By Mary Shaffer
and Jerry Bunin
Telegram-Tribune

It's hard to imagine a credible Hollywood screenwriter inventing the bizarre circumstances, colorful characters and media hysteria surrounding O.J. Simpson's arrest for murder in June.

But long before TV started covering O.J.'s double-murder trial this week, courtroom dramas attracted some of the cinema's best writers, directors and actors.

The courtroom is a natural stage. Defendants, victims, witnesses and lawyers try to convince an audience of judges, jurors and viewers which version of the truth is most believeable.

Courtrooms are mental battlegrounds. Combatants argue over fundamentals--truth, justice and morality--and life and death hang in the balance.

More than most films, courtroom dramas rely on words, ideas and performances--not action and special effects--to illuminate the human drama and then condense months of legal conflict into a few incredibly tense hours.

One of the most realistic, intelligent and entertaining examples is Otto Preminger's "Anatomy of a Murder" (1959).

James Stewart's colorful "humble country lawyer" battles wits and wills with slick "big city" prosecutor George C. Scott for the life of a jealous Army officer accused of murdering a man who allegedly raped the officer's sexy young wife.

Joseph P. Welch, a judge who found fame as a lawyer opposing Sen. Joseph McCarthy in the Army hearings, plays the judge refereeing the verbal "dogfight."

Based on a novel by a real judge, "Anatomy" finds drama in nearly every aspect of the legal process, from researching legal precedents to delivering closing arguments.

We don't see the jury deliberate, what Stewart's co-counsel describes as "12 different minds and hearts...become one mind, unanimous."

That happens in "12 Angry Men" (1957), a classic drama set entirely in a confined jury room.

A dozen white men of varying ages and backgrounds deliberate the fate of a poor young Puerto Rican in an apparently open-and-shut murder case.

But a single juror (Henry Fonda) holds out for acquittal, forcing the others to more closely examine the evidence and their own prejudices and beliefs.

Written by Reginald Rose, who later created "The Defenders" TV series, the film features a uniformly great ensemble cast in Sydney Lumet's feature film directorial debut.

Lumet later directed Paul Newman to an Oscar nomination in "The Verdict" (1982). Newman plays an ambulance-chasing, alcoholic Boston lawyer whose passion for the law, life and justice is rekindled by a medical negligence case.

The passions, personal commitment and individual integrity needed to do what is right are key courtroom questions explored in two memorable Spencer Tracy films Stanley Kramer directed.

As a retired American judge in "Judgment at Nuremberg" (1961), Tracy weighs individual guilt and responsibility in the war crimes trial of four judges who served under the Third Reich.

In "Inherit the Wind" (1960), he plays a famous Northern liberal lawyer defending a young Southerner accused of teaching Darwin's theory of evolution. Based on the famous 1925 Scopes trial, the case attracts huge crowds and press coverage and raises issues debated today.

Trial by public opinion is the main focus of Fred Schepisi's "A Cry in the Dark" (1988), the true story of an Australian couple (Meryl Streep and Sam Neill) accused of murdering their baby despite their claims she was carried off by a wild dog.

Schepisi reveals the public and private torments of a deeply religious couple who fight for years to clear their names after being convicted by the press, the public, and the courts.

Streep was nominated for an Oscar playing a defendant who garnered little public sympathy. Jeremy Irons won an Oscar for playing an even less likable client.

"Reversal of Fortune" (1990) chronicles Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz's successful appeal of Claus von Bulow's 1982 conviction for the attempted murder of his wealthy socialite wife, Sunny.

The audience becomes the jury trying to decide von Bulow's guilt or innocence based on such evidence as conflicting interpretations of the same events offered by the comatose Sunny (Glenn Close), the cold and enigmatic Claus (Irons), and the passionate Dershowitz (Ron Oliver).

As the empty lives and unhappy circumstances leading to Sunny's coma become clearer, it becomes harder to find someone not guilty of something.

The line between guilt and innocence is even murkier in the army where soldiers can be tried for obeying or disobeying orders.

Bruce Beresford's "Breaker Morant" (1979) tells the true story of three Australian soldiers on trial for carrying out a British order not to keep prisoners alive during the Boer War.

Despite their lawyer's best efforts, the trio's fate is sealed before their trial even begins when the Empire decides to sacrifice them for the sake of negotiating a quicker peace.

In "The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell" (1955), the military aviation pioneer--who predicted the attack on Pearl Harbor--deliberately disobeys orders to highlight the lack of safety and funding for the fledgling air force he helped create.

Mitchell refuses to compromise and gets his day in court.

"The whole foundation of our legal system rests on the right of a man to defend himself," Douglas MacArthur remarks, "He may be wrong, but at least he's entitled to tell his story."

A chance to tell that story, to have truth and justice weighed by your peers based on law, that is what the courtroom is for and what makes a courtroom drama.

Mary Shaffer works at Cal Poly. Jerry Bunin is a Telegram-Tribune reporter.

• "They Won't Forget" (1937)
• "Compulsion" (1959)
• "Helter Skelter" (1976)
• "Roe vs. Wade" (1989)
• "Separate But Equal" (1991)

Military Trials

• "The Caine Mutiny" (1954)
• "Paths of Glory" (1957)
• "King and Country" (1964)
• "Prisoner of Honor" (1991)
• "A Few Good Men" (1992)

• "Witness for the Prosecution" (1948)
• "A Place in the Sun" (1951)
• "True Believer" (1989)
• "A Killing in a Small Town" (1990)
• "Presumed Innocent" (1990)
• "Paris Trout" (1991)
• "Brothers Keeper" (1992)

• "Adam's Rib" (1949)
• "To Kill a Mockingbird" (1962)
• "The Accused" (1988)
• "Philadelphia" (1993)