Gripping, if self-important

Rating: 8/10 (24 January 2006)

I am not a Historian so I really can't comment on the historical content of this film in terms of accuracy or details, but I can say that it is a terrifically involving courtroom drama, and easily watchable despite it's 3 hour running time.
Spencer Tracy plays the small-town American judge assigned to the trial of several important German judges and lawmen in Nuremberg a few years after the Allied victory in World War II. It's a perfectly judged performance of a man of great experience and wisdom, who is genuinely open to all arguments and only wants the truth. The other performances are a little more mannered with both Maximillian Schnell and Montgomery Clift slipping to melodrama occasionally.
For the most part, both sides of the coin are very fairly represented as the defence and prosecution attorneys argue their cases. The atrocities and horrors of Hitler's regime are shown in newsreel footage, but the voice of the everyday German people is also represented in the various characters Judge Hayward encounters outside of the courtroom. The film allows for much intelligent discussions investigating the conflict between social conditions and pressures, and the personal morality of the Judges who signed orders on the execution of innocent Jews and the sterilisation of unwanted members of society.
Unfortunately I found the film to be let down by a nagging sense of great self-importance. The big speeches are all delivered as if they were the last words ever to be uttered, which I found became tiresome. Although largely the film presents both sides of the argument strongly, I found the final important moment of the film a let down, as Judge Haywood has the last, critical word against Dr Janning. Understandably given it's makers, the film does ultimately bias itself firmly with the American view on proceedings and the aforementioned self-important tone goes a bit far in this respect. Technically the film alternates between some fine deep-focus cinematography by Ernest Laszlo and some effective, if dated and slightly clumsy, crash zooms and editing techniques at particularly dramatic moments.
Despite these few misgivings which don't quite allow me to rate the film at quite the level it seems to aspire to, it's still an engrossing, perfectly paced courtroom film with great performances and some highly intelligent discussions on war, government, leaders and society that still resonate in today's climate.