User reviews

Minor and small scale this screen version of John Mortimer's "The Dock Brief" may have been but it's frequently very funny and boasts two outstanding performances from a BAFTA nominated Richard Attenborough as the mundane, mild-mannered and mostly morose husband accused of murdering his wife, (a rumbustious Beryl Reid), and Peter Sellers as his mediocre if well-meaning barrister. It was perhaps a strange little movie for these two stars to have made at the time and it wasn't really a success but it's likable in its stagey way and there is a very nice supporting performance from David Lodge as a somewhat over-enthusiastic lodger.

Mr. Morganhall (Peter Sellers) is excited, as he became a barrister decades ago and has just sat in his office ever since....never getting to try a single case in court. To put it bluntly, he's not especially bright or a good lawyer...and now he's hoping a murder case he's been assigned to might open up the door for more trials. The problem is that his client, while a nice guy in many ways, DID murder his wife and freely admits it. He also, reluctantly, admits that the only reason he picked Morganhall was that he chose him at random! Does the defendant stand a chance with this boob of a lawyer?

This film is not a laugh out loud comedy and is quite subtle. The story also isn't super important, believe it or not. It's more a chance to watch the very talented Sellers show off his skills as an actor...and he's lovely in the lead. Richard Attenborough is also very nice as the killer...and the film is enjoyable and an unusual departure for them both. Well worth seeing....and I really loved seeing the clever way the director did those flashback scenes.

Sometimes good movies fall through the cracks of the pavement. They disappear, forgotten about. 'The Dock Brief' (or 'Trial And Error', fluidity of title is another symptom) is one such film. Despite starring Peter Sellers and made in his glory period, it seldom reaches the television screens, seldom, if ever, talked about.

Watching this is nothing more than a revelation. The plot is simple, Morganhall (Sellers) a barrister, is given his first case in forty years, as he is chosen to defend Henpecked Herbert Fowle (Richard Attenbourgh), a grey, drab, bird lover, who has murdered his over-bearing, guffawing wife (Reid) because she wouldn't leave him. It is not an important case (the 'Dock Brief' of the title means that Fowle has no money for a lawyer, established barristers avoid them like the plague), but Morganhall sees this as an escape from the prison of his own life, 'Oh Fowle! The wonderful new life you've brought me!'

Morganhall and Fowle are little men, confined long before they are cell-bound (this film is full of images of confinement, prison cells, bird cages, claustrophobic houses, ) and the joy of the movie comes from their relationship, dull, grey Fowle takes wing as he falls under the spell of Morganhall's imagination. Sellers is wonderful, Morganhall is a tragic character, a defeated man, but never pathetic. In his dreams he is a great lawyer, but, naturally, his one great day in court ends in ruins, 'I had only to open my mouth and pour out words'.

Fowle is reprieved and released, due to Morganhall's incompetence and the barrister's dreams are dashed. Put like that, it is a bleak ending, yet the joy of the movie is that it ends in hope, in Morganhall's and Fowle's friendship. For the first time, as the leave prison and walk across Westminster Bridge, they are free from confinement (I love the little jig Sellers performs in long shot).

Both Sellers and Attenbourgh are on top form (though I've mostly singled out Sellers, Attenbourgh's lonely bird lover really is beautifully played) and lover's of gentle, bitter-sweet comedy, should seek out this movie. I think it's going to remain with me for the rest of my life, a truly life-affirming experience.

John Mortimer was a very clever witty man. His writings were accessible, never laboured, they never patronised the audience, baffled them or bored them. As a former barrister, he was entirely used to addressing and winning-over juries. It was plausible at the very least that his writings were based on true experiences. Like Dickens, working in the field of Law exposed him to a gallery of characters and odd situations which were beyond most people's experiences.

And in the radio play version, the story starts with the curious but plausible situation where an imprisoned accused (of murdering his wife) is joined in his cell by the barrister who is to defend him. The dialogue is both entirely reasonable yet at the same time entirely plausible such that the accused wrongly assumes that the barrister is a another accused come to share the cell. A long conversation at entire cross-purposes ensues. The skill and wit is all in the carefully constructed dialogue.

Here in this film version, the simplicity and wit is replaced by superfluous dialogue and additional scenes. Richard Attenborough is excellent as the accused, a modest man with a great deal to be modest about. Peter Sellers is however lack-lustre, perhaps ill at ease with the part and perhaps the direction. Sellers was at base a comedian who became a comic actor. Perhaps in 1962 he had not yet developed the skill to deliver a part he could not empathise with.

I see that it received no awards of any kind - confirmation that it fell flat

Peter Sellers is a lawyer who has waited years for his first case. He gets it in the form of Richard Attenborough, who admits that he killed his wife, Beryl Reid because she wouldn't run away with the boarder. In Attenborough's cell, they brainstorm trial strategies in fantasy. Then they go up to the actual trial.

It's an absolute trifle of a movie, little more than a two-man show about the inanity of the law. That's hardly surprising, given that it's derived from a play by John Mortimer, best remembered for his many judicial mysteries, and the TV series RUMPOLE OF THE BAILEY, based on them. Sellers and Attenborough attempt to evoke the sort of movie that might have been made were Laurel & Hardy to make one, although one without anything in the way of physical slapstick.

This is Peter Sellers at his ridiculous best, before he became Inspector Clouseau, even before he invaded the US in the Mouse That Roared. A quiet, satirical comedy that has an aging and inept English barrister defending his first case - an open and shut murder with Richard Attenborough as the husband whose wife drove him over the edge. Since he's clearly guilty, his lawyer imagines a variety of improbable and unsuccessful defenses. Attenborough hopefully joins in Sellers' mental machinations as they act out their courtroom tactics. The ending is a treat -- and we'll leave it at that. If you are a Peter Sellers fan but are not familiar with the numerous, small movies he made before becoming a star in the US, try this one out. You won't be disappointed.

I know very little about Director James Hill, other than he directed BORN FREE (1966), one of my favorite films in early teen years.

THE DOCK BRIEF (also known as TRIAL AND ERROR) benefits immensely from the acting prowess of the two leads, Peter Sellers as a bumbling barrister who has coasted along all his life and is now faced with possibly the sole case he can win in his career, and Richard Attenborough as the bird lover with a wife with a broad sense of humor who somehow gets the bee to buzz under his bonnet, with upshot that he kills her in a fit of totally needless and incomprehensible rage.

Sellers keeps imagining defense punchlines, surprise witnesses, a judge, and Attenborough goes along with his barrister's phoney moves. You can tell that line of defense will not see Attenborough off the hook... but that is where the surprise ending comes up and saves the day! 7/10.

This neglected little film is based on a one-act play by John Mortimer, the creator of "Rumpole of the Bailey," and it extends some scenes (particularly the flashbacks to the lives of both the barrister and the accused) in ways that add little but running time. Beryl Reid, a very distinguished British stage actress, is given a role that requires her to do almost nothing but laugh hysterically. Oddly enough, the expansion of the script makes it feel even more theatrical than cinematic.

The real reasons to see this "Trial and Error" (aka "The Dock Brief") are the performances of Peter Sellers and Richard Attenborough. The latter was one of England's great character actors before he became a director and a Lord. Here, hidden behind a putty nose, he delivers an impeccable performance as a mediocre little man who kills his wife for a bit of quiet. And this was the period - just before head-turning international fame struck - when Sellers was offering one miraculous performance after another. His barrister is a subtle blend of self-delusional bluster and frightened awareness of his own inadequacy; the delicacy of this performance, especially the love he seems to feel for this little man who might prove his salvation, is a joy to behold. And the very last shot of the film, just before the final credits, made me laugh out loud - very silly, yet absolutely right.

A more measured effort from Peter Sellers as solicitor "Morgenhall" makes for a better film here than I was expecting. His job is to defend Richard Attenborough ("Fowle)" who is accused of murdering his wife "Doris" (Beryl Reid). Despite being a lawyer for ages, this is his very first case in a court and oh, for the avoidance of any doubt we, the audience, know his client is as guilty as sin! James Hill allows both Sellers and Attenborough to act here; the rest of the courtroom drama style of production is basic and efficient and that just accentuates the skills on offer - great comic timing amongst them. The dialogue is manna from heaven for Sellers, and by the end I dare anyone not to have quite bit of sympathy for poor old "Fowle". It isn't a great film, you probably won't even remember it afterwards, but it passes 90 minutes engagingly enough.

Peter Sellers plays the worst barrister in the Old Bailey, hanging around court day after day hoping for a "dock brief" - a public-defender case assigned, and paid for, by the government - as his only hope of getting any work at all. After years of waiting, he is escorted to the cells to meet his very first client - who at first takes Sellers for a fellow-prisoner, then informs him there is no need for a defense as he is in fact guilty and everyone knows it. Sellers, undaunted, spins fantasies of brilliant defenses, which his client helps him act out in imaginary courtroom scenes. Each fantasy falters on the simple fact that the client really is guilty, but the client cheerfully plays along, sensing that the lawyer needs a victory even more than he does. The emptiness and disappointments of each man's life are revealed in flashback scenes in which, together, they visit one another's lives in times past. When the real trial begins, the lawyer's fantasies ring hollow, but he saves the day with legal maneuvering that only he is qualified to pull off. In the bittersweet final scene, the two walk off together, each understanding how much the other needs him.

The story, by John Mortimer, is a slightly darker version of his familiar "Rumpole of the Bailey" tales. The script, also by Mortimer, is very funny, but the combination of dry British humor and Sellers's almost somnolently underplayed role let most of the humor go by unnoticed. This is the funniest movie I never once laughed at. Attenborough is an understated genius as the mordant bird lover who murders his wife because she *wouldn't* run away with her boyfriend, and then apologizes to his lawyer for being guilty.

an underrated flick , unfolding a powerful drama about the relation of a less fortunate attorney whose inner portrait is revealed when he is assigned to defend a man accused of murder. Witty dialogue and social satire, as well as excellent performance by Peter Sellers and Richard Attenborough.

I didn't know this Peter Sellers film existed. It's a very odd story of a very poor man with no bad intentions at all, rather the contrary, having almost unawares being driven to commit a most heinous felony for no good reason at all, rather the contrary, as the result of a probably accidental marriage to the queerest kind of wife anyone ever could dream of marrying. The poor criminal, whose actual only desire in life is to be together in peace with his canaries, is played by Richard Attenborough in his most peculiar character ever, and by chance he gets for a defense council Peter Sellers of all people. As a barrister he takes himself extremely seriously, quoting Latin and being absolutely serious about his learned accomplishment and professional wisdom, which only makes matters worse. Of course, the trial becomes a satire of a painful joke, and the case, which was utterly hopeless from the beginning, ends up a mess that no one can handle. In all this, Richard Attenborough and Peter Sellers are absolutely consistent in their seriously honest characters in perfect idyllic-pathetic pettiness, and that's what's makes this film a crown jewel - as a comedy it is supreme. Beryl Reid as the wife and David Lodge (that's actually his name) as the lodger add to the total authenticity of the bizarre absurdity of a situation which you as an audience and everyone else must admit that cannot but end in one way, however incredible. This is a gem of a comedy unlike all others and the more precious for its endearingly sympathetic originality.

i think this movie is great. it's really funny. the whole movie is pretty unique. like how it tells the story. and the story itself is pretty interesting and very funny. but the most enjoyable part of the movie is the conversations between the lawyer and the murderer. they are so funny cause the actors are so good. peter sellers is great in this movie. the british humor stands the test of time.

John Mortimer is better known for Rumpole but this is a different kind of court comedy. Peter Sellers plays a somewhat unique character for him, he isn't remotely over the top as Morganhall the barrister. Even when things go wrong for his character, it is carefully understated. Richard Attenborough plays the defendant on trial for murdering his wife played by Beryl Reid.

The funnier moments are the flashbacks of Mr Fowl's home life with his wife after they take in the lodger played by David Lodge. It's not clear why Mr Fowl decided to marry someone so totally different to him to the point where he hopes his wife will leave him but there it is....

Also good are the mock court preperations Morganhall and Fowl have while brainstorming their defense. The climax is actually quite sad and probably more relatable to most when we see Morganhall during the actual trial. He was after all waiting years for a case like this, too much time to think about it before it comes.

It isn't an outlandish or over the top screwball comedy. It is actually pretty quiet and small but entertaining.

With respect, I must disagree with the other reviewers. I generally relish the old British films, especially the comedies (The Ladykillers, Kind Hearts and Coronets, The Green Man et al.) however I found this film to be well acted, but not particularly funny, and rather tedious. Attenborough and Sellers do show their considerable versatility and skills. But Mortimer's story makes one long for a good "Rumpole" episode. I kept waiting for the story to get going, but it never did. The pacing is s-l-o-w, which isn't inherently bad (see my review of The Smallest Show on Earth) but what does the film add up to? For me, it is an interesting curio perhaps, but not something one can really recommend.

The Dock Brief (1962) AKA Trial and Error Director James Hill Writers John Mortimer and Pierre Rouve This movie is based on a one-act play Made at Shepperton Studios, England

There are not a lot of people in this movie. Peter Sellers and Richard Attenborough play most of the time and parts. Because most of it is fantasy on their part, the bulk of the movie takes place in one room that is jail on one side and court on the other. This is ideal for a play. They do show interaction (flashbacks) of the cheerful wife (Beryl Reid), and you will want to help Herbert Fowle (Richard Attenborough) the Accused Murderer do the deed.

Just at the point that you are getting into it, the movie ends.