An extremely powerful, if slightly "preachy"film.

Rating: 9/10 (27 April 2005)

Stanley Kramer was a good, if often over-emphatic director of "message"movies. this, is,undoubtedly, his finest effort.The title, Judgement At Nuremberg, might lead a naive viewer to think that it was about the Nuremburg trial of the major Nazi war criminals. Instead, he focuses on a lesser known, but historically-and philosophically even more interesting trial, the trial of the Nazi JUDGES.How was it that German judges-some of whom were, cultured, liberal, sensitive men, like the Burt Lancaster character-became collaborators with the Nazi regime? this film features fantastic performances by Tracy, Lancaster, Schell, Dietrich, Widmark, Clift, and even Judy Garland. This is an interesting film, because it is a film about Moral and political dilemmas. Each of the major characters faces a moral choice. Lancaster was a liberal Wiemar intellectual/Judge, who thought he could "work with' the Nazis, and became corrupted by them. Dietrich plays the widow of a German general, who claims to have been a "good" German. Tracy plays an American judge, who is under political pressure to go easy on the Judges, and who is also fascinated by the Dietrich character. Widmark is the American prosecutor, a military officer who is under pressure from his superiors to "let up" in prosecuting the Germans( the cold war is getting underway,and the American high command does not want to antagonize a potential ally.).The most complex-and fascinating-character is played by Maximilian Schell,as Lancaster's brilliant, sometimes frighteningly. convincing, defense attorney. Clift and Garland play two victims of the Nazi "legal system". Underlying the whole narrative are two profound philosophical questions. 1.Is the law merely a set of commands by the sovereign, or should it reflect moral imperatives? 2. Why do liberal societies-like Weimar Germany-succumb to totalitarianism? In short, a very powerful, interesting film. I should add one comment in response to a previous reviewer.Let me say that even though I am a conservative-and a reluctant Bush voter-I am highly critical of many aspects of the current administrations policies.Still, to draw some sort of facile parallel between The Bush administration and the Hitler regime is more than an exercise in poor taste, it is absurd. Bush has many, many faults but he is no Nazi. The People who constantly make facile comparisons between modern America and the third Reich are utterly irresponsible.