The Verdict (1946)

This is supposed to be the last movie in which Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet appeared together. Greenstreet is a Scotland Yard Superintendent. He leaves the prison as a man whom he helped to convict is led to execution. The Commissioner is waiting for him in his office and says he sent an innocent man to death. His rival Superintendent Buckley (George Coulouris) has produced a clergyman who vouches for the man's innocence. Greenstreet is forced to resign. The public is outraged. At his apartment, Morton Lowry and Paul Cavanagh get into a bitter argument over social reform, with Lorre (an artist) mediating, and it continues later in the street. Cavanagh threatens him. Then Joan Lorring, his lowerclass girlfriend, confronts him because he is putting her off. The next morning his landlady calls for him per his request, but she he does not respond. She calls Greenstreet, and they find him dead. The door was locked and sealed, and it was obviously not suicide.

Coulouris calls in an "expert," a burglar, to see if he can determine how the room was entered, but he is not much help. The investigation is going badly. Coulouris follows Lorring to Lowry's room. She is looking for a watch fob that he gave her. He holds her for questioning. The next day he asks Greenstreet for help. They go to see the undertaker who embalmed Lowry to see if he remembered the watch fob - but nothing. They open his grave, and just at the time the landlady (Rosalind Ivan) comes up, protesting loudly. Her inscribed picture is found in Lowry's clothing. And they find the watch fob, just as Lorring had said. Lorre and Greenstreet go to the music hall where Lorring performs, and then take her to dinner. She reveals that Cavanagh's past is not too clean. Cavanagh learns from Ivan that Coulouris has searched his room. He goes to see Greenstreet about it, since he is obviously a suspect. He makes Greenstreet promise not to repeat the conversation, but Lorre is listening in the closet.

Someone throws a bouquet through Lorring's window with a note not to talk about the case. Lorre then comes to her room as they are going out, bring orchids, which were the same type flowers that were thrown through her window. He keeps showing up around everything happening in the case. Someone breaks into Lorre's room that night, but he hears him and shoots at him. Ivan calls the police and then Greenstreet. Just then Cavanagh shows up, who had supposedly been out of town. Coulouris accuses him of the murder, but Greenstreet contradicts him. He is found guilty at the trial, and his appeal is denied. Greenstreet goes to see him, and tells him he must tell him the location of the woman he is trying to protect. He goes to France to find her - but she is dead.

In the meantime Lorre is drinking heavily, as usual. He goes to see Greenstreet, who says he has been expecting him. He takes Lorre, and they arrive at Newgate prison just in time to stop the execution - and humiliate Coulouris. Greenstreet then confesses that he had planned and done the murder, since Lowry had knowingly permitted an innocent man to go to his death in the first case.

This is one of Greenstreet's better performances - less flamboyant than some of the others. And, it is a completely surprise ending.




Coulouris