Billy Wilder's Thrilling Agatha Christie Movie Is Streaming For Free

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Billy Wilder is in contention for the best-director screenwriter to ever come out of Hollywood. That's not to say that every film he made sprung only from his own head — for all the original screenplays Wilder filmed, from "Sunset Boulevard" to "Ace in the Hole," he adapted a fair few of other writers' stories as well. Wilder adapted crime novelist James M. Cain's "Double Indemnity" (itself based on a real-life murder) in 1944, and then Cain's "The Postman Always Rings Twice" in 1946. One of Wilder's later movies was 1970's "The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes" (co-written with regular collaborator I. A. L. Diamond). But years before turning his attention to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Wilder adapted a different icon of the British mystery novel, Agatha Christie, when he brought her work to the silver screen in 1957's "Witness for the Prosecution." 

Trust me, the picture is way more fun than that dry title suggests. It's currently streaming for free on Tubi and Pluto TV, and you should see why it deserves every bit of acclaim.

"Witness for the Prosecution" was one of three movies that Wilder made in 1957. The others were "The Spirit of St. Louis," a Charles Lindbergh biopic starring James Stewart, and the Gary Cooper-led romantic comedy "Love in the Afternoon." Granted, popping out a few pictures a year was more common during the old Hollywood studio system. But with as busy as Wilder was, it's an achievement that "Witness for the Prosecution" is remarkable as it is.

By 1957, Christie had written many stories and plays; "Witness for the Prosecution" was both. Christie first wrote it as a short story in 1925, then adapted it into a play in 1953. That play, which went across the pond to Broadway the following year, is what inspired the movie.

The lead in "Witness for the Prosecution" is Sir Wilfrid Robarts (Charles Laughton), a veteran barrister nearing retirement. He's approached by Leonard Vole (Tyrone Power), a man accused of murdering his lover, Emily French (Norma Varden). The elderly French had named Leonard an inheritance beneficiary.

"Witness for the Prosecution" is a different kind of locked room mystery compared to other Christie stories, like "Murder on the Orient Express." In "Witness," Robarts is defending Leonard, but is unsure if his client is actually innocent. One of the reasons for his doubt is the titular witness: Vole's estranged wife, Christine (Marlene Dietrich, with whom Wilder had previously worked on "A Foreign Affair"). 

Sir Robarts is as compelling a Christie lead as Hercule Poirot himself. Though "only" a lawyer, it feels like Laughton is performing as if he were playing Winston Churchill, queeny sarcasm and all. Robarts' back-and-forth with his nurse Miss Plimsoll (Elsa Lanchester, his real-life wife) will have you thinking of the reputed exchange between Churchill and Britain's first female MP, Nancy Astor: "If I were married to you, I'd put poison in your coffee." "If I were married to you, I'd drink it."

Plenty of courtroom dramas have twist endings. The fundamental question of such dramas is about guilt or innocence, and a court is a place for a lawyer to build a narrative, so flipping audience expectations about who is/isn't guilty is the perfect final rug pull. "Witness for the Prosecution" has not one, but many twists to its conclusion, all delivered back to back in the last five minutes. I won't spoil it, but I will say I can only imagine how rapturous seeing those twists play out on stage back in 1953 must've been. 

"Witness for the Prosecution" ultimately went home empty after earning six Oscar nominations, including one for Best Picture. (Losing to David Lean's war epic "Bridge on the River Kwai" is hardly shameful, though.) But despite that losing streak, the movie won the test of holding up through time, because it's still a crackerjack thriller today.

"Witness for the Prosecution" is streaming for free on Tubi and Pluto TV.