MovieChat Forums > The Count of Monte Cristo (1934) Discussion > Spinning around witnesses

Spinning around witnesses

posted 16 years ago by chowbok
3 replies | jump to latest

I'm not too up on 19th-century French courtroom procedure, but was it really the practice to put the witness on a wheeled platform so that the questioning attorney could spin him around at will, or toss him across the courtroom in order to emphasize a really dramatic point? That would rule! We should implement that here.

[–] Aulic Exclusiva 16 years ago

I think many a witness would be vomitting in no time.

In France, there were no public trials of the Anglo-American type before World War II. All the English-language movies that show French "courtroom drama" in the Anglo-Saxon mold (I Accuse; Madame Bovary; etc) are full of it.

If we are to be brothers, let us be brothers for life, die together.

[–] critic-2 16 years ago

Well, at least it made the bad guys dizzy!

[–] xylonian-1 16 years ago

Well I certainly would accept "I don't remember" much more after that anyway....

"A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five."