An acting seminar...

Rating: 8/10 (12 June 2015)

An all-star cast delivers top notch performances in Stanley Kramer's excellent courtroom drama, "Judgement At Nuremburg". Maximilian Schell is a revelation in his Oscar-winning turn as the defense counsel for four German judges being tried for war crimes during the Third Reich's reign in Germany.The judges are charged with handing out morally wrong convictions handed down to citizens who opposed the state, or were politically affiliated with parties who opposed the Nazis, and then passing cruel sentences to those citizens, which included women and children. Heinous punishments which included sentences to concentration camps, sterilization of citizens and mass executions are discussed at great length. Kramer gets superb performances out of Montgomery Cliff and the great Judy Garland, as broken victims of these verdicts. It includes messages of how the military establishment will continue to repeat mistakes of the past, as well as the message to the whole world that we should never forget the sins of war, whether it affects millions, or one human life. A powerful film, whose 3 hour length flies by as the drama grips you.