Theater: Goodguys Finish First

A Case of Libel has been adapted by Henry Denker from a chapter in Lawyer Louis Nizer’s bestseller, My Life in Court. The case, though veiled, is Newsman Quentin Reynolds’ winning libel suit against Columnist Westbrook Pegler. Since the element of suspense is nonexistent, the result is fairly tame and lethargic, except for those who relish every predictable cliche of courtroom stagecraft.

A famed war correspondent (John Randolph) has been vilified in print by his old right-wing extremist friend (Larry Gates) as a Communist-line lackey and a “drunken, immoral, yellow-bellied degenerate.” An ace trial lawyer (Van Heflin) fights through to victory after the customary initial aw-shucks-not-another-case gambit. Of course there is the loyal, jittery, correspondent’s wife, who wants to throw in the towel marked HIS. Of course there is the bright young legal eaglet who breaks the case wide open by being able to read an incriminating scrap of paper upside down.

As the paladin of justice, Van Heflin is an ingratiatingly drawly but volcanically eruptive goodguy, and Larry Gates makes an icy fork-tongued reptile of the man whose politics are somewhat to the right of Genghis Khan. But since the play is rigged for the triumph of good over evil, it is no more intellectually honest than a play that paints the world pitch black. Libel merely caters to an audience’s smug self-righteousness, scarcely good growing weather for an examination of moral conscience. Playwright Denker ringingly declares for a responsible free press and due process of taw, which is about as audacious as sponsoring the Ten Commandments.