Gideon’s Trumpet– directed by Robert L. Collins. TV Drama. 104 minutes Color 1980.
★★★★★
The Story: A innocent man jailed for petty thievery petitions the Supreme Court and changes history.
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Gideon’s Trumpet tells of one most important judicial decisions of modern times, one which I had never heard of. How it came about astonished me.
A unimpressive, cranky man Clarence Earl Gideon is condemned, without aid of counsel, to five years in prison for a crime he did not commit. He studies law in prison and makes an appeal in pencil to The Supreme Court, and it is accepted, because he is poor and it is correct in form.
The case is simple but of monumental importance. It is argued by no less a person than Abe Fortas, played by José Ferrer, and opposed by Nicholas Pryor. I found the arguments impossible to follow, but the story as a whole is easy to follow and to weigh.
Gideon is played by Henry Fonda. Fonda is what is called a technical actor. His technique here consists of his pursing his lips slightly. This may sound mean on my part, but the fact is that a small physical change can rule an entire human body, and the result is perfectly believable and acceptable as Fonda performs him. It inevitably monotonizes the performance, but it allows us to run in tandem with him. Fonda may bore but never outstrips his audience.
Gideon was 51 when the trial took place. Fonda was 75 when he played him, so I feel a slight disparity between Fonda’s actual age and Gideon’s desire to be with his children. Always a cold actor, Fonda keeps still. But his coldness works, since it rules out sentimentality and the “big speech”. His mouth rules the performance and what lies around that mouth tells us we are in the presence of a wary individual. This works well for the role and for what we need not to know about Gideon until the time is ripe.
The Supreme Court actors make everything they say momentous in a way that is preposterous, and the head judge is played by the always pontificating John Houseman. None of them have much to do except listen and so they make so much of hearing that it is obvious they are not listening to a thing – the always handsome William Prince excepted.
But the story itself reflects its importance in a way that only American movies can do. No other nation does docudrama so well. The story it tells devastates any notion we might have that a person so inconsequential as Clarence Earl Gideon is inconsequential at all. To look at him, he counts for nothing. He counts for everything. It is a great American story.