONDELLO: Being held generally in high esteem 13, judges, like anyone on a pedestal, become targets to be knocked down, which is another way of saying Hollywood's depiction of judges has been just as complicated as the public's perception of judges. Hollywood's version is easier to read, though, especially in terms of tone.

When Groucho played a judge, no one thought he was mocking the judiciary. He was just being Groucho. Something slightly different is going on in, say, "Miracle On 34th Street" when a judge caves to public opinion.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET")

JOHN PAYNE: (As Fred Gailey) Your honor, every one of these letters is addressed to Santa Claus. The post office has delivered them.

GENE 12 LOCKHART: (As Judge Henry X. Harper) Since the United States government declares this man to be Santa Claus, this court will not dispute it.

MONDELLO: Still a joke, but this time it's a judge who's caving, not a comedian 14. And something far more judgmental is happening a few decades later in "The People Vs. Larry Flynt" about the rabble-rousing publisher of the adult magazine Hustler. In that 1998 film, the producers gave the real Larry Flynt a cameo as an appellate judge. He got to sentence himself, as it were, in a film where the whole point was that the judiciary kept getting First Amendment 16 freedoms wrong. Often you can tell what filmmakers think of judges by looking at who they cast as judges. In "Anatomy 17 Of A Murder," arguably the most riveting 18 courtroom drama ever...

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "ANATOMY OF A MURDER")

JOSEPH N WELCH: (As Judge Weaver) And now the last-minute witness is being brought dramatically down the aisle 19. The whole thing has obviously been rigged.

MONDELLO: ...The judge is played by real-life attorney Joseph N. Welch, famous off-screen for facing down Senator Joseph McCarthy during his communist witch hunts with an impassioned, have you no sense of decency 20, sir? But in "Anatomy Of A Murder," Welch was just a non-actor surrounded by seasoned pros 21 George C. Scott, Ben Gazzara and increasingly desperate defense 22 attorney Jimmy Stewart.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "ANATOMY OF A MURDER")

JIMMY STEWART: (As Paul Biegler) That's like trying to take the core from an apple without breaking the skin. I beg the court to let me cut into the apple.

BROOKS 23 WEST: (As Dist. Atty. Mitch Lodwick) Our objection still stands, your honor.

MONDELLO: Director Otto Preminger knew the way to give his non-actor a big moment here was to pause in what was becoming a rush to judgment 15. The judge flips 24 open his pocket watch, winds it and, with great deliberation, makes up his mind.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "ANATOMY OF A MURDER")

WELCH: (As Judge Weaver) Objection overruled.

MONDELLO: That pause encapsulated what judges are supposed to do - step back from the fray 25, look at things impartially 26 and render their considered judgment. "Anatomy Of A Murder" came out at a time when the federal judiciary was respected as much as it has ever been - not universally, mind you.

Under Chief Justice Earl Warren, the Supreme Court had handed down a number of controversial decisions, including the one that outlawed 27 racial segregation 28 in public schools. That meant there were impeach 29 Earl Warren signs on many lawns, but it also meant that the power of the judiciary to change society was on vivid display.

Hollywood harnessed that power in early 1960s courtroom dramas "Inherit The Wind," "To Kill A Mockingbird" and the classic "Judgment At Nuremberg" where Spencer Tracy presides over a military court holding Nazis 30 accountable for crimes against humanity.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG")

SPENCER TRACY: (As Chief Judge Dan Haywood) This trial has shown that under a national crisis, even able and extraordinary men can delude 31 themselves into the commission of crimes so vast and heinous 32 that they beggar the imagination.

MONDELLO: The accused are themselves judges, guilty, as Burt Lancaster's Judge Janning notes on the stand, of being swept up in a national hysteria.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG")

BURT LANCASTER: (As Dr. Ernst Janning) There was a fever over the land. We had a democracy, yes, but it was torn by elements within. Only when you understand that can you understand what Hitler meant to us. He said be proud to be German. There are devils among us, communists, liberals, Jews, gypsies.

MONDELLO: It was the ancient story of the sacrificial lamb, says Janning, who goes on to explain how judges who are sworn to protect society from barbarism convinced themselves that barbarism was the lesser 33 of two evils.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG")

LANCASTER: (As Dr. Ernst Janning) Why did we take part - because we loved our country. What difference does it make if a few political extremists lose their rights? The country is in danger.

MONDELLO: Other movie judges have been swayed by love of country or love of God rather than insisting on the primacy of the law. In "A Man For All Seasons," which was released that same decade, Sir Thomas More, an English philosopher now venerated 34 as a saint, challenges both his king and his church, eventually losing his head for arguing that the law must be paramount 35.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS")

PAUL SCOFIELD: (As Thomas More) What would you do, cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

CORIN REDGRAVE: (As Roper) Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that.

SCOFIELD: (As Thomas More) Oh, and when the last law was down and the Devil turned round on you, where would you hide with the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws from coast to coast - man's laws, not God's. And if you cut them down, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? I'd give the Devil benefit of law for my own safety's sake.

MONDELLO: The great Paul Scofield won an Oscar playing More. Not all movie magistrates 36 live up to his standard, of course. Film genres 37 require different approaches from, say, an action hero...

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "JUDGE DREDD")

ADRIENNE BARBEAU: (As Central) The DNA 9 is a perfect match for Judge Joseph Dredd.

SYLVESTER STALLONE: (As Judge Dredd) It's a lie. I never broke the law. I am the law.

MONDELLO: ...Or a cartoon like Roger Rabbit's nemesis 38, Judge Doom 39.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT")

CHRISTOPHER LLOYD: (As Judge Doom) When I killed your brother, I talked just like this.

MONDELLO: But serious dramas still lean heavily on the probity 40 and respectability of judges. In the movie "Amistad," when Steven Spielberg needed someone to read the Supreme Court verdict that set a slave ship's passengers free, he called on a real Supreme Court justice, Harry 41 Blackmun.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "AMISTAD")

HARRY BLACKMUN: (As Associate Justice Joseph Story) It is the court's judgment. That the defendants 42 are to be released from custody 43 at once.

MONDELLO: Judging judges is not in my brief, as it were. But in cinematic terms, I'd say this guy's judicial 44 bearing looks a lot like the real thing. I'm Bob Mondello.

(SOUNDBITE OF ERICH KUNZEL AND THE CINCINNATI POPS ORCHESTRA PERFORMANCE OF WILLIAMS' "THE LONG ROAD TO JUSTICE")