Answer the following question: Build a movie plot around this: Who reveals to the family what happened in court? Violet
Answer:
Until I saw this recently on TCM, I'd never heard of it: the youngest of a staid Edwardian England family is expelled from a Royal Navy prep school for stealing; father goes thru extraordinary lengths to clear his son's name. English actor Robert Donat was a heartthrob of the period: he portrays barrister (English version of our litigator or trial lawyer) Sir Robert Morton, an expensive, what-we'd-call corporate attorney; after several false starts, including a debate in the House of Commons (over what in English law was basically a lawsuit against the Crown), Sir Robert accepts the case.The centerpiece here is Sir Robert's interrogation of young Ronnie, the defendant, in the boy's home, in front of his rapidly deteriorating father & antagonistic, suffragette sister. Sir Robert's battery of questions quickly turns into an 18-K cross-examination, the kind he knows the boy can expect in court, over vehement objections from his family. Meanwhile, the case & the Winslow family become objects of public ridicule & derision.Also interesting are the ways family members change: in the beginning, Pop Winslow (played with Cedric Hardwicke's usual aplomb) seems the most value-rigid & proper fish in a sea of rebels (Lindy Hops, cigarets); gradually, it's pop that must convince even feminist daugher Katy to stay the course.