I'm only about 3/4 of the way through, but his conduct was unbecoming a judge, and he then had the audacity to tell Newman he would get HIM disbarred!! The judge should have been not only thrown off the bench, but disbarred as well.
shareIt's true; the judge was unlikeable. But that was intentional. The writer/director needed to stack the odds against Newman as much as possible to make the ending more poignant and impressive. Along with the skilled defense attorney, a bad judge was essential.
shareImagine, a corrupt Judge in the pocket of the Archdiocese.
shareMilo O'Shea did such a great job of making us dislike him.Silky and cajoling and threatening while in the pocket of big religion.About as silky smooth and underhanded as James Mason's lawyer Concannon. He's also a great Eater,he ate with such relish and bon apetite while dispensing his corrupt advice,that we hated him even more.His dinner was more important than the life and death decisions he had to make.They should actually make this an Oscar category,Best Actor While Eating Food.I harken back to the guy in Lord of the Rings who sends his son off to certain death while he sits on his throne squishing grapes in his mouth.The juice splatters all over his mouth and he munches with such relish,knowing his son was doomed to die.....and the Winner for Best Actor While Eating Food goes to .....
share.....and the Winner for Best Actor While Eating Food goes to .....
Don't worry, karma eventually caught up with the judge, as he would later get into an auto accident on Long Island, where the closest available hospital was the East Hampton Hospital for Women. Thanks to the superb skills of Dr. Thompson, Judge Hoyle survives, but ends up getting sued by the other driver who is represented by Frank Galvin.
shareGreat performance by Milo O'Shea.
Hell, the whole movie is filled with great performances.
Yeah he's one of my al time hated characters - corrupt, snide, and sneaky.
shareYeah, there's that moment when Galvin makes his final objection and exception when you can see the judge has some sympathy for him. Good acting.
shareIt’s actually while Concannon makes an objection, sure that he’s got the ol’ judge on his side ... until he sees that stone face and falters momentarily. Also shows that Concannon is not completely bereft of justice, possibly realizing that he has also been played. Judges do not appreciate that, ever.
shareBah ha ha ha, Stevicus-2!
"Two more swords and I'll be Queen of the Monkey People." Roseanne
In the film Newman's partner tells him that James Mason is something like "prince of darkness" - and we see that he used every dirty trick in the book including spying on everyone, and so on. To me it seemed like he also paid the judge to be on his side. This may sound sad, but it is the case all too often, and I know of at least one such high-profile case which was made into a movie where judge was openly supporting the wrong side, because he was buddy-buddy with that side - the defense lawyer for a huge corporation that poisoned and killed many people.
shareGotta love those eyebrows!
Damn I'm good.
Milo o' Shea was something of a revelation in this movie. Though he had a lot of small roles in movies since the 40's he had largely played comedy characters, and at the time he made this movie in the UK he was best known for a sitcom from the 70s called Me Mammy, where he played a guy who was still under his interfering mothers wing.
This role always seemed a million miles away from the roles I had seen him in before, but he did it very well and came across as slimy and extremely unlikeable.
It makes you think how often this happened in a behind-closed-doors fashion before the age of the Internet or social media.
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