Witness for the Prosecution pays homage to an earlier Wilder-Dietrich film, A Foreign Affair (1948). In a flashback to the meeting of Leonard (Power) and Christine (Dietrich) in Germany just after the war, Dietrich's character is markedly similar to Erika von Schluetow, the character she played in the earlier film, in looks, occupation (cabaret singer), and the devastating effect she had on men. Art director Alexandre Trauner even designed a set for Christine's cabaret appearance similar to the Lorelei Club where Erika worked in A Foreign Affair. For the flashback, Dietrich needed a song in the style that Friedrich Hollander had always written for her. But the composer had gone back to Germany, so Dietrich and Wilder found an old song about Hamburg's red-light district by Ralph Arthur Roberts, an actor-manager with whom Marlene had worked on the Berlin stage in the 1920s. It was given English lyrics and retitled "I May Never Go Home Anymore." Dietrich recorded it and made it a permanent part of her nightclub act.
A version of Witness for the Prosecution was made for television in 1982 with Beau Bridges, Diana Rigg, Ralph Richardson, and Deborah Kerr in the roles played in the film by Power, Dietrich, Laughton, and Lanchester. The popularity of Wilder's version is evident in that the TV movie used the original Wilder-Kurnitz film script and not the Agatha Christie stage play as its source material.
Witness for the Prosecution is referenced in the Robert Altman movie The Player (1992). The studio executive played by Tim Robbins escapes being arrested for a murder he committed because of an unreliable eyewitness to the crime. The studio security boss, played by Fred Ward, makes constant reference to old movies and even points out the unreliability of witnesses by citing Marlene Dietrich's character in the Wilder film.
By Rob Nixon
