Hello, ShatnerWeb readers! I’m back! I was stuck in outer space for the last few years, and lost track of all time. Hopefully I’ll be able to make sure I continue to bring you Shatner reviews (still in chronological order) at a relatively steady pace. What that pace might be, I have no idea…but hopefully it’s steady.
This post will be a review of Studio One’s The Defender: Part 2. Part 1 was only partially complete when published a few years back, so I hope that you go back and fully inbreathiate the finished product before moving on to Part 2 below. Come on, you know you want to. It’s like getting 2 for the price of 1!
Thanks for being patient and, as always, for reading!
When last week’s episode ended, Joseph (Steve McQueen) was blowing up at the defense table after the maid’s eyewitness testimony basically pinned the murder on him. Kenneth (William Shatner) was consoling him, court was adjourned for the day, the room cleared and the Defender himself, Walter Preston (Ralph Bellamy), sat disconsolate in his chair.
So this episode starts the next morning. The courtroom is opened and people and jurors pack in quickly. As the room fills, the camera switches around to listen in on snippets of peoples’ conversations. Reporters, spectators, jurors, the prosecutors, the defense attorneys, even the guards take turns basically recapping the events and sentiments of last week’s episode. When the court is called to order, the D.A. Toohey (Martin Balsam) calls the maid back to the stand and has the court reporter read back her testimony from the day before. Again, more recapping. He asks her a few more questions, and then it is time for Walter to cross-examine.
At first, I was a little miffed that the show took 6+ minutes in what was basically a glorified recap of the last episode without getting into anything new. But I gained an appreciation after thinking about it a bit. When this show was aired, it was aired live. It wasn’t filmed and edited, and unlike more modern programs there was not really a great way to edit a quick recap together to catch folks up who may have missed the last episode or forgotten pieces of it. With that in mind, I thought the way it was recapped (disguised quite a bit by having so many voices naturally talking about it as they settled into the courtroom) was actually very smart.
So finally we have Walter Preston getting the opportunity to cross-examine the maid. He asks her a number of questions trying to inject some doubt into her recollections, but the maid is absolutely positive about the time and about her identification. Walter asks her multiple times if she can be positive about her identification. She is adamant that Joseph is the man she saw, “So help me God.” Seems like Walter has helped drive the final nail into Joseph’s about-to-be quite literal coffin.
Before Toohey can call his next witness, Kenneth asks the judge for a recess. Turns out he wants to argue his case again to his father to perform whatever “courtroom trick” his father doesn’t want to be any part of. This scene between Bellamy and Shatner is the longest of the teleplay solely between their two characters, and the most direct.
Walter flatly tells his son once again that he won’t allow Shatner to proceed with his idea, even though he admits that Kenneth has given him “a solution to this case that would make my personal code of ethics fit for a dung heap.” Walter is morally convinced that he is “defending a guilty man” and that Joseph “doesn’t deserve to be freed on a trick.” He goes on to blame Kenneth for putting him in the position of playing God, asking him to choose between his ethics and letting (who he believes is a) guilty man go free in the community.
Walter basically asks his son whether he would still want to perform this mystery “trick” even if Kenneth had seen Joseph murder the woman (i.e. knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was guilty.) Kenneth responds that yes, he would. And as I noted in the last post, that’s the job of a defense attorney. Doing everything they possibly can to defend their clients, whether or not they believe in (to whatever degree, even 100% certainty) the guilt or innocence of the client.
It’s a great scene, both actors doing some bang-up work to sell their character’s views and motivations. It ends with Walter telling his son that “We don’t think alike you and I…I don’t really know you.” Kenneth responds, “Nor I you” and leaves the room to return to court. It seems at this moment that the father son relationship is at it’s lowest level…but it’s becoming obvious that Walter is at least beginning to have some doubts as to whether or not he should indulge the “trick” at the very least, and possibly some doubts as to whether Joseph is guilty and/or whether that matters.
Speaking of Joseph, back in the courtroom he and his mother (Vivian Nathan) have a moment in another great scene. Nathan was one of the founding members of the Actor’s Studio in NYC in 1947, a place known for training and fostering actors, and especially well-known for “refining and teaching method acting.” And Nathan acts the hell out of this scene. Mrs. Gordon tells her son that she gets so angry that everyone is calling him a murderer, that she wanted to get up and scream when the maid accused him. Joseph emphatically tells his mother that he never killed anyone, and swears both to God and on his late father’s grave that he is telling the truth. Nathan begins to cry (real tears! Yay acting!) and the scene really starts to inject even more doubt as to whether Joseph is guilty or innocent…to the audience at least.
After Walter has a long think alone, court resumes. Toohey calls Dr. Victor Wallach (David J. Stewart), the dead woman’s husband, to the stand as the prosecution’s final witness. Wallach also swears that he can identify Joseph as the man who ran by him on the street moments after the murder. After stating this, Mrs. Gordon goes apeshit and yells and screams at Wallach before being calmed down by Kenneth.
Wallach’s eyewitness account is called into a bit of doubt by Walter on cross, as Wallach really only saw the man’s profile for a brief second and then the back of his head as the man ran away. But still, now we have two witnesses who are adamant that their eyewitness accounts are accurate.
Now it’s the defense’s turn, and Walter calls his first (and ultimately only) witness, Joseph’s doctor. This is to establish that Joseph suffers from “chronic sinusitis” which causes terrible headaches and would help explain a possible reason and corroboration of Joseph’s statement to the police for returning home the morning of the murder rather than going back to work as usual. However, Toohey on cross-examination tears this witness viciously apart making him appear a paid shill at best and incompetent at worst. After this cross-examination is over, Walter sadly apologizes to the doctor, obviously disgusted that Toohey was so harsh.
A brief word about the doctor, specifically the actor who played him. He’s not listed in the credits on the DVD or anywhere online that I could find. His name appears to be Dr. Cusick, but I have no idea who the actor is and so won’t know if there are any past or future ties to Shatner. This makes me sad and gives me OCD. If anyone knows who it might be, let me know in the comments please!
We now come to the best scene in production. Walter and Kenneth are out in the hallway during the lunch recess having a smoke. Yes, Shatner Smokes Alert!!! You can tell Shatner is not a real smoker though…he doesn’t inhale into his lungs, but does the whole “inhale into mouth and then quickly blow out the smoke to make it look like I’m a smoker” acting thing. It’s the type of trickery kids who don’t smoke try to pull around real smokers to make themselves look cool or tough.
Anyway, Toohey walks by and chats for a moment. Walter asks if he can have a word with him. They all move to the stairwell for some privacy and Walter proceeds to ask Toohey why he was so hard on the poor doctor in the courtroom. Toohey is flabbergasted. He was hard on the doctor because it’s his fucking job to tear down any and all defense witnesses! He basically tells Walter that he can’t believe a lawyer of 30 years can’t understand that. Which is what I’ve been railing about over the course of these two reviews!
But the best is yet to come. Walter then asks Toohey “Do you think Gordon’s guilty?” When Toohey says it sure looks like that’s how the jury will decide, Walter follows up with a “Supposing he isn’t?” Again, Toohey is completely gobsmacked that he’s being asked this, which leads him into a great speech which includes the following incisive part and encapsulates everything I’ve been on about (emphasis mine, of course):
Yes, I happen to have a conscience. I’m worried that I’m not earning my salary. You see, I get paid to do one thing, Preston, and that’s to convict. And the money’s pretty good, considering where I come from, and I’m responsible to all the people in this state so I take my job pretty seriously, you know? And once I walk into that court I don’t think about whether the guy is guilty or not. I just plow right in there and try to convict him.
I’m the prosecuting attorney so I prosecute! I figure the defense attorney is the defender and I always figure he’s a little smarter than me so I’ll do anything I can to win, in or out of the ring, clean or dirty it’s all the same to me just so long as I win.
Listen, if I stop to think about whether or not that guy is guilty or not I’m dead. That’s the jury’s headache. Now, the people pay me to convict and that’s what I got to give them and if I don’t I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night.
BINGO. ‘Nuff said.
In Shatner’s autobiography, Up Till Now, he wrote this about Steve McQueen:
I remember watching McQueen work and thinking, wow, he doesn’t do anything. He was inarticulate, he mumbled, and only later did I understand how beautifully he did nothing. It was so internalized that the camera picked it up as would a pair of inquisitive eyes. Out of seemingly nothing he was creating a unique form of reality.
In the first episode of this two-part drama, I mentioned that I thought McQueen overacted a bit. But Shatner’s more on the money regarding McQueen’s performance in this episode, exemplified by the next scene where Walter talks to Joseph before court resumes. It’s the first time that Joseph doesn’t freak out on Walter. He just sits at a table with his uneaten lunch and asks Walter “What do you want? I can tell by the way you’re standing there that you want to ask me again if I killed her, right? Well what if I said I killed her? You’d believe me…for the first time since this thing started wouldn’t you?” It’s a tough question, and McQueen does a great job selling Joseph’s intensity, anger and even disgust without some crazy outburst.
Walter doesn’t answer. Joined now by Kenneth he sits with Joseph and tells him that they are going to lose the case. They have no more witnesses that could possibly change the outcome. He says that there is nothing else the defense can possibly do. In effect, he’s telling Joseph that he’s going to go to the gas chamber. And then he does something that he says he’s never done in his career; he offers to resign from the case if Joseph asks him to.
This is the culmination of a pattern for Walter, where he blames others or attempts to get out of his duty to defend Joseph. The first instance of this was when he blamed Joseph for apparently murdering the woman, thus leading to Walter having to defend him in the first place. Earlier in this episode he blamed his son for coming up with a defensive strategy that may get Joseph acquitted, but at the expense of forcing Walter to “play God” and possibly free someone he is convinced is a murderer. Then he blamed Toohey for destroying his defense witness (again meaning he now has a choice to make about going for Kenneth’s defensive strategy or allowing Joseph to be found guilty and sentenced to death.) And finally, now he is offering to leave the case entirely…but only if Joseph asks him to.
Joseph doesn’t let him off the hook, though. He looks hard at Walter and asks “What do you want to do?” Then he leaves the room and heads back to court. It’s the crux of the drama, obviously. Can Walter be brought around to understanding that his job is not to decide guilt or innocence? It’s not to play judge, jury OR executioner. It’s to do everything in his power to defend. A point Kenneth drives home after Walter tells him that he still believes Toohey is wrong in what he said to them earlier.
He hasn’t judged the man, he only thinks he has a case against him and wants to win it because that’s his job. Dad, he said it all out there. Right or wrong, he’s on one side and you’re on the other. The man on trial is all alone in the middle. He can’t defend himself. He may be guilty. Nobody really knows. But shouldn’t there be someone that fights to free him as hard as Toohey fights to kill him? Aren’t those the rules? Clean, dirty…as long as there are lawyers on each side does it really matter? Isn’t the law big enough and durable enough to withstand these things?
Kenneth again asks if they shouldn’t take the risk on his novel defensive strategy (whatever it is.) Walter begins to see the light. He eventually looks up at his son and says with some pride and a smile and says “I hadn’t realized how big you’ve gotten.” And now Walter is apparently ready to take hold of his responsibility. Courtroom trickery here we come!
They return to the courtroom together and Walter calls Joseph’s mother to the stand. He begins to ask her questions about the day of the murder and Joseph’s actions. As his mother answers, Toohey objects over and over again which eventually agitates the mother so much that she blows up at him, charging off the witness stand yelling at him. The entire courtroom rises, guards escort the distraught woman from the courtroom and everyone retakes their seats.
Walter then recalls the maid to the stand and asks her once more if she’s sure that the man sitting at the defense table is positively the man she saw on the day of the murder. Cut to a shot of the defense table, where the man sitting next to Kenneth is clearly not Joseph.
It’s laughable now, with HD and large televisions (I myself watched this most recently on an 8 foot screen,) but in early 1957 TV’s were rather blurry things. Indeed, one of the commercials in last week’s episode was for a new Westinghouse television that had 22% more detail than the average TV! Amazing!
Anyway, you can see where this is headed. Walter then recalls Dr. Wallach and he too says that the man at the defense table is the man he saw. And then Walter reveals that this isn’t Joseph (Joseph slipped to the back row of the courtroom during the confusion his mother caused.) The other man is a law student who looks a bit like Joseph; Kenneth saw him at a law library a few months back and latched onto the idea of attempting this trick to prove that the eyewitness testimony in this case couldn’t be trusted. The prosecution’s case has clearly fallen apart and the judge acquits Joseph on the spot (after telling poor Walter that he is disappointed in him pulling that stunt in his courtroom, legitimate or not.)
The show ends with Toohey bitchily congratulating the Prestons on their victory, saying “I guess neither of us will sleep tonight,” and Dr. Wallach looking downtrodden and distraught that Joseph has been freed. Walter himself looks like someone kicked him the head and Kenneth gets the last words that drive home writer Reginald Rose’s thoughts on the matter:
You still think he’s guilty don’t you? Well I don’t think so. Suppose he is…no one’s proved it. Isn’t that the safeguard that protects us all whether they’re innocent or guilty? They have to prove it. It’s possible we’ve used the law to free a guilty man. Now if he’s innocent we’ve used the same law to save a life. Let’s go home, Father.
Fin. Cue a commercial about Westinghouse vacuum cleaner.
As I noted in the last review, the writer of this teleplay was Reginald Rose, the man who also wrote 12 Angry Men which originally debuted on Studio One in 1955 before becoming a major motion picture later in this year, 1957. In 1961 he created the hit show The Defenders, based obviously on this teleplay, that ran for 5 years. Because of this resume, Rose is widely considered one of the fathers of legal television and film drama. Hell, even current Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor has credited 12 Angry Men as one of the inspirations for her pursuing a law degree.
It’s hard to believe now, but courtroom dramas were fairly novel affairs on television before 12 Angry Men. But then came Perry Mason, The Defenders, L.A. Law, Matlock, and 45,000 different iterations (and episodes) of Law & Order. Not to mention Boston Legal, Suits, Ally McBeal, everything John Grisham ever did and a whole host of others…the list goes on and on.
Rose liked to work in the gray areas, with both 12 Angry Men and “The Defender” dealing with a defendant who may or may not be guilty. The audience is never given a definitive answer…Rose was more interested in looking at social, economic, societal biases and at mob mentality. In both 12 Angry Men and “The Defender”, what appears at first to be an open and shut case slowly begins to get far murkier the more characters pull on the loose threads of the sweater. But in both cases, the audience is not left with a pat answer or reveal. Only with questions and thoughts as to the nature/duty of the justice system and the of the people charged with examining their roles and responsibilities within it…and confronting their biases and preconceptions in order to fulfill those responsibilities to the fullest extent.
I also kind of like how the trick involves the demolition of eyewitness testimony. Multiple studies (such as the one described in this article) have shown that, though it is highly persuasive in court, eyewitness testimony can in fact be completely unreliable for a variety of reasons. “The Defender” would have been ahead of it’s time in bringing up the flaws of such testimony to the average viewer.
As for Shatner, I contend that this (his first) appearance on Studio One had monumental implications for his career going forward. In Up Till Now he writes quite a bit about how nervous he was being seen in front of the largest TV viewing audience he had ever acted for…but in that book he says all of this about another two-part Studio One episode, “No Deadly Medicine” which was actually the final production of the show that he ever performed in… and which didn’t air until almost a year later. I have a hard time believing that it took him a full year to realize what a big deal Studio One was, one of the most prestigious live anthology shows on TV during the “Golden Age of Television,” possibly rivaled or eclipsed only by Playhouse 90.
I would bet that this appearance also helped him land his spot in the motion picture The Brothers Karamozov, which began filming about 6 months after this show aired. I also contend that, even more importantly than the number of viewers watching or the possible Brothers Karamozov casting nudge, his appearance on this program caught the eye of producer Herb Brodkin.
Herb Brodkin not only produced all of the episodes of Studio One that Shatner would appear in (a total of five, all in 1957), but he also produced a number of episodes of Playhouse 90, including the original version of Judgment at Nuremberg. When “The Defender” was to be turned into an ongoing TV Series called The Defenders (which both Ralph Bellamy and William Shatner were asked to reprise their roles for,) Herb Brodkin was the producer. Although both Shatner and Bellamy turned down the opportunity to star in the ongoing series, Shatner was brought in as a guest star for an episode in each of the show’s five years on the air.
As The Defenders was wrapping up in 1965, Brodkin then created a new series about a defense attorney entitled For The People…and he again asked William Shatner to star in it. It was the first ongoing series that Shatner ever definitively said “yes” to (after turning down both The Defenders AND Dr. Kildare, although he would apparently agree to a Nero Wolfe series which was never bought by the network in 1960.) The reviews for For The People were quite good, but it was sadly (for Shatner) cancelled after 13 episodes. It did however give him both the exposure of a “leading man” on TV in an ongoing series and, with it’s cancellation, an appreciation of (and a desire for) the stability that such an ongoing TV show could give an actor. The following year, 1966, he was offered and accepted the lead role on another new TV series.
I’ll bet you can guess what that was, can’t you?
Shat Level: 3 = Solid Shat
Shatner’s Web
It’s time to detail all of the connections between Studio One – “The Defender” and other Shatner appearances!
OK, here we go. The web of Shatner is really going to start heating up as we get more and more into his U.S. television appearances.
Pretty much all of the below actors, appeared with Shatner in Part 1 of “The Defender” in last week’s episode.
Ralph Bellamy would then next appear on 1958’s The Christmas Tree with Shatner. After that, he would would wait almost 20 years to be basked in the Shat’s greatness on 1977’s Testimony of Two Men. Archival footage of Studio One – “The Defender” that included Bellamy would also be featured many, many years later in a 2007 episode of Boston Legal – “Son of the the Defender.”
Martin Balsam would work with Shatner on an episode of Naked City – “Without Stick or Sword” in 1962. His last appearances with Shatner would be on a five episode arc of TV’s Dr. Kildare – “The Encroachment,” “A Patient Lost,” “What Happened to All the Sunshine and Roses?,” “The Taste of Crow” and “Out of a Concrete Tower” in 1966.
Steve McQueen soon got too big for his britches and never worked with Shatner again.
Ian Wolfe (the judge in “The Defender”) would team up with Shatner again for two episodes of Star Trek: “Bread and Circuses” and “All Our Yesterdays.” He would then be seen again as another judge in 1970’s The Andersonville Trial and then one last time in an episode of the short-lived Barbary Coast TV series in 1975 – “Crazy Cats.”
Vivian Nathan, a stand out in this production playing the mother of McQueen’s character, would have one more Studio One episode with Shatner later this same year: “The Deaf Heart.”
Frank Marth, who had a brief appearance in this production as “First Reporter” would appear with Shatner one more time in a 1963 episode of The Nurses – “A Difference of Years.”
Milton Selzer, credited in this episode as “2nd Guard,” would go on next to work with Shatner in a 1958 Kraft Mystery Theatre episode titled “The Man Who Didn’t Fly.” Next, he would appear in an episode of The Defenders called “The Uncivil War.” Then, in 1973 he would work with Shatner on Mannix – “Search for a Whisper” and finally in 1974 on an episode of Mission: Impossible – “Cocaine.”
Interestingly, Ed Asner can be easily seen as a juror in this production although he has no speaking lines and is uncredited. He would ironically work with Shatner properly in a 1963 episode of The Defenders – “The Cruel Hook.” In 2001, both men would work on an animated show called Gahan Wilson’s The Kid in an episode titled “The Cat.” Although those were the only three times they would work on the same production as actors, they did appear as themselves for a number of shows, including 1975’s Mitzi and A Hundred Guys, 1987’s Happy Birthday Hollywood, 2008’s TV Land Awards show, and 2012’s Betty White’s 90th Birthday: A Tribute to America’s Golden Girl. Most interestingly, Ed would be a guest on an episode of Shatner’s Raw Nerve in 2011. In that episode, I remember thinking that although Asner was only 5 years older than Shatner, he looked about 25 years older.
Reginald Rose, the writer of this teleplay, would later be credited as the creator of the series based off it – The Defenders. Although Shatner and Bellamy both turned down the chance to appear in the roles they originated with “The Defender”, Shatner would go on to appear in five episodes of the series over the course of it’s five year run from 1961-65: “Killer Instinct,” “The Invisible Badge,” “The Cruel Hook,” “The Uncivil War” and finally “Whipping Boy.”
Worthington Minor created Studio One, and Shatner would appear in several other episodes of the series this same year: “The Deaf Heart,” and another two part episode “No Deadly Medicine.” In addition, he had already appeared in two episodes of The Kaiser Aluminum Hour that Minor was the Executive Producer on, “Mr. Finchley Versus the Bomb” and “Gwyneth.” He would go on to appear in one more episode later in 1957, “The Deadly Silence.” Finally, Minor was the Executive Producer of Play of the Week when Shatner would co-star in a 1960 production of a sci-fi story, “Night of the Auk.”
Finally, Herb Brodkin, the producer of Studio One at this time brought Shatner back to the program for “The Deaf Heart,” and another two part episode “No Deadly Medicine” in 1967. He was later the producer responsible for The Defenders series that began a few years later. As mentioned above, Shatner and Bellamy both turned down offers to reprise their roles in the ongoing series, but Shatner would be hired to guest on the episodes “Killer Instinct,” “The Invisible Badge,” “The Cruel Hook,” “The Uncivil War” and finally “Whipping Boy.” With The Defenders winding down in 1965, Brodkin created a new show also featuring an attorney and asked Shatner to star in it. That show would become Shatner’s first ongoing series of his own: For The People.
Further Studies
You can purchase this episode online on DVD. Of course, you can always search for it on the thousands of streaming platforms.
More info on this episode, from a toupological angle of course, can be found at the Shatner’s Toupee blog.
For a little more on Studio One itself, click here.
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