The Trial

Josef K. is a bank clerk whose life is upended when two men arrive to place him under arrest. No charge is stated, no authority explains the reason, and he is left free to go about his business while a case against him proceeds somewhere out of sight. Convinced of his innocence and unable to learn what he is accused of, he tries to navigate the courts, the officials and the people who surround the proceedings, and finds that the machinery weighing his fate answers to no logic he can follow. Orson Welles directs and writes the screenplay, adapting Franz Kafka's novel, and appears as Albert Hastler, the advocate. Anthony Perkins plays Josef K., with Romy Schneider, Jeanne Moreau, Akim Tamiroff and Elsa Martinelli among a credited cast of twenty-four. The film was shot in Europe on a budget of about one million dollars, and was released in August 1962. It followed Touch of Evil in Welles's filmography and came before Chimes at Midnight; it was produced by Alexander and Michael Salkind. The picture is rated 7.6 out of 10 on IMDb from roughly 27,000 votes and 7.4 out of 10 on TMDB from a smaller base, while a critics' rating of 7.7 out of 10 rests on 45 reviews, placing it slightly above the audience scores on both sites.