Verdict Is In

As playwrights have long known, there are few more dramatic situations than a court trial. But TV cameras are not allowed in courtrooms, and dramatized trial scenes often suffer from their own contrived complexity. Last week a program that captures much of the unrehearsed spontaneity and unpredictability of a real trial was the year's biggest success in afternoon television.

Only a Brief. CBS's The Verdict Is Yours (3:30 p.m., E.D.T.) has no script, and not even the producer knows what the verdict will be. Instead, each "trial" is fabricated in the head of the show's lawyer, Selig Silverman. Each principal is told the "truth" about his role in the case. The lawyers are not actors, but professional attorneys who like to get on the show for the fun of it. It is up to them to make their own cross-examinations, field the witnesses' replies as skillfully as they can. Presiding and ruling on points of law last week was former Judge Cornelius D. McNamara, who served ten years in a New York City municipal court.

Producer Eugene Burr directs the screening of the few actors who take principal roles; some have fled auditions in tears after a ruthless grilling by lawyers testing their ad-libbing ability. The jurors are picked from studio visitors, must come back three to seven days running until the trial is finished. As a concession to TV viewers' impatience, they reach their verdict by majority vote.

Verdict's set is four-walled and solid as any courtroom. Once the half-hour sessions start, Director Byron Paul has little control over proceedings. When time comes for a commercial, a floor manager flings open a door out of camera range and holds up a sign saying "Suspend." At this signal, the appropriate lawyer usually launches into a long-winded objection, which Court Reporter Jim McKay breaks in on, explaining that here is a chance to hear from the sponsor.

The result is that many a televiewer firmly believes in the existence of Overlook, Verdict's fictitious small city (pop. 125,000), its malefactors and martyrs, its country club and Skid Row, the awful goings-on at the outlying Mountain View Inn. Recalls Director Paul: "One of our lawyers got a long-distance call from a Cleveland woman. She wanted to pay his poor client's legal fee."

"Guilty As Heck." When Verdict began last year, it was greeted with some of the rudest critical welcomes ever given a network show. THE VERDICT is DOUBTFUL, snidery headlined the New York Journal-American. "Mockery . . . phoniness . . , guilty as heck," snapped the New York Herald Tribune. Today Verdict easily outdraws its rivals on the most hotly contested hour of the day, has consistently batted among the top half dozen of all daytime shows.

Verdict cannot afford star salaries, but many big-name actors ad-lib happily without riches, become convinced of the "truth" that they are relating. Last week Betsy von Furstenberg was on trial for shooting her "husband" on the pretext that she mistook him for a prowler. The prosecuting attorney, in real life Manhattan's Seventh District Assemblyman Daniel Kelly, had built up a damaging case against her. "It all looks very black for us, but wait until I take the stand!" she cried. Verdict's lawyers get just as engaged, lose their tempers in "court," on one occasion nearly came to blows afterward. Said Betsy's Defense Attorney Richard Tilden: "I didn't sleep well nights, worrying about that case."

He need not have worried. The jurors found Betsy innocent--a decision that meant a 25-c- loss to Director Paul, who had bet that their verdict would be guilty.

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