Your Witness

Aces all around. Arnold (Keith) is a hotshot attorney who's found a younger woman and expects wife Naomi (Dana) to put up with it. Meanwhile, he's ruthlessly defending a rich man's son in a hit and run case. Poor Naomi, he dominates her at home and dominates the trial in court. She's had about all she can stand, but what's a respectable woman to do.

First-rate acting, especially the hard-put Naomi who's hardened expression says everything. Excellent turn by Keith also. His clever attorney is insufferably smug, so confident in his abilities wherever he goes. Then too, shouldn't forget William Hansen as the meek witness. He's one of those easily overlooked supporting players who add so much, yet remains relatively anonymous. Happily, it's an above average script that doesn't telegraph an ending, while Arnold's witness interrogation reflects as much on Arnold as it does on the witness-- not an easy screen writing trick. Anyway, it's a very satisfying 30-minutes, in solid Hitchcock style.

Brian Keith does the job here, as a district attorney whom you won't forget. I usually dislike and avoid court room plots, but this one proposes something totally new, unpredictable, and that's the least we can expect in AH PRESENTS show. The last minute is exquisite and above all unforeseeable, ironic, the trademark of this amazing series.

Tidy little episode about a middle-aged wife seeking to divorce her philandering husband, a big-shot defense attorney currently working a hit-run case and in no hurry to get divorced. The script is so tightly focused on the bickering husband and wife that we are spared the cliché of having to meet the attorney's current squeeze or even the defendant in the hit-run case. We do, however, get to meet an eye witness to the hit-run, a Good Samaritan who is taken apart on the stand by the sharp-tongued attorney. A 1947 nickel on the sidewalk outside the courthouse leads to a highly satisfying conclusion involving classic revenge. Brian Keith plays against type as the nasty attorney, including roughing up his wife in one surprisingly shocking scene.

I recently have begun working my way through all the "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" episodes and "Your Witness" is one of the few I'd already seen. And, it was every bit as good as I remember.

The story is set in a courtroom and a cutthroat defense attorney, Arnold (Brian Keith), is doing everything he can to get a young punk off the hook for vehicular manslaughter. So, when a witness goes on the stand, Arnold does everything he can to make this old man seem like a liar and a blithering idiot. Amazingly, the judge doesn't do much to stop his horrible attack on a man who isn't even on trial.

At the same time, Arnold's poor wife is in the courtroom and she thinks back of her recent problems with him. It seems he's been cheating on her and instead of owning up to it, he attacks her and treats it as if it's her fault! What a jerk...and viewers will undoubtedly think the same.

So how do these two stories intersect? Well, I don't want to ruin the show for you but suffice to say Arnold gets his!!

This is a very well written episode. I also think it works so well because Keith does a great acting job. He certainly is NOT like 'Uncle Bill' from "Family Affair" but a man who is very easy to hate...so he did a great job.

This is pretty effective. Brian Keith of Family Affair and the original Parent Trap is a lawyer with absolutely no scruples (some might say that's redundant). In both his personal and professional life he is as heartless and insensitive as is possible. He has used his somewhat unattractive wife's family simply to feather his nest. He cheats on her and continuously rubs her nose in his affairs. Enter Mr. Babcock, a milquetoast little man who has lost his teaching job because he is legally blind (why that would happen, I don't know. But that's the plot). His myopia comes into play heavily. He is an honest man and is made to look like a fool on the witness stand. Keith takes great pride in destroying little men like this and winning at the cost of the near destruction of a man's life. As with most Hitchcock offerings, the chickens eventually come home to roost.