Three lawyer movies that definitely did not make your top 10 list

The legal profession is a natural for the movies. Drama is a given in a contest of wits where life and liberty -- or even money -- are at stake. Inevitably "top 10 legal movie" lists are compiled with favorites like "To Kill a Mockingbird," "Anatomy of a Murder" and "12 Angry Men" on nearly all of them. The following three are never included: "A Covenant With Death" (1967), "The Law" (1974) (a made-for-TV movie) and "The Advocate" (1993). Not to make a case that they should be, what these three movies offer that most legal movies do not -- "Anatomy of a Murder" might be an exception -- are compelling illustrations of the sometimes bizarre particulars of an enterprise that endeavors to achieve just and correct outcomes with a system of rules.

"A Covenant With Death" based on a novel by Stephen Becker is maybe the worst of the three in terms of enduring quality. Among other technical defects, it was shot in the flat, overbright lighting that "The Godfather" thankfully did away with a few years later. George Maharis, previously famous as one-half of the Corvette-driving duo on the "Route 66" television show, improbably plays a 29-year-old Mexican-American judge in a small New Mexico city in the 1920s. Surprisingly, Maharis gives a substantial measure of dignity to the character and the movie pays due respect to the cultures that exist side-by-side in the town. The heart of the story is essentially a legal problem. A local boor is convicted of murdering his sexy wife in a jealous rage and sentenced to hang. Earl Holliman Jr. gives a terrific, over-the-top performance as the defendant, who in a pathetic, paroxysm of fear launches the hangman and himself off the scaffold killing the hangman. While the authorities wait for a replacement executioner, a lustful neighbor confesses to the murder. The young judge is confronted with the question whether the defendant, innocent of his wife's murder, can make out a claim of self-defense to the hangman's death. The answer reached in the movie is surely incorrect. But the issue is engrossing and relevant in the modern era where so many on death row have been proved after decades of incarceration to be innocent of the crime that put them there.

"The Law," on the other hand, is easily the best of three. John Badham of "Saturday Night Fever" and "WarGames" fame directed and Judd Hirsch starred, both of them never better. The movie seeks to realistically portray the intricacies of a major metropolitan criminal justice system as background to a plot involving a lurid thrill-killing of a celebrity by deranged hippies (the sort of thing that started turning up after the Manson murders). "The Law" begins with a bravura sequence of short scenes that includes: a person wrongly arrested in a theater showing pornographic movies (this is 1974) whose effects were returned without the money in his wallet because the police hope that he can be pressured to serve as a cooperating witness; a judge who refused to help him watching "the punishment fit the crime" song from "The Mikado" on TV in chambers; and another judge in her chambers (played perfectly by stage actress Barbara Baxley) arming herself with a pearl-handled revolver when informed that the first appearance before her would be a "black militant." Hirsch then appears as a public defender lecturing a tank full of arrestees not to talk to the police or anyone else about their cases, while a model-handsome deputy behind Hirsch comically mimes that they should disregard his advice.

The scene that makes this movie so remarkable involves a preliminary hearing tangential to the main plot where Hirsch represents a defendant arrested after an illegal search. The pistol-packing judge not only overrules every objection and motion to strike Hirsch makes to the assistant district attorney's ham-handed examination, she questions the witnesses herself to fill in the gaps. When it's Hirsch's turn, she suggests objections to the ADA ("Do the People wish to be heard?"). It was in this scene that I first heard the phrase "backing and filling," which the judge uses to disparage Hirsh's questions.

To some, this judge may appear to be merely biased. This is simplistic. Judges frequently encounter counsel who they believe are incompetent in presenting their case and may rule and even intervene to rectify this deficiency. Moreover, in a subsequent scene, the cigarette-smoking judge (again, this is 1974) in chambers candidly acknowledges to Hirsch and the ADA that the main charge is not "righteous" and "the search leaves a lot to be desired." Then she negotiates a plea that the defendant finds favorable even if Hirsch does not. In short, the judge seeks a legitimate outcome according to her lights. Joel Oliansky, who wrote "The Law" and won an Emmy for it, observed and consulted a public defender in researching the script, and it shows.

There is less to say about "The Advocate" (titled "The Hour of the Pig" outside the U.S.) said to be based on the memoirs of a 15th century French lawyer who represented numerous animal defendants charged with crimes (a practice that persisted to the 18th century in some courts). This movie unfortunately suffers from multiple instances of highly gratuitous and implausible nudity that producers include to broaden the appeal of highbrow period pieces.

One sequence tangential to the main plot stands out, however. A Parisian lawyer (Colin Firth) who has moved to the rural county of Ponthieu for a quieter life devises a stratagem to acquit a woman of a capital offense. The defendant is accused of using witchcraft to cause rats and mice to attack a neighbor. The ecclesiastical court has already excommunicated her for being a witch and sent her back to the civil court on the charge of "suborning" the rats and mice. The defense strategy is essentially to establish a failure of proof by the prosecution. Firth persuades the court to subpoena the rats and mice as witnesses, planning to argue that their non-appearance is justified by fear of the cats and dogs who would kill them should they comply with the subpoena. The old prosecutor played to perfection by Donald Pleasance dryly warns Firth beforehand of the defect in his strategy, asking if he has "read the texts" because "Ponthieu law" can be "confounding." As it turns out, Firth has fatally persuaded his client to confess that she is a witch -- apparently based on the mistaken understanding that such charges were solely within the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical court, which has disposed of them by excommunication. After the civil court drops the civil charge, Firth is shocked when it proceeds to enter a "second judgment" of death by hanging on the witchery charge under Ponthieu law. Pleasance reminds Firth of his warning, who protests that this practice is not in "Roman law," to which Pleasance replies "custom and practice."

The lessons of this scene -- far more entertaining than the rest of the movie -- are numerous: (1) overconfidence leads to disaster; (2) one who seeks to trick can be tricked; (3) beyond positive and common law, there is local and even "local-local" law that must be taken into account; (4) never stop reading and researching applicable law; and (5) the ostensible opposition can turn out to be an honest broker. These are just the ones that come to mind and there are surely others.

In sum, "A Covenant With Death," "The Law" and "The Advocate" may not qualify as top 10, top 25 or even top 50 legal movies. But they contain scenes of depth and subtlety unmatched by the movies that are routinely included in the canon.