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
