Paul Newman @ 100: "The Verdict"

by Nick Taylor

First thing’s first: HAPPY (belated) BIRTHDAY PAUL NEWMAN!!!! Everyone say “Happy Birthday Paul!!” in the comments. As I said when giving backstory on my first Newman installment, Sidney Lumet's The Verdict was one of my first encounters with the actor’s filmography. Even admitting my many, many blind spots, I think it’s fair to say The Verdict stands apart in his retinue of troubled men.

So many of Paul Newman’s characters storm into their films as men to be reckoned with, men capable of announcing themselves as singularly indomitable without saying a word. This is not the case for Frank Galvin, a washed-up, alcoholic lawyer on his last legs. Frank is shorn of the charismatic showmanship Newman wielded so adroitly throughout his career. Instead we’re asked to see him as a failure, a man gunked onto the bottom of the barrel and finally fighting to get out after wasting years wallowing in pity and booze . . . .

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