Gideon's Trumpet (1980)

Very well executed

This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

I consider myself well-educated but had never heard of this story until now. I had no idea that the right to have an attorney even if you cannot afford one was established so recently in 1963. I had heard of the attorney Abe Fortas, but didn't know his role in this story. The name that should be more well-known is Clarence Gideon, the man to thank for pursuing his right to a court-appointed attorney. The film simplifies the events that took place over more than two years, but it really holds your attention and shows the injustice of trials where the defendant could not afford an attorney and was often convicted without proper pursuit of the truth.

Unfortunately, many will miss knowing about this if they just check on the actor's filmography on this site. It is not explicitly listed. You will have to look for it under Hallmark Hall of Fame.It is one of Fonda's finest performances reminiscing and rivaling his portrayal of an innocent accused in The Wrong Man. Here, at age 75 he portrays Clarence Gideon who was actually only 53 at the time of the trial in 1963. Obviously, not in health when this was filmed, Henry Fonda's age and frailty adds authenticity and pathos to the character's situation.It is a landmark movie (for TV) that celebrates a landmark Supreme Court decision that added protection to the rights of the accused by ensuring that they are provided proper legal counsel.

The story of Clarence Earl Gideon illustrates the fact that even the humblest and least noble of people in the right circumstances can influence things far beyond their grasp. Gideon was certainly in humble circumstances and was not a noble character by any means.But what he was entitled to is to be represented by counsel when he was arrested for a robbery of a pool hall in a small town in Florida. Gideon was no stranger to the criminal justice system, he'd served time for numerous minor offenses before. But his efforts to defend himself without an attorney resulted in his conviction.What Gideon did was appeal directly to the US Supreme Court and they took his case and Gideon won the right to be retried with a court appointed lawyer. It was also a 9-0 decision, not something arrived at every day in important cases.Henry Fonda plays Gideon and the Seventies were not a good decade for him on screen. He sold the value of his box office name for the money and appeared in a lot of junk quite frankly. Until his final Oscar on the big screen for On Golden Pond, this Hallmark Hall of Fame television drama was probably Fonda's best work in the Seventies and might have been his epitaph, but for that. You can see this man clearly as someone who forty years earlier might well have been Tom Joad.Abe Fortas who represented Fonda at the Supreme Court is played by Jose Ferrer and Ferrer even looks like Fortas who was the consummate Washington insider. His later downfall doesn't change the fact that his was one of the most brilliant legal minds of the last century. On the local level Fonda as Gideon is represented finally in court by Lane Smith who plays his attorney in the folksy Ben Matlock style popularized by Andy Griffith.The Supreme Court who is nameless has such folks as Sam Jaffe and Dean Jagger on the bench and the Chief Justice is John Houseman. Of course the Chief Justice was Earl Warren and Houseman plays it more like his law professor Kingsley in The Paper Chase. Earl Warren was a far more down to earth individual than Houseman ever was on screen and in real life. Making her farewell appearance as Fonda's landlady is Fay Wray, she of the big ape. She gives testimony at his new trial she wasn't allowed to give at the first travesty. The right to counsel is a sacred one and the Supreme Court has made it so by the humble pleadings of one of the Creator/Deity's lesser creations in Clarence Earl Gideon. Greatness can and does exist in some strange places.

Just saw this this morning. It was well done, but I think dumbed down for general consumption. It was painful to hear so many distinguished jurists referring to attorneys or counsel as 'lawyers', as if the public wouldn't know to what they were referring. At least in the high court, they did use the proper nomenclature. Fonda did a good job of playing Gideon, although I believe the actual man was only about 50 at the time. He also made him out to be at the same time sympathetic and the unpleasant indignant multiple felon he likely was in reality.