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Witness for the Prosecution is a 1957 American legal mystery melodrama film^[3] directed by Billy Wilder and starring Tyrone Power, Marlene Dietrich, and Charles Laughton, with Elsa Lanchester and John Williams. The film, which has elements of bleak black comedy and film noir, is a courtroom drama set in the Old Bailey in London and is based on the 1953 play of the same title by Agatha Christie. The first film adaptation of Christie's story, Witness for the Prosecution was written for the screen by Wilder and Harry Kurnitz and adapted by Larry Marcus.

The film was acclaimed by critics and received six Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture. It also received five Golden Globe Award nominations including a win for Elsa Lanchester as Best Actress in a Supporting Role. Additionally, the film was selected as the sixth-best courtroom drama ever by the American Film Institute for their AFI's 10 Top 10 list.

In the film, a man accused of killing a wealthy widow, who had named him as the main beneficiary in her will, undergoes a trial during which his wife testifies against him.

Senior barrister Sir Wilfrid Robarts is nearing retirement after a heart attack. He agrees to defend Leonard Vole, despite Nurse Plimsoll's objections and Sir Wilfrid's doctor having warned against taking stressful criminal cases. Leonard is accused of murdering Emily French, a wealthy, childless widow who fell in love with him and named him as the main beneficiary in her will. Despite the evidence, Sir Wilfrid believes his client to be innocent.

Sir Wilfrid speaks with Leonard's German wife, Christine, whom he finds cold and self-possessed; she provides Leonard with an alibi, but Sir Wilfrid warns her that juries often do not accept alibis given by spouses. Sir Wilfred is later shocked when Christine is called to give evidence against Leonard as a prosecution witness.

While a wife cannot be compelled to testify against her husband, it is revealed that her marriage to Leonard is invalid, as she was already married to another man, Otto Helm, still alive and living in Germany. She states that she never loved Leonard, and her conscience compels her to tell the truth. She explains that she met Leonard, a Royal Air Force sergeant serving in Berlin's British occupation zone, and went through a marriage ceremony with him solely to escape from Soviet-controlled territory. According to her testimony, Leonard arrived home after the time of the murder, and openly confessed that he had killed Mrs. French.

Sir Wilfrid fears that his client will be convicted and sentenced to hang. He is then unexpectedly contacted by a Cockney woman, who offers to sell him compromising letters written by Christine to a man named Max. The handwriting is genuine, and the woman appears to have a legitimate reason for providing the correspondence: Max, who had once been her lover, had attacked her, leaving her with facial scars. During cross examination, Sir Wilfrid reads the letters, which disclose a conspiracy between Max and Christine to frame Leonard. The jury acquits Leonard.

Sir Wilfrid admits that his victory seemed suspiciously easy, and is proved right when Christine returns to the courtroom to avoid an angry crowd waiting outside. She explains that, after Sir Wilfred's earlier warnings about alibis, she had decided to pose as a hateful, double-crossing wife. She wrote letters to a non-existent lover (Max) and impersonated the disfigured woman who passed them to Sir Wilfrid. Christine loves Leonard, but knew he was guilty; she told the truth about Leonard's confession in the witness-box, then used the false letters to discredit her own testimony. Sir Wilfrid is outraged, but the law of double jeopardy prevents any renewed prosecution of Leonard.

Leonard reveals he is having an affair with a much younger woman, and intends to abandon Christine. He smugly states that, though Christine will be tried for perjury, he and she are now even, having saved each other's lives. A devastated Christine grabs a knife and fatally stabs Leonard. As she is taken into custody, Sir Wilfrid decides to further delay his retirement to defend Christine.

Producers Arthur Hornblow and Edward Small bought the rights to the play for $450,000. The play was adjusted to emphasize the character of the defence barrister.^[4] Billy Wilder was signed to direct in April 1956.^[5] According to Wilder, when the producers approached Marlene Dietrich about the part, she accepted on the condition that Wilder direct. Wilder said that Dietrich liked "to play a murderess" but was "a little bit embarrassed when playing the love scenes."^[6]

Vivien Leigh was considered for the role of Christine Vole.^[7] Laughton based his performance on Florance Guedella, his own lawyer, an Englishman who was known for twirling his monocle while cross-examining witnesses.^[4]

In a flashback showing how Leonard and Christine first meet in a German nightclub, she is wearing her trademark trousers, made famous by Dietrich in director Josef von Sternberg's film Morocco (1930).^[8] A rowdy customer rips them down one side, revealing one of Dietrich's renowned legs and starting a brawl. The scene required 145 extras and 38 stuntmen, and cost $90,000.^[9] The bar is called Die blaue Laterne (English: The Blue Lantern), which is a reference to Dietrich's 1930 film The Blue Angel.^{[citation needed]}

At the end of the film, as the credits roll, a voiceover announces:

Witness for the Prosecution was first released on a U.S. Region 1 widescreen DVD by MGM Home Entertainment on December 11, 2001 and with a new restoration by Kino Lorber (under license from MGM) on Blu-ray and DVD on July 22, 2014; both versions were followed by many other countries.^[19]

• List of American films of 1957
• Trial film
• Witness for the Prosecution (1982)
• The Witness for the Prosecution (2016)

• Witness for the Prosecution at IMDb 
• Witness for the Prosecution at AllMovie
• Witness for the Prosecution at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films
• Witness for the Prosecution at the TCM Movie Database (archived)