Reversal of Fortune (1990) Movie Script
This was my body.
On December 27, 1979,
I lay in bed all day.
Whether I was asleep or in a coma
later became a subject of dispute.
When my breathing
became obstructed...
Maria!
... my husband, Claus von Bulow,
finally did as my maid
had been urging all day:
he summoned a physician.
Dr. Paultees?
I stopped breathing.
My heart stopped beating.
By this time,
I was certainly in a deep coma
from which I awoke several hours later.
By the next morning,
I was myself again.
There's no reason for all this fuss.
I never felt better in my whole life.
This first coma aroused
suspicion and fear
in the minds of my personal maid Maria,
my son Alex,
and my elder daughter Ala.
From this time on, though they never
voiced their suspicions to me,
they kept a vigilant eye on Claus.
A year later, just before Christmas,
their darkest fears seemed justified.
- Has Mummy had breakfast yet?
- No, we haven't seen her.
My husband did not want our daughter
Cosima to see what he had found,
so he motioned to his stepson Alex.
Second coma. My pulse was 38,
my temperature 81.6 degrees.
Did you call an ambulance?
Nicholas, ask Robert to open the main
gates. We're expecting an ambulance.
Send an ambulance immediately...
Keep her in something warm.
A blanket or anything you can find.
All this activity was pointless.
We'd better do an EEG.
I never woke from this coma,
and I never will.
I am what doctors call
"persistent vegetative", a vegetable.
According to medical experts, I could
stay like this for a very long time,
brain-dead, body better than ever.
Enter Robert Brillhoffer,
former Manhattan district attorney.
My two children from my first marriage,
Alex and Ala von Auersberg,
hired Brillhoffer to investigate the case.
He put a "do not resuscitate" order
on her hospital chart.
They sent Alex
and a private investigator
back to my Newport cottage,
Clarendon Court, to search for drugs.
They found plenty... in Claus's closet.
On top of that, the hospital lab reported
that my blood insulin on admission
was 14 times normal,
a level almost surely caused by injection.
Insulin injection could
readily cause coma...
or death.
This encrusted needle
tested positive for insulin.
Alex couldn't wait to get back
and show Brillhoffer.
Now they felt they had
the murder weapon.
All they lacked was the motive.
At that moment, my husband
was vacationing with his mistress,
the very beautiful soap-opera actress,
Alexandra Isles.
Oh, God!
Mrs. Isles, a divorce, was the daughter
of an old friend, Count Billy Botsky.
Brillhoffer also discovered
that, at my death,
Claus, whose own net worth
was only a million dollars,
stood to inherit 14 million from me.
Alexandra later testified that Claus
showed her a legal analysis of my will.
On the evidence collected by Alex,
Ala and their lawyer Brillhoffer,
my husband was accused of twice trying
to murder me with injections of insulin.
On March 16, 1982, he was
found guilty on both counts.
... committed
on December 27, 1979...
Even Alexandra Isles
testified against him.
Guilty.
As to count two, charged the defendant
committed on December 21, 1980,
a crime of assault with intent to murder.
- How do you find?
- Guilty.
You are about to see how
Claus von Bulow sought to reverse
or escape from that jury's verdict.
You tell me.
And two! Here it comes. Here we go,
taking you downtown! And Dersh...
Take it in! Foul! OK, here I go.
Watch the hands! Watch the hands!
Yeah, hello.
What?
Oh, shit... Bottom line.
Aw, shit!
Hi.
Let's try that again.
Hi, Dad. Remember Maggie?
Hi, Maggie.
They're gonna fry. The Johnson brothers.
What? But...
Two black kids broke
their father out of prison.
The father shot two people:
the sons are convicted of murder.
A lawyer prays for an innocent client.
Finally, I get two.
Both of them are gonna get zapped.
- No more appeals?
- This was the best shot.
Whoa. It's the press.
You don't want to talk to the press?
Dershowitz Psychiatric Institute.
Hang on a second.
Claus von Bulow.
- It's a reporter.
- With an English accent?
What paper do you represent?
If I can't save two innocent kids,
what's the point?
Yeah, one second. Sorry.
He really seems to think he's von Bulow.
Hello. This is Alan Dershowitz.
Who are you? What do you want?
- It is von Bulow.
- Back in business.
- Can I help you?
- Claus von Bulow?
Elevators to the left.
Holy shit.
Hello?
Hello?
Professor Dershowitz. Hello, hello.
- How good of you to come.
- Pleasure.
Won't you sit down?
- Do you play?
- That? No.
Most people think it's a game of luck.
Actually, it's largely a matter of nerve.
Erm... Nothing, thank you, Charles.
Why don't we go to Delmonico's
and have a proper lunch?
Whatever.
I have the greatest respect
for the intelligence and integrity
of the Jewish people.
When I married Sunny, she was
the most beautiful divorce in the world,
and one of the wealthiest.
Even so, we never got this table.
Professor Dershowitz.
Dr. von Bulow.
Two injections of insulin,
already I'm a doctor.
In America, it's fame rather than class.
Now, after all this unpleasantness,
I always get the best table.
- Speaking of the unpleasantness...
- Oh, yes. We'd better discuss your fee.
OK. $300 an hour.
Good Lord.
You know, I used to be a lawyer
in London. That sounds a bit steep.
It's average for a case like this.
Besides, I do a lot of pro bono work.
You'd pay for that. Plus,
I have to pay students, associates.
Are you saying that if I agree to pay 300,
you will handle my appeal?
No, not so far.
Doesn't look like my kind of case.
I'm not a hired gun. I gotta feel a moral
or constitutional issue is at stake.
But I'm absolutely innocent.
And my civil liberties have
been egregiously violated.
Two black kids are facing the electric
chair for a crime they did not commit.
They are innocent.
Well, before you assume I'm guilty,
won't you hear my story?
No. Never let defendants explain. Puts
most of them in an awkward position.
- How do you mean?
- Lying.
But I give you my word as a gentleman.
Oh. Well...
Won't you at least read the record
and see if you can find something...
constitutional?
You do have one thing in your favor.
Everybody hates you.
Well, that's a start.
Come on, Maxwell.
Yeah! Come on, Max.
It was a hit! Yes!
- So, what do you think?
- Oh, he did it. He did it.
- Of course he did it. Can we win?
- A hundred to one against.
The maid schmeared him on both comas.
Look at this. It says here...
After you realized that Mrs. von Bulow
had not gotten up, what did you do?
I came downstairs,
and Mr. von Bulow said that
Madame had a very sore throat,
and I didn't have to do any work,
and she was in bed all day.
What are you doing? Did we ring for you?
She's ice-cold.
Madame. Mrs. von Bulow!
Leave her alone. She's sleeping. She
drank last night. We didn't get any rest.
She's not sleeping. She's unconscious.
- You must call a doctor.
- Maria!
Go on.
A half-hour later,
she had not moved.
I went back and forth all morning.
Finally, mid-afternoon,
Mr. von Bulow spoke to Dr. Paultees.
But he lied to doctor.
She's sleeping now, but earlier she was
up to the bathroom and had a soft drink,
so there's no cause for alarm...
But she never moved.
Never got up.
She was lying
in the same position all day.
Later her heart stops, and
Dr. Paultees, he comes and saves her.
After they go to the hospital,
I change the sheets.
I find a puddle of urine.
If Madame went to the bathroom,
she would not have peed in her bed.
Right.
Why would Claus lie about that?
It's suspicious but hardly criminal.
How about the second coma?
Maria wasn't in Newport for that one.
But shortly before the second coma...
I'm cleaning up their room
when I find Mr. von Bulow's canvas bag
packed for Newport.
Inside, there's a little black bag.
A bottle of insulin,
a syringe and needles.
Alexander! Alexander, come here!
Insulin? For what, insulin?
My lady's not diabetic.
Three weeks later,
Sunny's lying unconscious
in a freezing bathroom with
her nightgown hiked over her waist.
If I was on that jury,
I would've voted to convict.
Then you're taking the case?
Reminds me of my Hitler dream.
Hitler calls up, he's alive, needs a lawyer.
I say "Sure. Come on over."
Then I have to decide:
do I take the case or do I kill him?
You? No question.
- I would take the case.
- Then kill him.
I'm a maniac. I need your judgment,
someone to watch what I'm doing and
occasionally remind me about the law.
When can I see the transcripts?
You're a former prosecutor, conservative.
We agree on nothing.
But you're smarter than the DA. If I can
beat your arguments, I can destroy his.
Rhode Island is corrupt. Everything is
political. I don't think that way. You do.
I have to see the big picture.
I can't immerse myself in facts.
But we must know the facts.
No one can assimilate information
as quickly as you two.
I agree with that assessment.
- You're out of your mind.
- I only have 45 days to file.
I can't do it without you.
- I know you don't wanna come back...
- Is this strictly professional?
It better be.
That's wonderful. I want the best
people in the world on our side,
the most prestigious experts.
Nobel prize-winning scientists,
some of your colleagues at Harvard.
Wait a minute, Claus.
We got a little problem, OK?
People like that, we can't control.
They find one incriminating fact,
they'll tell the world.
I'm not afraid, Alan.
Let the chips fall where they may.
That's what an innocent man would say.
I know.
That just came for you, Daddy.
My daughter Cosima.
She never doubted me.
She loves Alex and Ala dearly. Siding
with me has cost her their affections.
I don't know what I would've done.
I don't want to hear your story,
but I do need some information.
Of course.
I gather the older children deny Sunny
had a problem with pills and alcohol.
Spectacular understatement.
So there must be somebody
who saw it. A witness, a friend?
- You want affidavits?
- Yes.
- I'll get them.
- You'll get them.
The drugs prescribed for me
were taken by Sunny.
That's a lot of drugs.
But the prosecution's allegation that
I knew about syringes, injections -
totally accurate.
Sunny and I gave ourselves B12 injections
in the late '60s. It was quite the fad.
Can I explain something? The less I know
from you, the more options I have.
When you tell me "the truth", you limit me
to a defense that fits with what you say.
But isn't the truth the simplest way, Alan?
I mean, why did I stay all day
at Sunny's side without calling a doctor?
Because Sunny detested doctors.
If we called one without her approval,
she went berserk.
Once she broke her hip and
didn't go to hospital for two days.
- Did you hear what I just said?
- Did you hear the judge sentence me?
Sorry. 30 years is a pretty stiff sentence.
Twice trying to murder one's wife,
anything less would be monstrous.
But for a man like myself,
who did nothing...
What I wanted to ask:
if we lose the appeal,
will I have the chance later to set my
affairs in order before I'm incarcerated?
In Europe, a gentleman is given
the opportunity to end things properly.
- Come on, Claus.
- We are each the keeper of our own soul.
Two big problems:
the case against him is very strong,
and the legal conviction isn't the only
conviction that we've got to reverse.
The more dangerous conviction
is the absolute certainty
of the American people
that Claus is guilty.
Finding grounds for reversal
won't be enough here.
Judges on the Rhode Island
Supreme Court
will have to go home to their spouses
and explain why they reversed.
To get them to do that, we have to
obliterate every aspect of the state's case.
Destroy the medical case
and their witnesses,
so the judges have
no possible way to affirm.
Total victory,
or we are dead in the water.
Now, I assume that you've all had
an opportunity to look at the transcripts.
First impressions?
I think this whole thing stinks.
I think Claus von Bulow stinks.
He's obviously guilty of
something pretty despicable,
and, if we free him, we become partners
in his crime, accessories after the fact.
I'm shocked, with your record
defending the poor and oppressed,
that you've taken this case.
I won't have anything to do with it.
And I hope my fellow students
won't, either. Goodbye.
My I exercise my First Amendment
right to free speech?
If lawyers only defended the innocent,
there'd be just ten lawyers in the country.
Why help guilty people get off?
You're sure he's guilty? 100% sure?
He had a lawyer. He had a trial.
He was convicted.
- Are you sure he had a fair trial?
- Come on!
It's the basis of the whole legal system!
Everyone gets a defense.
So the system is there for the one
innocent person who was falsely accused.
OK, look. Say it's you. OK?
You decide to get a divorce.
You're gonna divorce your husband.
A week later, you're accused
of molesting your son.
Don't give me that look.
Stuff like this happens all the time.
Suddenly, you're alone. You hate it.
It's a nightmare.
Everyone assumes that you are guilty.
Even the mailman is beginning
to look at you a little funny.
You only got one person
who believes in you.
There's only one person
you can trust: your lawyer.
Yeah, OK. So, someone's
gotta defend Claus.
But why you? Why us?
Look, you're my student.
You have a choice.
You don't have to do anything
you don't want to. That is your choice.
The reason I take cases - and here
I'm unlike most other lawyers,
who are not professors
and have to make a living -
I take cases cos I get pissed off.
And I am pissed off here.
The family hired a private prosecutor.
Unacceptable!
They conducted a private search!
Now, we let 'em get away with that, rich
people won't go to the cops any more.
You know what they'll do? Get
their own lawyers to collect evidence.
And then they are going
to choose which evidence
they feel like passing on to the DA.
And the next victim isn't
gonna be rich like von Bulow,
but is gonna be some poor schnook who
can't afford or can't find a decent lawyer.
I think it's a little more complicated
than your simple moral superiority.
No?
I agree von Bulow is guilty, but that's
the fun. I mean, that's the challenge.
See? Now, there is a lawyer.
- What?
- I have Mr. von Bulow for you.
OK, put him on.
Alan, a rather unsavory character
called David Marriott contacted me,
claiming to have information about
a drug delivery at Clarendon Court.
- OK. Where does he live?
- Somewhere in Wakefield.
OK, we'll get on it.
Tom, I want you to get
a private investigator
to dig into a David Marriott,
lives in Wakefield.
- OK. How are we gonna win this case?
- The judge made lots of mistakes.
Judges always make mistakes.
How will we win?
One issue leaps up.
This lawyer, Brillhoffer,
interviewed Alex, Maria, everybody.
He was the first to hear their stories.
He took notes and used them at trial
against a defense witness.
But the defense never saw the notes.
The judge wouldn't let us have them.
It's perfect Brady.
OK, why don't you draft a letter,
writing to Brillhoffer,
asking him very nicely
to send us his notes?
- Yeah, right. He'll fax them right over.
- Yeah, right.
We could win on this issue alone.
You know it, I know it.
Just make sure he knows it.
- Now, Nancy and Dobbs.
- Yes?
They're going to attack
the medical testimony.
Our Rhode Island counsel,
Peter Macintosh,
he will analyze the state supreme court.
The rest of us should begin dissecting
the transcript. Errors, inconsistencies.
OK, great. Now remember, most cases
are won in the field, not in court.
Minnie?
You wanna work with Sarah on this?
- You may learn something.
- Come on, Minnie.
Minnie!
- Please?
- Come on.
I don't trust Marriott. I don't know him.
But if he knew Alex von Auersberg...
You're crazy. I don't know who
you think you are. Perry Mason?
Let our private investigator interview him.
It's stupid and unprofessional.
- It's fun.
- Fun? This guy is a sleaze.
- You don't know what he's gonna try.
- What, is he gonna shoot me?
Come on, I'm from Brooklyn.
OK, I'll stand by the window every ten
minutes. That way you can know I'm safe.
I had this friend, Gilbert Jackson.
Interior decorator.
Flaming queen,
but a very excellent guy.
He introduced me to Alex von Auersberg.
Sure it was Alex?
We had dinner a few times, drinks.
All I knew, Alex was some rich kid.
So sometimes - this is like summer of '77-
I'd motor to Newport for some R and R.
Gilbert asked me to bring Alex a package.
I figured interior decoration.
Maybe drapes.
Like six times. So I'd call Alex.
- How did you get his phone number?
- From Gilbert.
- You still have it?
- Maybe.
I'm that kind of guy.
Here.
One night, I got curious.
Opened the package.
Fuckin' pharmacy, man.
Needles, syringes, white powder,
nice selection of pills, Demerol...
Like a drugstore.
You delivered drugs six times
and didn't know it?
Stupid, huh?
Then Gilbert asked me again.
I couldn't say no, but this time I made
Alex open the package in front of me.
Voil.
I go "Awful lot of pharmaceuticals
for one person."
He goes "Oh, I give some
to my mom to keep her off my back."
A few weeks later,
Gilbert gets mistaken for a softball.
Two guys bash his head in.
Alex calls me, totally urinary.
Will the cops find his phone number
and fuck up his trust fund or something?
Well, that's the fat. That's the skinny.
You like it?
You traffic with drug dealers
and drag queens,
you have a part-time job,
you ride in rented limos.
All in all, I'd say you're probably the least
impressive witness I've ever seen.
Wait a minute.
You think I'm scum, don't you?
Blow it out your ass.
You want a witness to back me up?
I'll get one.
And hey, maybe I'll see you
at the Celtics, huh?
I am not going to let them execute you.
You're not gonna die.
Look, Johnny, this is gonna be
a lot easier on you if you don't cry, OK?
I... I know your brother's hysterical.
Number one, they always
set a date for the execution,
and they always postpone it.
He's great like this. I just wish he had
something left for those around him.
Why are you talking to me about money?
Anyway, it's nice to have you back here.
Say hello to your brother.
Right. OK.
OK, who's got what?
Maria's testimony. She says Sunny
did take Valium prescribed for Claus.
Score one for von Bulow.
- And this Jamie Smather prescription?
- Who's Jamie Smather?
300-pound red-headed hooker in white
boots. She supplied Claus with Valium.
He had a gorgeous mistress
and went to an ugly whore?
There are some things
even mistresses won't do.
- Like what?
- I am not telling.
Anyway, Maria swears she first saw
this Jamie Smather prescription
February 14th,
and then again February 28th.
- So?
- It wasn't prescribed till the 28th.
You're not suggesting she's lying?
How about Maria's insulin?
Anything more on that?
Not yet.
Something about that bothers me.
- OK, who's next?
- Brillhoffer wrote back.
He's very attached to his notes.
"I am satisfied that there is not
a scrap of paper in my files
that might even arguably
be viewed as exculpatory."
- Translation?
- He says he has nothing that'd help us.
- You with me?
- Pay dirt.
- What?
- He's a lawyer.
If he didn't have anything,
he'd give it to us.
But there's something there,
and he'll fight to hold on to it.
I will bet my fee that no one
remembered seeing insulin
until after the lab report came back.
- So you're suggesting...
- Memory enhancement.
- It might be more than that.
- Possibly.
- A frame-up.
- You mean, by the kids?
- Where d'you get this? Brillhoffer's letter?
- Pure deduction.
A good lawyer is part psychiatrist,
detective, logician.
- A great lawyer...
- Never would have taken this case.
If there's nothing more...
Has anybody read this?
It's an interview with Truman Capote.
He says, when she was 19, Sunny von
Bulow taught him how to inject drugs.
Let me see that.
- Well, well, well. The famous professor.
- My new girlfriend, Andrea Reynolds.
- I'm not his girlfriend. I'm his savior.
- Perfectly true.
Two days after the trial, we fell in love.
It was really very dramatic.
Andrea, Andrea, Andrea, come on.
Since then, I've devoted my life
to clearing his name.
I made him hire you.
"Get the Jew," I said.
Darling...
Can the Jew get down to business?
We've got an affidavit. Smythe.
Mrs. Ruth Smythe gave us an affidavit
corroborating Truman Capote.
I have affidavits, too.
Newport people.
They describe Sunny taking pills,
getting drunk and falling down,
thumping into doorways,
smearing lipstick all over her face.
- Not a very pretty picture.
- She did it, didn't she?
Don't be a priss.
- Sunny was a lovely woman.
- Spoiled rotten.
Yes, but lovely. Till she drank.
Two drinks, and she became...
nasty, irrational.
All women are irrational.
Did we mention the priest?
Oh. Marriott apparently confided
in a priest, who's consented to talk to us.
Father Capello from Providence.
A priest? A priest is the ideal witness.
It's like getting the word of God.
I checked. God is unavailable.
lf... if the priest comes through,
and we can get documentation
on Sunny's drug use,
self-injection may be a plausible theory.
- There's no insulin in this case.
- But people do use insulin.
They use it for dieting.
Sunny was concerned about her weight.
Maybe, but believe me, Alan,
there's no insulin here.
Really? How can you be so sure?
You realize, with this case,
I'm looking for evidence to exonerate you.
But, at the same time, I'm also
wondering... what really happened.
- Who you are.
- Who would you like me to be?
Your mother's death... What happened?
I believe she had a heart problem.
The rumor in England is you killed her.
Hey, Alan. Statute of limitations
ran out on that years ago.
There's rumors also that I killed my aunt.
And that I'm a necrophiliac
who injected Sunny with insulin
so that I could have my way with her.
Please.
Did Claus drive me crazy?
Even I don't know.
But it's true that I took
up to 24 laxatives daily,
popped aspirin like M&M's,
smoked three packs of cigarettes a day,
had a problem with alcohol,
took Valium and Seconal frequently
and consumed large quantities of sweets,
despite a medical condition,
hypoglycemia,
which made them hazardous.
As for my state of mind...
I had not had sex with
my husband for years.
My schedule was: I woke at 9.30,
did a little exercise and shopping,
and returned to bed at 3 o'clock
for the remainder of the afternoon.
I liked to be in bed.
I didn't much like anything else.
Hold on here, will you?
- Come in.
- Alan.
Welcome to my humble law firm.
In the kitchen,
our insulin-on-the-needle team.
They're cooking up
some surprise for us.
This is our Brillhoffer-notes team.
Mr. von Bulow.
- Where are the paper towels?
- Ask Sarah!
Sarah used to live here.
This... I guess he was up all night.
This sort of commune,
you do it on every case?
Never before. 38 days to write
100 pages. Only way to get it done.
Here's the black-bag team.
Illegal-search team.
My son Elon lost his room. Actually
this is another case that you're paying for.
- And this is my team.
- You wish.
I can't find the damn thing.
- Hi. I'm Sarah.
- And a very lovely Sarah you are.
- Does that really work?
- Flattery? Absolutely.
Like Chinese food?
What do you give a wife
who has everything?
An injection of insulin.
How... Ah, my prawns.
How can one define a fear of insulin?
Claustrophobia.
Is there anything more you can
tell us about Alexandra Isles?
Is it true that she gave you a deadline
of Christmas 1979 to be together?
Not really. No, she knew
I was looking for full-time work.
I worked for JP Getty in London.
Alexandra assumed that, when you did
find a job, you'd marry her?
Oh, she assumed it.
Did you sense that she
wanted to get back together?
Very much so.
In fact, at the trial, she said...
I loved him, but I was still
caught up in my own anger.
And I'm sorry I acted that way then.
I loved him then. I was angry.
Let me ask you this.
Maybe you can't answer.
Do you still love him?
I don't know.
- That means yes.
- It would seem so.
In fact, after the trial, she wrote me
a letter saying so explicitly.
A very passionate letter.
Passionate and jealous.
But that was the relationship
from the outset. That was Alexandra.
She was your love slave.
Ah. I think now I'll have my own
individual order of ginger prawns.
Three weeks before her final coma,
Sunny overdosed on aspirin.
- Can you tell us about that?
- I had nothing to do with that.
Of course not.
I'm asking you what happened.
Sunny had been unwell.
- Are you all right?
- Just a bit dizzy.
If you're dizzy, don't go wandering...
Sunny?
Oh, my God. Come on, my darling.
You're all right. Put your arm
around my shoulder.
No, you're all right. Come on,
we'll get you back into bed.
- Something happened to my head.
- You're all right.
It's just a little cut.
Come on, let's get you lying down.
There you are.
There.
- Shall I call a doctor?
- No!
No, I don't want a doctor.
Just... I don't want a doctor.
I just wanna be left alone.
I wanna be left alone
with all those beautiful letters.
What did you do with those letters?
Why did you write those letters?
Later the doctor said
we needn't have gone to hospital,
but I wasn't going to take any chances.
Why did she take so much aspirin?
Sunny always took aspirin. She'd
been taking a lot for several days.
- That's not what our doctor said.
- Dr. Lucus Lupardus,
chief forensic toxicologist,
Suffolk County,
says people who take lots of aspirin
every day never reach that level.
He also said the average blood level
in cases of death is 60. Hers was 90. So...
So, it was obviously a suicide attempt.
- Why?
- Yeah. Why?
- Why?
- Alan, do they all want to be prosecutors?
We're waiting.
I presume she was unhappy.
How about we all finish up
and go back to the house?
We're not gonna win this
on a technicality. Peter?
I've read every recent case where
the Rhode Island Supreme Court reversed.
They don't like to make new law
or discuss broad legal issues.
When they do reverse,
the grounds are technical,
but the reason seems to be
they suspect a convicted
defendant may be innocent.
OK, everybody get that?
True or not, we've gotta convince
the judges that you are innocent.
Claus, now I do wanna
hear your side of the story.
With pleasure. Innocence
has always been my position.
First coma: what preceded it?
Sunny loved Christmas.
It was her favorite season, really.
You see, what you must
understand about Sunny
is that she loved giving
more than anything else.
Each year, she always made
a big bowl of fresh eggnog.
On that year, she drank a lot of it.
- How much?
- 10 or 12 glasses.
- With her hypoglycemia?
- Did she always drink like that?
Never. She never touched alcohol at all,
except on social occasions
to overcome her shyness
or when she was upset.
This was not a social occasion?
No. We'd been discussing
divorce all afternoon.
This whole subject of
your work coming between us,
isn't it just a pretext,
when the real subject is her?
Certainly not.
I'm thinking of redecorating
this whole fucking house.
Then she knew about Alexandra.
- Yes.
- How did she find out?
Er... I...
I told her the previous summer.
Oh, I've been meaning to mention...
our understanding about my...
extracurricular activities.
Mm?
I've been involved with someone who falls
outside the parameters of our agreement.
- Really?
- Someone peripherally in our circle.
Billy Botsky's daughter, Alexandra Isles.
Well...
That must be better for you than
what you've had to put up with.
You're referring to the call girls.
Yes. I mean, that is where
you've gone previously, isn't it?
Yes, it is.
And isn't this better? Or is
Billy Botsky's daughter a call girl too?
This is much better.
That was what? July, August?
Now it's Christmastime, and you were
still squabbling over Alexandra?
No, we were fighting about my work.
Sunny was...
Well, by the evening,
she'd drunk so much eggnog
that I had to help her into the bedroom.
Time for bed, darling.
There we are.
Please don't hold my arm.
Darling, you know when you get like this.
Do you remember?
You fell and broke your hip.
That was years ago.
It was two years ago.
Get me a Scotch and soda.
May I at least urinate alone?
She runs the water every time
she goes in there.
If she was soused, why get the Scotch?
Because she asked for it.
Sunny got what Sunny wanted.
It's OK.
- Good night, Daddy.
- Good night, darling.
- Good night, Claus.
- Good night, Alex.
Hasn't my mother given us
enough money? Claus!
That night, we hardly slept.
Your age is perfectly acceptable to retire.
I'm already retired.
I haven't worked full-time since Getty.
Exactly. It's your ego.
You've never had a career, not really.
I'm going to have one now.
Come on, Sunny. Your father worked.
Do you want the children to think
a male's place is in a deck chair?
You marry me for my money,
then demand to work.
You're the prince of perversion!
- Are you trying to destroy our family?
- No, of course not. I simply want some...
...intercourse with the world.
Shut up, Pan!
Oh, what does it matter?
So, is that it? Another divorce?
OK. I'll divorce you. I will.
Oh, God. Two-time loser.
- I'll divorce everybody.
- I don't want a divorce.
I don't want to marry
Billy Botsky's daughter.
I want to stay with you and I want
to work. I need that as a man.
It's hopeless.
Oh, God. I need my beauty sleep.
Why do you believe it's hopeless
just because it's some...
Good night, Claus.
Sunny, you know I love you.
Good night.
- OK, and the next day?
- Well...
Maria's testimony
was wildly exaggerated.
Sunny was never moaning.
Maybe the occasional slur, but...
And Maria shook Sunny.
Nobody ever shook Sunny.
What happened when
she became conscious?
After the first coma,
it was kind of absurd.
Everybody was angry at me.
Can't you ever leave me alone?
Why did you do it?
I would've been better off.
You would've been better off.
What do you want me to say?
I'm sorry I saved your life?
Yes.
Say it.
Of course I'm not sorry.
Claus.
What am I going to do with myself?
When I phoned Alexandra to tell her,
she said the same thing.
She said "Why did you do it?
Why did you call the doctor?"
Are you saying she wanted you
to let Sunny die?
No, no, no, no, no.
It was more "Everybody says
Sunny's such an unhappy woman
and has nothing to live for."
Well, so much for the first coma.
The second, of course,
was much more theatrical.
Theatrical? What is this, a fucking game?
This is life and death.
Your wife is laying in a coma.
You don't even make
a pretence at caring, do you?
Of course I care, Alan.
It's just I don't wear
my heart on my sleeve.
Let's call it a night, OK?
As you wish.
Three drugs on the needle:
amobarbital, Valium, insulin.
We can't all be you, Alan.
Get a doctor to prepare five needles.
One with nothing, two with
Valium, amobarbital and insulin,
two with just Valium and amobarbital.
We send them to the lab
that our famous needle went to.
See if we get a false-positive result.
- If we don't?
- If we don't, I clean the latrines.
You're not gonna believe this.
David Marriott wants money.
Who doesn't?
- His memory might fail.
- Forget him.
He has lost his job, and he is running
around trying to find evidence for us.
Let's do what the government does
with witnesses. Pay him for his time.
- What's his time worth?
- Buck and a half.
Dersh! Your team's on!
- You gonna pass to me this game?
- No.
Their investigator said the needle
had an encrustation near the tip.
Doctors tell us this is
inconsistent with injection.
So how did it get there?
Oh.
If I inject this needle,
the skin acts as a kind of a swab.
It cleans the needle off, leaving
the tip completely free of liquid.
But if I just dip the needle
into the liquid, what do you see?
Dry this out, you have an encrustation.
So it's a frame-up?
It's Desdemona's handkerchief.
My stepchildren thought I was guilty,
didn't have evidence, so concocted some.
- This should win us the case, no?
- No. We're maybe halfway home.
There's still a lot of weird stuff.
- Did you love Sunny?
- I married her.
Of course I loved her. She was beautiful.
- Rich.
- Why not?
What I've seen of the rich,
you can have 'em.
I do.
The black bag. Was it yours?
Sunny appropriated it.
But to understand that, you must
understand that, after the first coma,
she went into a complete rage.
- Did you take them?
- Certainly not. Take what?
My pills, you moron!
Valium, Seconal.
- You took them, didn't you?
- I've long since stopped interfering.
Well, who? My children wouldn't dare.
- Oh. I know who.
- Where are you going?
Maria!
She soon found them.
It's my lovely mother, isn't it?
She's behind all this.
She's in cahoots with Maria.
Well, just because she had all the money
before I had all the money
does not mean she's my lord and master.
Of course not. I am your lord and master.
Just kidding.
Maria loves me too much.
It's unhealthy for her,
and it's certainly no fun for me.
There.
We'll see if that ugly little maid
of mine can sniff this one out.
And what are you going
to do with all that?
I'm not gonna tell you. I assure you,
it's not gonna be among my affairs.
Odd she used that word - "affairs".
The prosecution thinks you ground up
the drugs to inject Sunny.
And this nose-drop business
is pretty far-fetched.
But consider the pattern, Alan.
It's public record that Sunny used drugs.
Her behavior here of hiding them
in liquid so that no one will find them
is your classic alcoholic stashing
pints of whiskey all over the house.
You're right. Of course.
You've always been right, haven't you?
This is the most dangerous case
I ever worked on.
- You find that exhilarating?
- No, I do not. I am breaking every rule.
The best way to win
is to proclaim your innocence,
and I have never done that for anybody.
And the problem I got is
I see who you are.
- You'd do anything to win.
- So would you.
Yeah, but you don't trust the legal system.
You're saying I'd manufacture
witnesses, affidavits?
- No, but you would sacrifice me.
- Oh, please, Alan.
The more I believe that you are innocent,
then more nervous I am.
I go out on a limb for you, you're
proven guilty, I look like an asshole.
My reputation, my credibility,
my career - destroyed.
- That's the risk you're taking.
- Well, fuck you.
Fuck you, man!
I'm glad we understand one another.
It's easy to forget all this
is about me, lying here.
To most of you, my name means "coma".
My second marriage means
"attempted murder".
Everything before, everything beautiful,
does not exist in the public mind.
No one thinks of how I loved
my children. Look at Cosima.
And Alex, of course. And Ala.
And certainly no one cares about Claus,
the way he was when
I fell in love with him.
When Claus and I first met,
I was married to the dashing young
Prince Alfred Eduard Friederich
Vincenz Martin Maria von Auersberg.
It was 1964, seven years
into my first marriage.
It seems that my first husband,
Alfie, as he was called,
had vowed to be unfaithful
with every pretty girl in Europe.
He was having quite a success.
And so... I was unfaithful with Claus.
Psst.
Wildly unfaithful.
Happy memories.
But it's not the passion
I remember most.
It's the tenderness.
Good God, what's that?
Just one of Frank's pets.
Oh, my God.
Come on, silly.
I never liked people much, not as a rule.
But Claus was somehow different.
Not a normal person, I guess.
It's all right. Do it again.
Give him some more.
One of those things you never forget.
Of course, now he lives
in my apartment, my bedroom,
my bed.
Cold, isn't it? Cold and brutish,
and the way of the world.
Looking at him now,
the issue seems simple.
Is he the devil?
If so, can the devil get justice?
And all this legal activity...
is it in Satan's service?
"Sunny von Bulow was totally vulnerable
to Claus von Bulow"?
- Can't argue with that.
- But it's speculation, exaggeration.
- You keep working on it.
- Totally inflammatory!
OK, good. Let's go over this.
OK, we went over it once.
I just want you to see if it...
Oh, shit. What is this? Illegal search?
A technicality, a guilty man's argument.
This is different. Usual Fourth Amendment
case, you're trying to exclude evidence.
Same thing here.
No, this search destroyed evidence!
No fingerprints, no inventory.
What's left hurts Claus,
but the state has to...
The cops tested the drugs
from the illegal search.
- Yes.
- And we are saying that that test
constituted a second illegal search.
- There are precedents.
- I know there are. I'm not debating that.
- What I'm trying to do...
- You're debating me, personally. Why?
I'm debating strategy.
I'm not debating you.
We're all on the same team, aren't we?
I don't know. We seem to be.
- Then why don't I feel it?
- I thought this was professional.
- It was.
- That's bullshit, Alan!
I asked you to work on this case
because I think you are a good lawyer.
You too, but you give all you have to the
law and forget the people you care about.
My clients are the people
that I care about.
- Obviously.
- What I care about,
all I fuckin' care about is this!
This case!
And making the best possible appeal
that we're capable of doing, OK?
You can make your argument better.
You know that! I know that!
So why don't you just do it
and cut all the bullshit?
You always have to have
the last word, don't you?
What?
We're gonna lose.
Why do you think this case
fascinates people?
Cos one time or other, every man is
driven crazy by his wife, and in his heart,
he wants to do exactly
what Claus is accused of.
Kill her in some sly, silent way
that can't be detected.
Claus is a scapegoat.
Someone has to suffer for the sin
that we all wanna commit.
Alan, that's ridiculous.
It's ridiculous. You're right.
- What have you got?
- Prosecution's case is based on a theory.
The needle in the bag, insulin
on the needle, insulin in her blood.
Right, right, right. OK, fine.
In Derek, this Rhode Island
Supreme Court, these same judges,
said that, in a case
based on circumstantial theory,
the case falls apart
if any part of the theory is weak.
If there's a weak link,
then you throw the whole chain out?
Exactly.
Peter, that's good. That's very good.
- Oh, yeah, this is good.
- Thank you.
What do you want me to do now?
I want you to find as many
alternative theories as possible.
Hey! Come on.
There's only seven days left.
Dersh! You'd better come downstairs.
Hey, Dersh. Sorry to get you out of bed.
- What do you want? More money?
- Can you get more?
Can I have a glass of water, please?
No. The reason I'm here...
my affidavit is inaccurate.
Great. Just what I need right now.
- It's slow.
- Yeah.
I left something out,
something incredibly important.
Remember I gave Alex's drugs
to a woman at Clarendon Court?
Yeah. So?
That bitch was definitely
Sunny von Bulow.
David... this is bad.
It looks bad. I've met with you
five times now, and all of a sudden...
No, it's not sudden.
I think I always knew, but I became
convinced by staring at pictures of her.
We can't use your affidavit unless
it's truthful. Are you sure this time?
I swear... on the body
and soul of my mother.
Poor woman.
Put in this change, and make him
go over every word of the affidavit.
Uh... can I use your men's room?
- More money?
- Can you get more?
If Claus had injected her, he would've
thrown away the needle, right?
Sure. If he threw away the insulin,
why keep the needle?
- Claus is strange, but he ain't stupid.
- He is arrogant.
- Is that a crime?
- Sometimes.
Why are we even discussing this?
It's obvious: the kids framed him.
Whoa! You changed your tune.
A frame-up doesn't mean he's innocent.
The kids could've framed the guilty man.
Dersh! Telephone!
It's Peter Macintosh.
Yeah.
Do you know what it is?
OK.
Word in Rhode Island is that the state
can't lose. Got an ace up their sleeve.
What is it?
He's gonna try to find out.
- All right, my friend.
- Friend? I like that.
Nothing personal.
OK, no students, no witnesses.
Second coma: let's hear it.
Strange as it may seem now,
in retrospect...
OK, Claus, cut the bullshit.
December 20, 1980.
Sunny was unwell.
We'd been arguing all afternoon.
I'd been offered a new position
in the oil business,
which would've meant
my spending some time in Europe.
The discussion must've escalated
because I went to talk to the children.
This will bring 50,000 gold florin
from any rebels worth the name.
- 50,000 florin?
- That's a pretty good take.
- Let's vote on it! All those in favor...
- If you'll forgive my interruption...
I... I've something to tell you both.
We're heading for
the best pirate days ever.
I...
It looks as if... as though Mummy
and I are going to have to split up,
because my work is something
she cannot tolerate.
Mummy says things like that,
but she always gets over it.
Yes, but this has been
going on for too long.
I'm going to Europe in the new year.
This will probably lead to a split.
Oh.
It's all right. She'll get over it.
Alex says you said that the next day.
Is anything more absurd than announcing
your intention to divorce a woman
who's just fallen into a coma?
No. That evening everything
seemed normal enough.
Not cheerful. But then, we didn't
usually giggle at mealtimes.
Despite her doctor's warnings
about sweets,
the only thing Sunny consumed
was a sundae.
After supper, I went to finish off
some work in my study.
The others decided to
chat in the living room.
That would be lovely, but first
I need to go to my room for just a minute.
After about an hour, I dropped in on them.
Darling, would you care for anything?
Mm...
lf... there's some...
chicken bouillon left.
I'll look.
There you are, darling.
Thank you.
How is your work coming?
I'm totally flummoxed. I can't
get the figures to make any sense.
- Why don't you call your friend Deborah?
- I doubt she'd be in Saturday night.
So, Deborah, I think you'll agree
that's 7-2-8. Right. Now...
But Deborah was home,
and we did talk for some time, until...
Claus, come quick. Mummy's not well.
Deborah, can I call you back
in the morning? Thanks.
Her voice got very weak, and she
almost fell down. I had to help her.
Somebody open a window.
I find the chill reassuring.
Now I must speak with Claus.
- Good night, Mummy.
- Good night.
Good night, darling.
Good night, Alex.
That is, if Claus has time to talk.
Or are you going to work every spare
moment right through Christmas?
Is your work so fascinating?
Or are you trying to drive me away?
Because if you are, you're succeeding,
because I don't want this.
I didn't marry you for this.
I could've had anybody.
With my money? Anybody!
Well? Say something!
Do something! Be a man!
I already have a butler.
Do something! I don't want this!
I don't! I don't want this!
I don't... I don't want this!
The same conversation as the previous
year, only this time with greater venom.
You've always been afraid of me.
It's not because of my money.
It's basically because you're a coward.
Your pitiful masculinity is so fragile,
you can't stand confrontation,
so you go off with Miss Botsky.
Good night.
As was usual,
I was awakened before dawn.
I let the dogs out, as was customary.
I went back through the bedroom
to my study as quietly as possible.
I did not notice if my wife was in bed.
I did not notice if the light was on
under the bathroom door.
Had it been on, I wouldn't
have given it a thought.
I did my exercises, showered,
and then I called Deborah Knowles.
Well, I mean, it's stable and it's profitable.
Can anyone really believe,
if I was trying to murder my wife,
that I would spend an hour
going over a tedious set of figures?
After the call, I passed through
the bedroom again. It was freezing.
By this time, Sunny
was certainly not in bed.
And I heard water
running in the bathroom.
I had breakfast, walked the dogs,
and, on my return,
asked the children where Mummy was.
Has Mummy had breakfast yet?
We haven't seen her.
Sunny?
Her bathroom was
her private sanctuary.
No one entered it. Except the maid,
of course, to clean up.
Sometimes she stayed there
for hours, or so it seemed.
One can only speculate
what goes on behind a closed door.
Sunny, are you there?
I hesitated even to knock.
Darling?
Sunny?
Oh, God.
Once I'd ascertained she was breathing,
I went to fetch Alexander.
- Why not call an ambulance first?
- Panic, Alan, panic.
I mean, I...
I needed to talk to somebody.
I wasn't worried if she was breathing
normally. It wasn't like the year before.
In retrospect it seems absurd,
but I looked at her upper lip.
She had blood on it. I thought she'd
broken a tooth. That was my concern.
And that's really all I can...
that's really all I can say.
- But is it the truth?
- Of course.
- But not the whole truth.
- I don't know the whole truth.
- I don't know what happened to her.
- I wish I didn't believe you.
It's very hard to trust someone
you don't understand.
You're a very strange man.
You have no idea.
- Everybody here?
- Macintosh says he's got bad news.
There he is.
Well?
I found out what the state has.
Their ace in the hole.
It's you.
It's me?
David Marriott taped
all his conversations with you.
Oh, great.
The scuttlebutt is,
if we win the case, you go to prison.
What did I say?
Good old corrupt Rhode Island.
A friend got me an excerpt.
The reason I'm here...
My affidavit is inaccurate.
David, this is bad. It looks bad.
What do you want? More money?
Can you get more?
Yeah.
- That is not what I said.
- It's on tape, Alan.
I don't care. That's not what I said.
- What do we do?
- I don't know.
I'll tell you what we do. We ignore it.
Alan, with that tape,
it's your whole career.
I now believe Claus is innocent,
so we've decided:
no tricks, no technicalities.
We are going to base our appeal directly
and explicitly on Claus's innocence.
- Appeals must be based on judicial error.
- The judge should've thrown out the case.
You can't say there wasn't
sufficient evidence. He was convicted.
- Good point.
- That's what we are saying.
If the rules don't work, you change them.
Red Auerbach changed the jump-ball rule
when the Celtics had a short team.
But it's dangerous politically.
If the judges feel insulted...
Wait. State supreme court shouldn't even
look at an appeal based on new evidence.
Hey, guys. I'll take care of that, OK?
You just leave it to me.
Look, I know you're all exhausted.
We got four days left.
What we do now will decide this thing.
Do you wanna win or not?
- Alan! We've got something.
- We've hit the jackpot.
Our needles that had
amobarbital and Valium...
But no insulin.
Both came back with
false-positive readings for insulin.
One was 93, the other 282.
We've knocked out every piece
of their medical case.
OK, now all they've got left is my neck.
Anybody know anything
about editing audio tapes?
Defense! Defense! Come on.
Come on, baby! Come on, baby!
- All right, Alan.
- Come on!
Pass it, Alan.
Wait a minute. I got it. Where's Raj?
- He's upstairs.
- Where are you going?
Raj. Raj, I got it.
I got it. Remember Maria?
She could have said it like this:
Insulin? For what, insulin?
My lady is not diabetic.
You see? "My lady is not diabetic."
She is assuming that the bag is Sunny's.
Her first reaction, not part of
a legal strategy devised later,
is that the stuff in the black bag
belonged to Sunny, not Claus.
Who'd know better than she?
Start writing.
You are not God! You are a prosecutor!
Alabama can't execute those Johnson
kids before the Supreme Court rules!
You heard me right.
- You got two hours to make Rhode Island.
- You want me to speed?
No. They'll stop you
and you won't make the deadline.
I'm telling you right now,
those kids fry, you're next!
You're damn right!
Some startling developments
in the von Bulow case.
Professor Alan Dershowitz had been
accused of paying for falsified testimony,
but those accusations were discredited
today by the attorney general,
who announced that
David Marriott's tape was doctored
and that Marriott is not a reliable witness.
So, what was he up to, Alan?
Who was he working for?
Damned if I know.
Hope they don't think he worked for you.
- No one's going to...
- Look, I don't think you did it, OK?
But at the Chinese restaurant,
you did duck the big question.
Chuck is our Alexandra Isles expert.
Sunny's aspirin overdose.
Why did she take so many?
What happened? Sunny had a headache?
The headache was Alexandra, right?
Let's hear it, Claus.
Alexandra was spiteful.
On the day of Sunny's aspirin overdose,
she returned some presents
I'd given her, some photographs.
Love letters.
She dropped them off in a shopping bag.
Did Sunny see them?
Sunny was home. I was not.
Alexandra neglected
to address the package to me.
I wanna be left alone with
all those beautiful letters.
What did you do with those letters?
Why did you write those letters?
There's a big difference
between knowing about an affair
and having love letters
crammed down your throat.
It seems that Sunny did care
about your affair. She cared a lot.
Why didn't you tell us?
Everything was open-book.
"Get the best experts."
"I'm not afraid of the truth."
Looks to me like Alexandra
tried to force Sunny into suicide.
Or they plotted it together.
Either way, he's protecting Alexandra
because he still loves her.
And why not? Hey, she's a babe.
Of course I still love her.
And hate her.
Alexandra, Sunny, Andrea...
I love them all.
Being a human being
is very literal.
You're trapped. Time moves
in only one direction: forward.
It's stupid and boring
and results in a lot of silliness.
Example: the legal process.
In this particular case, a vast amount
of time, effort and money was spent
trying to determine what happened on
those two nights so close to Christmas,
December 26, 1979, December 20, 1980.
Happened right here.
Even now, it all looks the same,
feels the same, smells the same.
If you could just go back in time
and take a peek, you'd know.
And all this would be unnecessary.
All rise!
Hear ye, hear ye. All persons having
business before the Supreme Court
holding in province within and for the
State of Rhode Island may now draw near.
Then again, everyone enjoys a circus.
Be seated.
If the appellant is ready,
you may proceed.
Oral argument will be made
by out-of-state counsel,
Professor Alan Dershowitz.
Your Honors, you may not
like Claus von Bulow.
You may think he is guilty of something.
But I am here to tell you he is innocent.
- Our new evidence...
- Professor.
You know there is no case which allows
you to introduce new evidence on appeal.
There is one, Your Honor.
And you wrote it: Derek.
In Derek, you yourself said
that a case based on
circumstantial theory rather than fact
only stands up if no other theory
makes sense.
The only way to show a better theory
is to present it.
Get on with it, counselor.
The first issue is the encrusted needle.
I hope you will have the courage
to free an innocent man
and remedy a grave injustice.
This will never work.
Too smart for his own good.
Alan says it will work.
If the prosecutor takes the bait.
What do you mean, "bait"?
Argues the evidence.
Your Honors, introduction
of new evidence on appeal
violates every principle of
jurisprudence, every statute,
every precedent, every rule of ethics.
He's nailing us.
I am not going to stand before you
and argue Mr. von Bulow's guilt.
However, I have no choice but to address
Mr. Dershowitz's arguments one by one.
- Bingo.
- First, the encrusted needle.
So, now it's up to the judges.
Tell me what you really think.
I think it's easier to love somebody
than to live with them.
Love is fantasy. Living is work.
I'll say. And those people
don't like to work.
But if you don't do the work, the love dies,
and nobody wants to deal with that one.
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
The love died, Sunny couldn't accept it...
so Claus tried to kill her?
- Maybe.
- I don't agree.
Face it. All we had to do was
prove the state made a lousy case.
We didn't prove Claus was innocent.
We couldn't, and he probably isn't.
- You mean you think?
- So he didn't inject Sunny with insulin.
So what? First coma, no problem.
The attending doctor thought it was
caused by hypoglycemia. All right.
But what about the second coma?
I mean, why does Claus act so guilty?
Wouldn't any man feel guilty
if his wife was suicidal?
Yeah. So maybe she took the sleeping
pills with the intention of killing herself.
But how did she end up
lying on a marble floor
in a freezing bathroom
with her head under the toilet?
How about this?
Sunny wakes up miserable.
Second marriage is over,
children are leaving home.
What's to live for?
But when she was found, her nightgown
was hiked over her waist.
Exactly. How did it get there?
OK, let's say she's standing
at the sink. She has to pee.
At exactly the same instant,
the drugs hit,
her body convulses,
she grabs the nightgown.
- I don't buy that.
- It does seem far-fetched.
- So is the truth sometimes.
- Bull!
I think she took the drugs the previous
night. Maybe he saw her take them.
Or she told him she was going to
before they fell asleep.
This time, he wants her to succeed.
Sunny?
Maybe there's some way
he can help her along.
Of course. The open window.
Zero degrees.
But somebody might see her there.
The action of dragging her would
naturally pull up the nightgown.
In this cold, how long
could she survive?
Remember what Sunny said?
"I would've been better off.
You would've been better off. "
...because the law is a blunt instrument.
It is not a rapier. It is a cudgel.
Tomorrow, death penalty. Which
reminds me of the comedian who said
"Why do they call it the death penalty?
It's no penalty. You're out of the game!"
- Good news.
- And more good news.
- The decision came?
- They just announced it.
- Five-zip.
- We murdered 'em.
- Grounds?
- They got the Brillhoffer notes.
And that guilty-man's argument,
search and seizure.
- Federal or state?
- Both.
If it's federal, they could appeal, but
as it's Rhode Island, they can't. We win.
Don't get too excited till
we see Brillhoffer's notes.
We destroyed their medical case, but their
witnesses still carry emotional weight.
Unless the Brillhoffer notes show
that they've changed their stories.
Good afternoon, sir.
- Let me get that for you.
- Thank you.
- You have Brillhoffer's notes?
- Yes.
- Well?
- They're not what we hoped.
I knew it.
They're much better.
No one mentioned insulin
when they first talked to Brillhoffer.
Plus, Maria told him that, when
she supposedly first saw insulin,
she couldn't even read any of the
labels. They were all scraped off.
- What does this mean?
- It means...
that if there is a second trial,
we can be confident.
Both the medical case and
their witnesses are now highly suspect.
Ah!
Darling, this is Alan Dershowitz.
Yes, I know. Hello.
Alan tells me...
Well, things look very hopeful.
I knew it would come out all right.
Thank you.
Yes, Alan, thank you.
I am eternally grateful.
Hey, this means we'll be getting back
your bail. A million dollars.
I know I still owe you, Alan.
Please send me your bill.
And maybe when you're in New York
we can meet for lunch. I'd enjoy that.
One thing, Claus. Legally,
this was an important victory.
Morally, you're on your own.
Claus von Bulow was given a
second trial and acquitted on both counts.
This is all you can know,
all you can be told.
When you get where I am,
you will know the rest.
Claus von Bulow is still
married to Sunny von Bulow.
He is presently living
and working in London.
The Johnson brothers
remain on death row.
Sunny von Bulow has not spoken
since she fell into her final coma.
This film is based upon Alan Dershowitz's
book Reversal Of Fortune
and public records.
Dialogue and certain events
and characters contained in the film
were created for
the purpose of dramatization.
Two packs of Vantage, please.
- Anything else?
- Yes, a vial of insulin.
Just kidding.
On December 27, 1979,
I lay in bed all day.
Whether I was asleep or in a coma
later became a subject of dispute.
When my breathing
became obstructed...
Maria!
... my husband, Claus von Bulow,
finally did as my maid
had been urging all day:
he summoned a physician.
Dr. Paultees?
I stopped breathing.
My heart stopped beating.
By this time,
I was certainly in a deep coma
from which I awoke several hours later.
By the next morning,
I was myself again.
There's no reason for all this fuss.
I never felt better in my whole life.
This first coma aroused
suspicion and fear
in the minds of my personal maid Maria,
my son Alex,
and my elder daughter Ala.
From this time on, though they never
voiced their suspicions to me,
they kept a vigilant eye on Claus.
A year later, just before Christmas,
their darkest fears seemed justified.
- Has Mummy had breakfast yet?
- No, we haven't seen her.
My husband did not want our daughter
Cosima to see what he had found,
so he motioned to his stepson Alex.
Second coma. My pulse was 38,
my temperature 81.6 degrees.
Did you call an ambulance?
Nicholas, ask Robert to open the main
gates. We're expecting an ambulance.
Send an ambulance immediately...
Keep her in something warm.
A blanket or anything you can find.
All this activity was pointless.
We'd better do an EEG.
I never woke from this coma,
and I never will.
I am what doctors call
"persistent vegetative", a vegetable.
According to medical experts, I could
stay like this for a very long time,
brain-dead, body better than ever.
Enter Robert Brillhoffer,
former Manhattan district attorney.
My two children from my first marriage,
Alex and Ala von Auersberg,
hired Brillhoffer to investigate the case.
He put a "do not resuscitate" order
on her hospital chart.
They sent Alex
and a private investigator
back to my Newport cottage,
Clarendon Court, to search for drugs.
They found plenty... in Claus's closet.
On top of that, the hospital lab reported
that my blood insulin on admission
was 14 times normal,
a level almost surely caused by injection.
Insulin injection could
readily cause coma...
or death.
This encrusted needle
tested positive for insulin.
Alex couldn't wait to get back
and show Brillhoffer.
Now they felt they had
the murder weapon.
All they lacked was the motive.
At that moment, my husband
was vacationing with his mistress,
the very beautiful soap-opera actress,
Alexandra Isles.
Oh, God!
Mrs. Isles, a divorce, was the daughter
of an old friend, Count Billy Botsky.
Brillhoffer also discovered
that, at my death,
Claus, whose own net worth
was only a million dollars,
stood to inherit 14 million from me.
Alexandra later testified that Claus
showed her a legal analysis of my will.
On the evidence collected by Alex,
Ala and their lawyer Brillhoffer,
my husband was accused of twice trying
to murder me with injections of insulin.
On March 16, 1982, he was
found guilty on both counts.
... committed
on December 27, 1979...
Even Alexandra Isles
testified against him.
Guilty.
As to count two, charged the defendant
committed on December 21, 1980,
a crime of assault with intent to murder.
- How do you find?
- Guilty.
You are about to see how
Claus von Bulow sought to reverse
or escape from that jury's verdict.
You tell me.
And two! Here it comes. Here we go,
taking you downtown! And Dersh...
Take it in! Foul! OK, here I go.
Watch the hands! Watch the hands!
Yeah, hello.
What?
Oh, shit... Bottom line.
Aw, shit!
Hi.
Let's try that again.
Hi, Dad. Remember Maggie?
Hi, Maggie.
They're gonna fry. The Johnson brothers.
What? But...
Two black kids broke
their father out of prison.
The father shot two people:
the sons are convicted of murder.
A lawyer prays for an innocent client.
Finally, I get two.
Both of them are gonna get zapped.
- No more appeals?
- This was the best shot.
Whoa. It's the press.
You don't want to talk to the press?
Dershowitz Psychiatric Institute.
Hang on a second.
Claus von Bulow.
- It's a reporter.
- With an English accent?
What paper do you represent?
If I can't save two innocent kids,
what's the point?
Yeah, one second. Sorry.
He really seems to think he's von Bulow.
Hello. This is Alan Dershowitz.
Who are you? What do you want?
- It is von Bulow.
- Back in business.
- Can I help you?
- Claus von Bulow?
Elevators to the left.
Holy shit.
Hello?
Hello?
Professor Dershowitz. Hello, hello.
- How good of you to come.
- Pleasure.
Won't you sit down?
- Do you play?
- That? No.
Most people think it's a game of luck.
Actually, it's largely a matter of nerve.
Erm... Nothing, thank you, Charles.
Why don't we go to Delmonico's
and have a proper lunch?
Whatever.
I have the greatest respect
for the intelligence and integrity
of the Jewish people.
When I married Sunny, she was
the most beautiful divorce in the world,
and one of the wealthiest.
Even so, we never got this table.
Professor Dershowitz.
Dr. von Bulow.
Two injections of insulin,
already I'm a doctor.
In America, it's fame rather than class.
Now, after all this unpleasantness,
I always get the best table.
- Speaking of the unpleasantness...
- Oh, yes. We'd better discuss your fee.
OK. $300 an hour.
Good Lord.
You know, I used to be a lawyer
in London. That sounds a bit steep.
It's average for a case like this.
Besides, I do a lot of pro bono work.
You'd pay for that. Plus,
I have to pay students, associates.
Are you saying that if I agree to pay 300,
you will handle my appeal?
No, not so far.
Doesn't look like my kind of case.
I'm not a hired gun. I gotta feel a moral
or constitutional issue is at stake.
But I'm absolutely innocent.
And my civil liberties have
been egregiously violated.
Two black kids are facing the electric
chair for a crime they did not commit.
They are innocent.
Well, before you assume I'm guilty,
won't you hear my story?
No. Never let defendants explain. Puts
most of them in an awkward position.
- How do you mean?
- Lying.
But I give you my word as a gentleman.
Oh. Well...
Won't you at least read the record
and see if you can find something...
constitutional?
You do have one thing in your favor.
Everybody hates you.
Well, that's a start.
Come on, Maxwell.
Yeah! Come on, Max.
It was a hit! Yes!
- So, what do you think?
- Oh, he did it. He did it.
- Of course he did it. Can we win?
- A hundred to one against.
The maid schmeared him on both comas.
Look at this. It says here...
After you realized that Mrs. von Bulow
had not gotten up, what did you do?
I came downstairs,
and Mr. von Bulow said that
Madame had a very sore throat,
and I didn't have to do any work,
and she was in bed all day.
What are you doing? Did we ring for you?
She's ice-cold.
Madame. Mrs. von Bulow!
Leave her alone. She's sleeping. She
drank last night. We didn't get any rest.
She's not sleeping. She's unconscious.
- You must call a doctor.
- Maria!
Go on.
A half-hour later,
she had not moved.
I went back and forth all morning.
Finally, mid-afternoon,
Mr. von Bulow spoke to Dr. Paultees.
But he lied to doctor.
She's sleeping now, but earlier she was
up to the bathroom and had a soft drink,
so there's no cause for alarm...
But she never moved.
Never got up.
She was lying
in the same position all day.
Later her heart stops, and
Dr. Paultees, he comes and saves her.
After they go to the hospital,
I change the sheets.
I find a puddle of urine.
If Madame went to the bathroom,
she would not have peed in her bed.
Right.
Why would Claus lie about that?
It's suspicious but hardly criminal.
How about the second coma?
Maria wasn't in Newport for that one.
But shortly before the second coma...
I'm cleaning up their room
when I find Mr. von Bulow's canvas bag
packed for Newport.
Inside, there's a little black bag.
A bottle of insulin,
a syringe and needles.
Alexander! Alexander, come here!
Insulin? For what, insulin?
My lady's not diabetic.
Three weeks later,
Sunny's lying unconscious
in a freezing bathroom with
her nightgown hiked over her waist.
If I was on that jury,
I would've voted to convict.
Then you're taking the case?
Reminds me of my Hitler dream.
Hitler calls up, he's alive, needs a lawyer.
I say "Sure. Come on over."
Then I have to decide:
do I take the case or do I kill him?
You? No question.
- I would take the case.
- Then kill him.
I'm a maniac. I need your judgment,
someone to watch what I'm doing and
occasionally remind me about the law.
When can I see the transcripts?
You're a former prosecutor, conservative.
We agree on nothing.
But you're smarter than the DA. If I can
beat your arguments, I can destroy his.
Rhode Island is corrupt. Everything is
political. I don't think that way. You do.
I have to see the big picture.
I can't immerse myself in facts.
But we must know the facts.
No one can assimilate information
as quickly as you two.
I agree with that assessment.
- You're out of your mind.
- I only have 45 days to file.
I can't do it without you.
- I know you don't wanna come back...
- Is this strictly professional?
It better be.
That's wonderful. I want the best
people in the world on our side,
the most prestigious experts.
Nobel prize-winning scientists,
some of your colleagues at Harvard.
Wait a minute, Claus.
We got a little problem, OK?
People like that, we can't control.
They find one incriminating fact,
they'll tell the world.
I'm not afraid, Alan.
Let the chips fall where they may.
That's what an innocent man would say.
I know.
That just came for you, Daddy.
My daughter Cosima.
She never doubted me.
She loves Alex and Ala dearly. Siding
with me has cost her their affections.
I don't know what I would've done.
I don't want to hear your story,
but I do need some information.
Of course.
I gather the older children deny Sunny
had a problem with pills and alcohol.
Spectacular understatement.
So there must be somebody
who saw it. A witness, a friend?
- You want affidavits?
- Yes.
- I'll get them.
- You'll get them.
The drugs prescribed for me
were taken by Sunny.
That's a lot of drugs.
But the prosecution's allegation that
I knew about syringes, injections -
totally accurate.
Sunny and I gave ourselves B12 injections
in the late '60s. It was quite the fad.
Can I explain something? The less I know
from you, the more options I have.
When you tell me "the truth", you limit me
to a defense that fits with what you say.
But isn't the truth the simplest way, Alan?
I mean, why did I stay all day
at Sunny's side without calling a doctor?
Because Sunny detested doctors.
If we called one without her approval,
she went berserk.
Once she broke her hip and
didn't go to hospital for two days.
- Did you hear what I just said?
- Did you hear the judge sentence me?
Sorry. 30 years is a pretty stiff sentence.
Twice trying to murder one's wife,
anything less would be monstrous.
But for a man like myself,
who did nothing...
What I wanted to ask:
if we lose the appeal,
will I have the chance later to set my
affairs in order before I'm incarcerated?
In Europe, a gentleman is given
the opportunity to end things properly.
- Come on, Claus.
- We are each the keeper of our own soul.
Two big problems:
the case against him is very strong,
and the legal conviction isn't the only
conviction that we've got to reverse.
The more dangerous conviction
is the absolute certainty
of the American people
that Claus is guilty.
Finding grounds for reversal
won't be enough here.
Judges on the Rhode Island
Supreme Court
will have to go home to their spouses
and explain why they reversed.
To get them to do that, we have to
obliterate every aspect of the state's case.
Destroy the medical case
and their witnesses,
so the judges have
no possible way to affirm.
Total victory,
or we are dead in the water.
Now, I assume that you've all had
an opportunity to look at the transcripts.
First impressions?
I think this whole thing stinks.
I think Claus von Bulow stinks.
He's obviously guilty of
something pretty despicable,
and, if we free him, we become partners
in his crime, accessories after the fact.
I'm shocked, with your record
defending the poor and oppressed,
that you've taken this case.
I won't have anything to do with it.
And I hope my fellow students
won't, either. Goodbye.
My I exercise my First Amendment
right to free speech?
If lawyers only defended the innocent,
there'd be just ten lawyers in the country.
Why help guilty people get off?
You're sure he's guilty? 100% sure?
He had a lawyer. He had a trial.
He was convicted.
- Are you sure he had a fair trial?
- Come on!
It's the basis of the whole legal system!
Everyone gets a defense.
So the system is there for the one
innocent person who was falsely accused.
OK, look. Say it's you. OK?
You decide to get a divorce.
You're gonna divorce your husband.
A week later, you're accused
of molesting your son.
Don't give me that look.
Stuff like this happens all the time.
Suddenly, you're alone. You hate it.
It's a nightmare.
Everyone assumes that you are guilty.
Even the mailman is beginning
to look at you a little funny.
You only got one person
who believes in you.
There's only one person
you can trust: your lawyer.
Yeah, OK. So, someone's
gotta defend Claus.
But why you? Why us?
Look, you're my student.
You have a choice.
You don't have to do anything
you don't want to. That is your choice.
The reason I take cases - and here
I'm unlike most other lawyers,
who are not professors
and have to make a living -
I take cases cos I get pissed off.
And I am pissed off here.
The family hired a private prosecutor.
Unacceptable!
They conducted a private search!
Now, we let 'em get away with that, rich
people won't go to the cops any more.
You know what they'll do? Get
their own lawyers to collect evidence.
And then they are going
to choose which evidence
they feel like passing on to the DA.
And the next victim isn't
gonna be rich like von Bulow,
but is gonna be some poor schnook who
can't afford or can't find a decent lawyer.
I think it's a little more complicated
than your simple moral superiority.
No?
I agree von Bulow is guilty, but that's
the fun. I mean, that's the challenge.
See? Now, there is a lawyer.
- What?
- I have Mr. von Bulow for you.
OK, put him on.
Alan, a rather unsavory character
called David Marriott contacted me,
claiming to have information about
a drug delivery at Clarendon Court.
- OK. Where does he live?
- Somewhere in Wakefield.
OK, we'll get on it.
Tom, I want you to get
a private investigator
to dig into a David Marriott,
lives in Wakefield.
- OK. How are we gonna win this case?
- The judge made lots of mistakes.
Judges always make mistakes.
How will we win?
One issue leaps up.
This lawyer, Brillhoffer,
interviewed Alex, Maria, everybody.
He was the first to hear their stories.
He took notes and used them at trial
against a defense witness.
But the defense never saw the notes.
The judge wouldn't let us have them.
It's perfect Brady.
OK, why don't you draft a letter,
writing to Brillhoffer,
asking him very nicely
to send us his notes?
- Yeah, right. He'll fax them right over.
- Yeah, right.
We could win on this issue alone.
You know it, I know it.
Just make sure he knows it.
- Now, Nancy and Dobbs.
- Yes?
They're going to attack
the medical testimony.
Our Rhode Island counsel,
Peter Macintosh,
he will analyze the state supreme court.
The rest of us should begin dissecting
the transcript. Errors, inconsistencies.
OK, great. Now remember, most cases
are won in the field, not in court.
Minnie?
You wanna work with Sarah on this?
- You may learn something.
- Come on, Minnie.
Minnie!
- Please?
- Come on.
I don't trust Marriott. I don't know him.
But if he knew Alex von Auersberg...
You're crazy. I don't know who
you think you are. Perry Mason?
Let our private investigator interview him.
It's stupid and unprofessional.
- It's fun.
- Fun? This guy is a sleaze.
- You don't know what he's gonna try.
- What, is he gonna shoot me?
Come on, I'm from Brooklyn.
OK, I'll stand by the window every ten
minutes. That way you can know I'm safe.
I had this friend, Gilbert Jackson.
Interior decorator.
Flaming queen,
but a very excellent guy.
He introduced me to Alex von Auersberg.
Sure it was Alex?
We had dinner a few times, drinks.
All I knew, Alex was some rich kid.
So sometimes - this is like summer of '77-
I'd motor to Newport for some R and R.
Gilbert asked me to bring Alex a package.
I figured interior decoration.
Maybe drapes.
Like six times. So I'd call Alex.
- How did you get his phone number?
- From Gilbert.
- You still have it?
- Maybe.
I'm that kind of guy.
Here.
One night, I got curious.
Opened the package.
Fuckin' pharmacy, man.
Needles, syringes, white powder,
nice selection of pills, Demerol...
Like a drugstore.
You delivered drugs six times
and didn't know it?
Stupid, huh?
Then Gilbert asked me again.
I couldn't say no, but this time I made
Alex open the package in front of me.
Voil.
I go "Awful lot of pharmaceuticals
for one person."
He goes "Oh, I give some
to my mom to keep her off my back."
A few weeks later,
Gilbert gets mistaken for a softball.
Two guys bash his head in.
Alex calls me, totally urinary.
Will the cops find his phone number
and fuck up his trust fund or something?
Well, that's the fat. That's the skinny.
You like it?
You traffic with drug dealers
and drag queens,
you have a part-time job,
you ride in rented limos.
All in all, I'd say you're probably the least
impressive witness I've ever seen.
Wait a minute.
You think I'm scum, don't you?
Blow it out your ass.
You want a witness to back me up?
I'll get one.
And hey, maybe I'll see you
at the Celtics, huh?
I am not going to let them execute you.
You're not gonna die.
Look, Johnny, this is gonna be
a lot easier on you if you don't cry, OK?
I... I know your brother's hysterical.
Number one, they always
set a date for the execution,
and they always postpone it.
He's great like this. I just wish he had
something left for those around him.
Why are you talking to me about money?
Anyway, it's nice to have you back here.
Say hello to your brother.
Right. OK.
OK, who's got what?
Maria's testimony. She says Sunny
did take Valium prescribed for Claus.
Score one for von Bulow.
- And this Jamie Smather prescription?
- Who's Jamie Smather?
300-pound red-headed hooker in white
boots. She supplied Claus with Valium.
He had a gorgeous mistress
and went to an ugly whore?
There are some things
even mistresses won't do.
- Like what?
- I am not telling.
Anyway, Maria swears she first saw
this Jamie Smather prescription
February 14th,
and then again February 28th.
- So?
- It wasn't prescribed till the 28th.
You're not suggesting she's lying?
How about Maria's insulin?
Anything more on that?
Not yet.
Something about that bothers me.
- OK, who's next?
- Brillhoffer wrote back.
He's very attached to his notes.
"I am satisfied that there is not
a scrap of paper in my files
that might even arguably
be viewed as exculpatory."
- Translation?
- He says he has nothing that'd help us.
- You with me?
- Pay dirt.
- What?
- He's a lawyer.
If he didn't have anything,
he'd give it to us.
But there's something there,
and he'll fight to hold on to it.
I will bet my fee that no one
remembered seeing insulin
until after the lab report came back.
- So you're suggesting...
- Memory enhancement.
- It might be more than that.
- Possibly.
- A frame-up.
- You mean, by the kids?
- Where d'you get this? Brillhoffer's letter?
- Pure deduction.
A good lawyer is part psychiatrist,
detective, logician.
- A great lawyer...
- Never would have taken this case.
If there's nothing more...
Has anybody read this?
It's an interview with Truman Capote.
He says, when she was 19, Sunny von
Bulow taught him how to inject drugs.
Let me see that.
- Well, well, well. The famous professor.
- My new girlfriend, Andrea Reynolds.
- I'm not his girlfriend. I'm his savior.
- Perfectly true.
Two days after the trial, we fell in love.
It was really very dramatic.
Andrea, Andrea, Andrea, come on.
Since then, I've devoted my life
to clearing his name.
I made him hire you.
"Get the Jew," I said.
Darling...
Can the Jew get down to business?
We've got an affidavit. Smythe.
Mrs. Ruth Smythe gave us an affidavit
corroborating Truman Capote.
I have affidavits, too.
Newport people.
They describe Sunny taking pills,
getting drunk and falling down,
thumping into doorways,
smearing lipstick all over her face.
- Not a very pretty picture.
- She did it, didn't she?
Don't be a priss.
- Sunny was a lovely woman.
- Spoiled rotten.
Yes, but lovely. Till she drank.
Two drinks, and she became...
nasty, irrational.
All women are irrational.
Did we mention the priest?
Oh. Marriott apparently confided
in a priest, who's consented to talk to us.
Father Capello from Providence.
A priest? A priest is the ideal witness.
It's like getting the word of God.
I checked. God is unavailable.
lf... if the priest comes through,
and we can get documentation
on Sunny's drug use,
self-injection may be a plausible theory.
- There's no insulin in this case.
- But people do use insulin.
They use it for dieting.
Sunny was concerned about her weight.
Maybe, but believe me, Alan,
there's no insulin here.
Really? How can you be so sure?
You realize, with this case,
I'm looking for evidence to exonerate you.
But, at the same time, I'm also
wondering... what really happened.
- Who you are.
- Who would you like me to be?
Your mother's death... What happened?
I believe she had a heart problem.
The rumor in England is you killed her.
Hey, Alan. Statute of limitations
ran out on that years ago.
There's rumors also that I killed my aunt.
And that I'm a necrophiliac
who injected Sunny with insulin
so that I could have my way with her.
Please.
Did Claus drive me crazy?
Even I don't know.
But it's true that I took
up to 24 laxatives daily,
popped aspirin like M&M's,
smoked three packs of cigarettes a day,
had a problem with alcohol,
took Valium and Seconal frequently
and consumed large quantities of sweets,
despite a medical condition,
hypoglycemia,
which made them hazardous.
As for my state of mind...
I had not had sex with
my husband for years.
My schedule was: I woke at 9.30,
did a little exercise and shopping,
and returned to bed at 3 o'clock
for the remainder of the afternoon.
I liked to be in bed.
I didn't much like anything else.
Hold on here, will you?
- Come in.
- Alan.
Welcome to my humble law firm.
In the kitchen,
our insulin-on-the-needle team.
They're cooking up
some surprise for us.
This is our Brillhoffer-notes team.
Mr. von Bulow.
- Where are the paper towels?
- Ask Sarah!
Sarah used to live here.
This... I guess he was up all night.
This sort of commune,
you do it on every case?
Never before. 38 days to write
100 pages. Only way to get it done.
Here's the black-bag team.
Illegal-search team.
My son Elon lost his room. Actually
this is another case that you're paying for.
- And this is my team.
- You wish.
I can't find the damn thing.
- Hi. I'm Sarah.
- And a very lovely Sarah you are.
- Does that really work?
- Flattery? Absolutely.
Like Chinese food?
What do you give a wife
who has everything?
An injection of insulin.
How... Ah, my prawns.
How can one define a fear of insulin?
Claustrophobia.
Is there anything more you can
tell us about Alexandra Isles?
Is it true that she gave you a deadline
of Christmas 1979 to be together?
Not really. No, she knew
I was looking for full-time work.
I worked for JP Getty in London.
Alexandra assumed that, when you did
find a job, you'd marry her?
Oh, she assumed it.
Did you sense that she
wanted to get back together?
Very much so.
In fact, at the trial, she said...
I loved him, but I was still
caught up in my own anger.
And I'm sorry I acted that way then.
I loved him then. I was angry.
Let me ask you this.
Maybe you can't answer.
Do you still love him?
I don't know.
- That means yes.
- It would seem so.
In fact, after the trial, she wrote me
a letter saying so explicitly.
A very passionate letter.
Passionate and jealous.
But that was the relationship
from the outset. That was Alexandra.
She was your love slave.
Ah. I think now I'll have my own
individual order of ginger prawns.
Three weeks before her final coma,
Sunny overdosed on aspirin.
- Can you tell us about that?
- I had nothing to do with that.
Of course not.
I'm asking you what happened.
Sunny had been unwell.
- Are you all right?
- Just a bit dizzy.
If you're dizzy, don't go wandering...
Sunny?
Oh, my God. Come on, my darling.
You're all right. Put your arm
around my shoulder.
No, you're all right. Come on,
we'll get you back into bed.
- Something happened to my head.
- You're all right.
It's just a little cut.
Come on, let's get you lying down.
There you are.
There.
- Shall I call a doctor?
- No!
No, I don't want a doctor.
Just... I don't want a doctor.
I just wanna be left alone.
I wanna be left alone
with all those beautiful letters.
What did you do with those letters?
Why did you write those letters?
Later the doctor said
we needn't have gone to hospital,
but I wasn't going to take any chances.
Why did she take so much aspirin?
Sunny always took aspirin. She'd
been taking a lot for several days.
- That's not what our doctor said.
- Dr. Lucus Lupardus,
chief forensic toxicologist,
Suffolk County,
says people who take lots of aspirin
every day never reach that level.
He also said the average blood level
in cases of death is 60. Hers was 90. So...
So, it was obviously a suicide attempt.
- Why?
- Yeah. Why?
- Why?
- Alan, do they all want to be prosecutors?
We're waiting.
I presume she was unhappy.
How about we all finish up
and go back to the house?
We're not gonna win this
on a technicality. Peter?
I've read every recent case where
the Rhode Island Supreme Court reversed.
They don't like to make new law
or discuss broad legal issues.
When they do reverse,
the grounds are technical,
but the reason seems to be
they suspect a convicted
defendant may be innocent.
OK, everybody get that?
True or not, we've gotta convince
the judges that you are innocent.
Claus, now I do wanna
hear your side of the story.
With pleasure. Innocence
has always been my position.
First coma: what preceded it?
Sunny loved Christmas.
It was her favorite season, really.
You see, what you must
understand about Sunny
is that she loved giving
more than anything else.
Each year, she always made
a big bowl of fresh eggnog.
On that year, she drank a lot of it.
- How much?
- 10 or 12 glasses.
- With her hypoglycemia?
- Did she always drink like that?
Never. She never touched alcohol at all,
except on social occasions
to overcome her shyness
or when she was upset.
This was not a social occasion?
No. We'd been discussing
divorce all afternoon.
This whole subject of
your work coming between us,
isn't it just a pretext,
when the real subject is her?
Certainly not.
I'm thinking of redecorating
this whole fucking house.
Then she knew about Alexandra.
- Yes.
- How did she find out?
Er... I...
I told her the previous summer.
Oh, I've been meaning to mention...
our understanding about my...
extracurricular activities.
Mm?
I've been involved with someone who falls
outside the parameters of our agreement.
- Really?
- Someone peripherally in our circle.
Billy Botsky's daughter, Alexandra Isles.
Well...
That must be better for you than
what you've had to put up with.
You're referring to the call girls.
Yes. I mean, that is where
you've gone previously, isn't it?
Yes, it is.
And isn't this better? Or is
Billy Botsky's daughter a call girl too?
This is much better.
That was what? July, August?
Now it's Christmastime, and you were
still squabbling over Alexandra?
No, we were fighting about my work.
Sunny was...
Well, by the evening,
she'd drunk so much eggnog
that I had to help her into the bedroom.
Time for bed, darling.
There we are.
Please don't hold my arm.
Darling, you know when you get like this.
Do you remember?
You fell and broke your hip.
That was years ago.
It was two years ago.
Get me a Scotch and soda.
May I at least urinate alone?
She runs the water every time
she goes in there.
If she was soused, why get the Scotch?
Because she asked for it.
Sunny got what Sunny wanted.
It's OK.
- Good night, Daddy.
- Good night, darling.
- Good night, Claus.
- Good night, Alex.
Hasn't my mother given us
enough money? Claus!
That night, we hardly slept.
Your age is perfectly acceptable to retire.
I'm already retired.
I haven't worked full-time since Getty.
Exactly. It's your ego.
You've never had a career, not really.
I'm going to have one now.
Come on, Sunny. Your father worked.
Do you want the children to think
a male's place is in a deck chair?
You marry me for my money,
then demand to work.
You're the prince of perversion!
- Are you trying to destroy our family?
- No, of course not. I simply want some...
...intercourse with the world.
Shut up, Pan!
Oh, what does it matter?
So, is that it? Another divorce?
OK. I'll divorce you. I will.
Oh, God. Two-time loser.
- I'll divorce everybody.
- I don't want a divorce.
I don't want to marry
Billy Botsky's daughter.
I want to stay with you and I want
to work. I need that as a man.
It's hopeless.
Oh, God. I need my beauty sleep.
Why do you believe it's hopeless
just because it's some...
Good night, Claus.
Sunny, you know I love you.
Good night.
- OK, and the next day?
- Well...
Maria's testimony
was wildly exaggerated.
Sunny was never moaning.
Maybe the occasional slur, but...
And Maria shook Sunny.
Nobody ever shook Sunny.
What happened when
she became conscious?
After the first coma,
it was kind of absurd.
Everybody was angry at me.
Can't you ever leave me alone?
Why did you do it?
I would've been better off.
You would've been better off.
What do you want me to say?
I'm sorry I saved your life?
Yes.
Say it.
Of course I'm not sorry.
Claus.
What am I going to do with myself?
When I phoned Alexandra to tell her,
she said the same thing.
She said "Why did you do it?
Why did you call the doctor?"
Are you saying she wanted you
to let Sunny die?
No, no, no, no, no.
It was more "Everybody says
Sunny's such an unhappy woman
and has nothing to live for."
Well, so much for the first coma.
The second, of course,
was much more theatrical.
Theatrical? What is this, a fucking game?
This is life and death.
Your wife is laying in a coma.
You don't even make
a pretence at caring, do you?
Of course I care, Alan.
It's just I don't wear
my heart on my sleeve.
Let's call it a night, OK?
As you wish.
Three drugs on the needle:
amobarbital, Valium, insulin.
We can't all be you, Alan.
Get a doctor to prepare five needles.
One with nothing, two with
Valium, amobarbital and insulin,
two with just Valium and amobarbital.
We send them to the lab
that our famous needle went to.
See if we get a false-positive result.
- If we don't?
- If we don't, I clean the latrines.
You're not gonna believe this.
David Marriott wants money.
Who doesn't?
- His memory might fail.
- Forget him.
He has lost his job, and he is running
around trying to find evidence for us.
Let's do what the government does
with witnesses. Pay him for his time.
- What's his time worth?
- Buck and a half.
Dersh! Your team's on!
- You gonna pass to me this game?
- No.
Their investigator said the needle
had an encrustation near the tip.
Doctors tell us this is
inconsistent with injection.
So how did it get there?
Oh.
If I inject this needle,
the skin acts as a kind of a swab.
It cleans the needle off, leaving
the tip completely free of liquid.
But if I just dip the needle
into the liquid, what do you see?
Dry this out, you have an encrustation.
So it's a frame-up?
It's Desdemona's handkerchief.
My stepchildren thought I was guilty,
didn't have evidence, so concocted some.
- This should win us the case, no?
- No. We're maybe halfway home.
There's still a lot of weird stuff.
- Did you love Sunny?
- I married her.
Of course I loved her. She was beautiful.
- Rich.
- Why not?
What I've seen of the rich,
you can have 'em.
I do.
The black bag. Was it yours?
Sunny appropriated it.
But to understand that, you must
understand that, after the first coma,
she went into a complete rage.
- Did you take them?
- Certainly not. Take what?
My pills, you moron!
Valium, Seconal.
- You took them, didn't you?
- I've long since stopped interfering.
Well, who? My children wouldn't dare.
- Oh. I know who.
- Where are you going?
Maria!
She soon found them.
It's my lovely mother, isn't it?
She's behind all this.
She's in cahoots with Maria.
Well, just because she had all the money
before I had all the money
does not mean she's my lord and master.
Of course not. I am your lord and master.
Just kidding.
Maria loves me too much.
It's unhealthy for her,
and it's certainly no fun for me.
There.
We'll see if that ugly little maid
of mine can sniff this one out.
And what are you going
to do with all that?
I'm not gonna tell you. I assure you,
it's not gonna be among my affairs.
Odd she used that word - "affairs".
The prosecution thinks you ground up
the drugs to inject Sunny.
And this nose-drop business
is pretty far-fetched.
But consider the pattern, Alan.
It's public record that Sunny used drugs.
Her behavior here of hiding them
in liquid so that no one will find them
is your classic alcoholic stashing
pints of whiskey all over the house.
You're right. Of course.
You've always been right, haven't you?
This is the most dangerous case
I ever worked on.
- You find that exhilarating?
- No, I do not. I am breaking every rule.
The best way to win
is to proclaim your innocence,
and I have never done that for anybody.
And the problem I got is
I see who you are.
- You'd do anything to win.
- So would you.
Yeah, but you don't trust the legal system.
You're saying I'd manufacture
witnesses, affidavits?
- No, but you would sacrifice me.
- Oh, please, Alan.
The more I believe that you are innocent,
then more nervous I am.
I go out on a limb for you, you're
proven guilty, I look like an asshole.
My reputation, my credibility,
my career - destroyed.
- That's the risk you're taking.
- Well, fuck you.
Fuck you, man!
I'm glad we understand one another.
It's easy to forget all this
is about me, lying here.
To most of you, my name means "coma".
My second marriage means
"attempted murder".
Everything before, everything beautiful,
does not exist in the public mind.
No one thinks of how I loved
my children. Look at Cosima.
And Alex, of course. And Ala.
And certainly no one cares about Claus,
the way he was when
I fell in love with him.
When Claus and I first met,
I was married to the dashing young
Prince Alfred Eduard Friederich
Vincenz Martin Maria von Auersberg.
It was 1964, seven years
into my first marriage.
It seems that my first husband,
Alfie, as he was called,
had vowed to be unfaithful
with every pretty girl in Europe.
He was having quite a success.
And so... I was unfaithful with Claus.
Psst.
Wildly unfaithful.
Happy memories.
But it's not the passion
I remember most.
It's the tenderness.
Good God, what's that?
Just one of Frank's pets.
Oh, my God.
Come on, silly.
I never liked people much, not as a rule.
But Claus was somehow different.
Not a normal person, I guess.
It's all right. Do it again.
Give him some more.
One of those things you never forget.
Of course, now he lives
in my apartment, my bedroom,
my bed.
Cold, isn't it? Cold and brutish,
and the way of the world.
Looking at him now,
the issue seems simple.
Is he the devil?
If so, can the devil get justice?
And all this legal activity...
is it in Satan's service?
"Sunny von Bulow was totally vulnerable
to Claus von Bulow"?
- Can't argue with that.
- But it's speculation, exaggeration.
- You keep working on it.
- Totally inflammatory!
OK, good. Let's go over this.
OK, we went over it once.
I just want you to see if it...
Oh, shit. What is this? Illegal search?
A technicality, a guilty man's argument.
This is different. Usual Fourth Amendment
case, you're trying to exclude evidence.
Same thing here.
No, this search destroyed evidence!
No fingerprints, no inventory.
What's left hurts Claus,
but the state has to...
The cops tested the drugs
from the illegal search.
- Yes.
- And we are saying that that test
constituted a second illegal search.
- There are precedents.
- I know there are. I'm not debating that.
- What I'm trying to do...
- You're debating me, personally. Why?
I'm debating strategy.
I'm not debating you.
We're all on the same team, aren't we?
I don't know. We seem to be.
- Then why don't I feel it?
- I thought this was professional.
- It was.
- That's bullshit, Alan!
I asked you to work on this case
because I think you are a good lawyer.
You too, but you give all you have to the
law and forget the people you care about.
My clients are the people
that I care about.
- Obviously.
- What I care about,
all I fuckin' care about is this!
This case!
And making the best possible appeal
that we're capable of doing, OK?
You can make your argument better.
You know that! I know that!
So why don't you just do it
and cut all the bullshit?
You always have to have
the last word, don't you?
What?
We're gonna lose.
Why do you think this case
fascinates people?
Cos one time or other, every man is
driven crazy by his wife, and in his heart,
he wants to do exactly
what Claus is accused of.
Kill her in some sly, silent way
that can't be detected.
Claus is a scapegoat.
Someone has to suffer for the sin
that we all wanna commit.
Alan, that's ridiculous.
It's ridiculous. You're right.
- What have you got?
- Prosecution's case is based on a theory.
The needle in the bag, insulin
on the needle, insulin in her blood.
Right, right, right. OK, fine.
In Derek, this Rhode Island
Supreme Court, these same judges,
said that, in a case
based on circumstantial theory,
the case falls apart
if any part of the theory is weak.
If there's a weak link,
then you throw the whole chain out?
Exactly.
Peter, that's good. That's very good.
- Oh, yeah, this is good.
- Thank you.
What do you want me to do now?
I want you to find as many
alternative theories as possible.
Hey! Come on.
There's only seven days left.
Dersh! You'd better come downstairs.
Hey, Dersh. Sorry to get you out of bed.
- What do you want? More money?
- Can you get more?
Can I have a glass of water, please?
No. The reason I'm here...
my affidavit is inaccurate.
Great. Just what I need right now.
- It's slow.
- Yeah.
I left something out,
something incredibly important.
Remember I gave Alex's drugs
to a woman at Clarendon Court?
Yeah. So?
That bitch was definitely
Sunny von Bulow.
David... this is bad.
It looks bad. I've met with you
five times now, and all of a sudden...
No, it's not sudden.
I think I always knew, but I became
convinced by staring at pictures of her.
We can't use your affidavit unless
it's truthful. Are you sure this time?
I swear... on the body
and soul of my mother.
Poor woman.
Put in this change, and make him
go over every word of the affidavit.
Uh... can I use your men's room?
- More money?
- Can you get more?
If Claus had injected her, he would've
thrown away the needle, right?
Sure. If he threw away the insulin,
why keep the needle?
- Claus is strange, but he ain't stupid.
- He is arrogant.
- Is that a crime?
- Sometimes.
Why are we even discussing this?
It's obvious: the kids framed him.
Whoa! You changed your tune.
A frame-up doesn't mean he's innocent.
The kids could've framed the guilty man.
Dersh! Telephone!
It's Peter Macintosh.
Yeah.
Do you know what it is?
OK.
Word in Rhode Island is that the state
can't lose. Got an ace up their sleeve.
What is it?
He's gonna try to find out.
- All right, my friend.
- Friend? I like that.
Nothing personal.
OK, no students, no witnesses.
Second coma: let's hear it.
Strange as it may seem now,
in retrospect...
OK, Claus, cut the bullshit.
December 20, 1980.
Sunny was unwell.
We'd been arguing all afternoon.
I'd been offered a new position
in the oil business,
which would've meant
my spending some time in Europe.
The discussion must've escalated
because I went to talk to the children.
This will bring 50,000 gold florin
from any rebels worth the name.
- 50,000 florin?
- That's a pretty good take.
- Let's vote on it! All those in favor...
- If you'll forgive my interruption...
I... I've something to tell you both.
We're heading for
the best pirate days ever.
I...
It looks as if... as though Mummy
and I are going to have to split up,
because my work is something
she cannot tolerate.
Mummy says things like that,
but she always gets over it.
Yes, but this has been
going on for too long.
I'm going to Europe in the new year.
This will probably lead to a split.
Oh.
It's all right. She'll get over it.
Alex says you said that the next day.
Is anything more absurd than announcing
your intention to divorce a woman
who's just fallen into a coma?
No. That evening everything
seemed normal enough.
Not cheerful. But then, we didn't
usually giggle at mealtimes.
Despite her doctor's warnings
about sweets,
the only thing Sunny consumed
was a sundae.
After supper, I went to finish off
some work in my study.
The others decided to
chat in the living room.
That would be lovely, but first
I need to go to my room for just a minute.
After about an hour, I dropped in on them.
Darling, would you care for anything?
Mm...
lf... there's some...
chicken bouillon left.
I'll look.
There you are, darling.
Thank you.
How is your work coming?
I'm totally flummoxed. I can't
get the figures to make any sense.
- Why don't you call your friend Deborah?
- I doubt she'd be in Saturday night.
So, Deborah, I think you'll agree
that's 7-2-8. Right. Now...
But Deborah was home,
and we did talk for some time, until...
Claus, come quick. Mummy's not well.
Deborah, can I call you back
in the morning? Thanks.
Her voice got very weak, and she
almost fell down. I had to help her.
Somebody open a window.
I find the chill reassuring.
Now I must speak with Claus.
- Good night, Mummy.
- Good night.
Good night, darling.
Good night, Alex.
That is, if Claus has time to talk.
Or are you going to work every spare
moment right through Christmas?
Is your work so fascinating?
Or are you trying to drive me away?
Because if you are, you're succeeding,
because I don't want this.
I didn't marry you for this.
I could've had anybody.
With my money? Anybody!
Well? Say something!
Do something! Be a man!
I already have a butler.
Do something! I don't want this!
I don't! I don't want this!
I don't... I don't want this!
The same conversation as the previous
year, only this time with greater venom.
You've always been afraid of me.
It's not because of my money.
It's basically because you're a coward.
Your pitiful masculinity is so fragile,
you can't stand confrontation,
so you go off with Miss Botsky.
Good night.
As was usual,
I was awakened before dawn.
I let the dogs out, as was customary.
I went back through the bedroom
to my study as quietly as possible.
I did not notice if my wife was in bed.
I did not notice if the light was on
under the bathroom door.
Had it been on, I wouldn't
have given it a thought.
I did my exercises, showered,
and then I called Deborah Knowles.
Well, I mean, it's stable and it's profitable.
Can anyone really believe,
if I was trying to murder my wife,
that I would spend an hour
going over a tedious set of figures?
After the call, I passed through
the bedroom again. It was freezing.
By this time, Sunny
was certainly not in bed.
And I heard water
running in the bathroom.
I had breakfast, walked the dogs,
and, on my return,
asked the children where Mummy was.
Has Mummy had breakfast yet?
We haven't seen her.
Sunny?
Her bathroom was
her private sanctuary.
No one entered it. Except the maid,
of course, to clean up.
Sometimes she stayed there
for hours, or so it seemed.
One can only speculate
what goes on behind a closed door.
Sunny, are you there?
I hesitated even to knock.
Darling?
Sunny?
Oh, God.
Once I'd ascertained she was breathing,
I went to fetch Alexander.
- Why not call an ambulance first?
- Panic, Alan, panic.
I mean, I...
I needed to talk to somebody.
I wasn't worried if she was breathing
normally. It wasn't like the year before.
In retrospect it seems absurd,
but I looked at her upper lip.
She had blood on it. I thought she'd
broken a tooth. That was my concern.
And that's really all I can...
that's really all I can say.
- But is it the truth?
- Of course.
- But not the whole truth.
- I don't know the whole truth.
- I don't know what happened to her.
- I wish I didn't believe you.
It's very hard to trust someone
you don't understand.
You're a very strange man.
You have no idea.
- Everybody here?
- Macintosh says he's got bad news.
There he is.
Well?
I found out what the state has.
Their ace in the hole.
It's you.
It's me?
David Marriott taped
all his conversations with you.
Oh, great.
The scuttlebutt is,
if we win the case, you go to prison.
What did I say?
Good old corrupt Rhode Island.
A friend got me an excerpt.
The reason I'm here...
My affidavit is inaccurate.
David, this is bad. It looks bad.
What do you want? More money?
Can you get more?
Yeah.
- That is not what I said.
- It's on tape, Alan.
I don't care. That's not what I said.
- What do we do?
- I don't know.
I'll tell you what we do. We ignore it.
Alan, with that tape,
it's your whole career.
I now believe Claus is innocent,
so we've decided:
no tricks, no technicalities.
We are going to base our appeal directly
and explicitly on Claus's innocence.
- Appeals must be based on judicial error.
- The judge should've thrown out the case.
You can't say there wasn't
sufficient evidence. He was convicted.
- Good point.
- That's what we are saying.
If the rules don't work, you change them.
Red Auerbach changed the jump-ball rule
when the Celtics had a short team.
But it's dangerous politically.
If the judges feel insulted...
Wait. State supreme court shouldn't even
look at an appeal based on new evidence.
Hey, guys. I'll take care of that, OK?
You just leave it to me.
Look, I know you're all exhausted.
We got four days left.
What we do now will decide this thing.
Do you wanna win or not?
- Alan! We've got something.
- We've hit the jackpot.
Our needles that had
amobarbital and Valium...
But no insulin.
Both came back with
false-positive readings for insulin.
One was 93, the other 282.
We've knocked out every piece
of their medical case.
OK, now all they've got left is my neck.
Anybody know anything
about editing audio tapes?
Defense! Defense! Come on.
Come on, baby! Come on, baby!
- All right, Alan.
- Come on!
Pass it, Alan.
Wait a minute. I got it. Where's Raj?
- He's upstairs.
- Where are you going?
Raj. Raj, I got it.
I got it. Remember Maria?
She could have said it like this:
Insulin? For what, insulin?
My lady is not diabetic.
You see? "My lady is not diabetic."
She is assuming that the bag is Sunny's.
Her first reaction, not part of
a legal strategy devised later,
is that the stuff in the black bag
belonged to Sunny, not Claus.
Who'd know better than she?
Start writing.
You are not God! You are a prosecutor!
Alabama can't execute those Johnson
kids before the Supreme Court rules!
You heard me right.
- You got two hours to make Rhode Island.
- You want me to speed?
No. They'll stop you
and you won't make the deadline.
I'm telling you right now,
those kids fry, you're next!
You're damn right!
Some startling developments
in the von Bulow case.
Professor Alan Dershowitz had been
accused of paying for falsified testimony,
but those accusations were discredited
today by the attorney general,
who announced that
David Marriott's tape was doctored
and that Marriott is not a reliable witness.
So, what was he up to, Alan?
Who was he working for?
Damned if I know.
Hope they don't think he worked for you.
- No one's going to...
- Look, I don't think you did it, OK?
But at the Chinese restaurant,
you did duck the big question.
Chuck is our Alexandra Isles expert.
Sunny's aspirin overdose.
Why did she take so many?
What happened? Sunny had a headache?
The headache was Alexandra, right?
Let's hear it, Claus.
Alexandra was spiteful.
On the day of Sunny's aspirin overdose,
she returned some presents
I'd given her, some photographs.
Love letters.
She dropped them off in a shopping bag.
Did Sunny see them?
Sunny was home. I was not.
Alexandra neglected
to address the package to me.
I wanna be left alone with
all those beautiful letters.
What did you do with those letters?
Why did you write those letters?
There's a big difference
between knowing about an affair
and having love letters
crammed down your throat.
It seems that Sunny did care
about your affair. She cared a lot.
Why didn't you tell us?
Everything was open-book.
"Get the best experts."
"I'm not afraid of the truth."
Looks to me like Alexandra
tried to force Sunny into suicide.
Or they plotted it together.
Either way, he's protecting Alexandra
because he still loves her.
And why not? Hey, she's a babe.
Of course I still love her.
And hate her.
Alexandra, Sunny, Andrea...
I love them all.
Being a human being
is very literal.
You're trapped. Time moves
in only one direction: forward.
It's stupid and boring
and results in a lot of silliness.
Example: the legal process.
In this particular case, a vast amount
of time, effort and money was spent
trying to determine what happened on
those two nights so close to Christmas,
December 26, 1979, December 20, 1980.
Happened right here.
Even now, it all looks the same,
feels the same, smells the same.
If you could just go back in time
and take a peek, you'd know.
And all this would be unnecessary.
All rise!
Hear ye, hear ye. All persons having
business before the Supreme Court
holding in province within and for the
State of Rhode Island may now draw near.
Then again, everyone enjoys a circus.
Be seated.
If the appellant is ready,
you may proceed.
Oral argument will be made
by out-of-state counsel,
Professor Alan Dershowitz.
Your Honors, you may not
like Claus von Bulow.
You may think he is guilty of something.
But I am here to tell you he is innocent.
- Our new evidence...
- Professor.
You know there is no case which allows
you to introduce new evidence on appeal.
There is one, Your Honor.
And you wrote it: Derek.
In Derek, you yourself said
that a case based on
circumstantial theory rather than fact
only stands up if no other theory
makes sense.
The only way to show a better theory
is to present it.
Get on with it, counselor.
The first issue is the encrusted needle.
I hope you will have the courage
to free an innocent man
and remedy a grave injustice.
This will never work.
Too smart for his own good.
Alan says it will work.
If the prosecutor takes the bait.
What do you mean, "bait"?
Argues the evidence.
Your Honors, introduction
of new evidence on appeal
violates every principle of
jurisprudence, every statute,
every precedent, every rule of ethics.
He's nailing us.
I am not going to stand before you
and argue Mr. von Bulow's guilt.
However, I have no choice but to address
Mr. Dershowitz's arguments one by one.
- Bingo.
- First, the encrusted needle.
So, now it's up to the judges.
Tell me what you really think.
I think it's easier to love somebody
than to live with them.
Love is fantasy. Living is work.
I'll say. And those people
don't like to work.
But if you don't do the work, the love dies,
and nobody wants to deal with that one.
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
The love died, Sunny couldn't accept it...
so Claus tried to kill her?
- Maybe.
- I don't agree.
Face it. All we had to do was
prove the state made a lousy case.
We didn't prove Claus was innocent.
We couldn't, and he probably isn't.
- You mean you think?
- So he didn't inject Sunny with insulin.
So what? First coma, no problem.
The attending doctor thought it was
caused by hypoglycemia. All right.
But what about the second coma?
I mean, why does Claus act so guilty?
Wouldn't any man feel guilty
if his wife was suicidal?
Yeah. So maybe she took the sleeping
pills with the intention of killing herself.
But how did she end up
lying on a marble floor
in a freezing bathroom
with her head under the toilet?
How about this?
Sunny wakes up miserable.
Second marriage is over,
children are leaving home.
What's to live for?
But when she was found, her nightgown
was hiked over her waist.
Exactly. How did it get there?
OK, let's say she's standing
at the sink. She has to pee.
At exactly the same instant,
the drugs hit,
her body convulses,
she grabs the nightgown.
- I don't buy that.
- It does seem far-fetched.
- So is the truth sometimes.
- Bull!
I think she took the drugs the previous
night. Maybe he saw her take them.
Or she told him she was going to
before they fell asleep.
This time, he wants her to succeed.
Sunny?
Maybe there's some way
he can help her along.
Of course. The open window.
Zero degrees.
But somebody might see her there.
The action of dragging her would
naturally pull up the nightgown.
In this cold, how long
could she survive?
Remember what Sunny said?
"I would've been better off.
You would've been better off. "
...because the law is a blunt instrument.
It is not a rapier. It is a cudgel.
Tomorrow, death penalty. Which
reminds me of the comedian who said
"Why do they call it the death penalty?
It's no penalty. You're out of the game!"
- Good news.
- And more good news.
- The decision came?
- They just announced it.
- Five-zip.
- We murdered 'em.
- Grounds?
- They got the Brillhoffer notes.
And that guilty-man's argument,
search and seizure.
- Federal or state?
- Both.
If it's federal, they could appeal, but
as it's Rhode Island, they can't. We win.
Don't get too excited till
we see Brillhoffer's notes.
We destroyed their medical case, but their
witnesses still carry emotional weight.
Unless the Brillhoffer notes show
that they've changed their stories.
Good afternoon, sir.
- Let me get that for you.
- Thank you.
- You have Brillhoffer's notes?
- Yes.
- Well?
- They're not what we hoped.
I knew it.
They're much better.
No one mentioned insulin
when they first talked to Brillhoffer.
Plus, Maria told him that, when
she supposedly first saw insulin,
she couldn't even read any of the
labels. They were all scraped off.
- What does this mean?
- It means...
that if there is a second trial,
we can be confident.
Both the medical case and
their witnesses are now highly suspect.
Ah!
Darling, this is Alan Dershowitz.
Yes, I know. Hello.
Alan tells me...
Well, things look very hopeful.
I knew it would come out all right.
Thank you.
Yes, Alan, thank you.
I am eternally grateful.
Hey, this means we'll be getting back
your bail. A million dollars.
I know I still owe you, Alan.
Please send me your bill.
And maybe when you're in New York
we can meet for lunch. I'd enjoy that.
One thing, Claus. Legally,
this was an important victory.
Morally, you're on your own.
Claus von Bulow was given a
second trial and acquitted on both counts.
This is all you can know,
all you can be told.
When you get where I am,
you will know the rest.
Claus von Bulow is still
married to Sunny von Bulow.
He is presently living
and working in London.
The Johnson brothers
remain on death row.
Sunny von Bulow has not spoken
since she fell into her final coma.
This film is based upon Alan Dershowitz's
book Reversal Of Fortune
and public records.
Dialogue and certain events
and characters contained in the film
were created for
the purpose of dramatization.
Two packs of Vantage, please.
- Anything else?
- Yes, a vial of insulin.
Just kidding.