THE MASTERPIECE
The Verdict
Paul Newman as flawed protagonist Frank Galvin.
“THERE ARE NO other cases. This is the case,” Frank Galvin repeats like an invocation. A man fallen from grace, Frank sees this as his last shot at absolution.
Director Sidney Lumet described his 1982 film The Verdict as a story about “a drunk hustling his way from one seedy case to another, until one day he sees a chance for salvation and, filled with fear, takes it.” David Mamet signed on to adapt Barry Reed’s novel, but producers Richard D. Zanuck and David Brown rejected his take: Mamet had penned a film called The Verdict that had no verdict. Zanuck and Brown told him he’d forgotten a page, and Mamet flipped them off on his way out the door.
Despite a WGA strike, a near DGA strike, and Mamet’s alleged rude gesture, Brown called it a “charmed production”. Everyone wanted to play Frank Galvin: Cary Grant, Dustin Hoffman, Frank Sinatra, Roy Scheider, William Holden and Robert Redford all courted the role. Of these contenders, Redford came the closest, even developing a script with James Bridges. But every draft left him dissatisfied. Worried about his image, Redford kept pushing Galvin to be more of a hero, erasing the “unpleasant characteristics that Paul [Newman] was willing to play,” according to Lumet. But it was this unpleasantness that drew both Newman and Lumet to the project, and when they signed on, they dusted off Mamet’s script. With impressive efficiency, Lumet rehearsed for three weeks, shot for 43 days in Boston and New York, and finished a week ahead of schedule.