Reversal of Fortune
- R
- Year:
- 1990
- 111 min
- 1,195 Views
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.
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,
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, sh*t... Bottom line.
Aw, sh*t!
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 sh*t.
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.
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.
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"Reversal of Fortune" Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 5 Nov. 2024. <https://www.scripts.com/script/reversal_of_fortune_16891>.
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