Thus Saith Professor Charles W. Kingsfield

​While looking up the exact wording of Professor Charles W. Kingfield's remark in the movie The Paper Chase (Thompson-Paul Productions and Twentieth Century Fox, 1973) about training first-year law students to think like lawyers, I was surprised to learn that most of the campus scenes were filmed at the University of Toronto (Canada).

The reason: Harvard University, where the story was set in the book and the movie, would give the filming company only three days on campus. Why? Because the University had been unhappy with Love Story, which was filmed there (Love Story Company and Paramount Pictures, 1970). The source of this information did not state whether the University disapproved of the film, itself, or with something that happened during filming. I'd be curious to know.

As for the line in question, it was, "You teach yourselves the law, but I train your minds. You come in here with a skull full of mush; you leave thinking like a lawyer." Not the most tactful or encouraging statement a professor could make, but neither tact nor encouraging was one of Kingsfield's better qualities.