The Dock Brief (1962)

“Don’t you see? If I’d had a barrister who’d asked questions and made clever speeches then I’d be dead as mutton! Your artfulness paid off! The artful way you handled it, the dumb tactics, it saved me!"

Released in America as Trial & Error, The Dock Brief starred Peter Sellers as Wilfred Morganhall, a long-in-the-tooth barrister whose career has been blighted at every turn by a lack of opportunities.

One day, however, his hopes are answered when he is appointed Defence Counsel to Herbert Fowle, a meek, humourless uxoricide (Richard Attenborough). The two strike up an unusual friendship and find the only way to transcend their mutual hopelessness is through the power of imagination and whimsy, until real life puts an end to their daydreaming and they land back to earth with a resounding thump.

The Dock Brief was written by John Mortimer of Rumpole fame, based on his play, and features a solid score by Ron Grainer, plus David Lodge, fourth billed, as a cackling ex-copper called Frank Bateson whose relationship with Mrs Fowle (Beryl Reid) leaves budgie-fancier Herbert hopeful of an end to his problems. When events don't go as expected Herbert cracks and finds himself in a gaol cell.

Returning guest Roger Stevenson joins Tyler to talk about this rarely-examined Sellers film, made more or less before his international fame skyrocketed. Warning: contains spoilers! Well, it WAS made over sixty years ago!