Well made, very grave and somewhat dull

Rating: 7/10 (24 November 2013)

Stanley Kramer's extraordinarily lengthy take on the Nuremberg trials is truly an actor's showcase. However, Abby Mann's grave and somewhat verbose teleplay is never particularly entertaining. Spencer Tracy is a Maine judge sent to Germany to oversee the trial of four German judges accused of crimes against humanity. Tracy is quite stoic and the film offers a number of great parts for a number of great actors: Montgomery Clift; Burt Lancaster; Marlene Dietrich; Judy Garland. Garland in particular is astounding in the role of a German woman forced to relive the horrors she endured under the Third Reich. Richard Widmark is the American prosecutor and he's well matched against Maximillian Schell as the fiery German defense attorney. Filmed both on location and on a Hollywood sound stage, the film is decidedly non-cinematic; as though Kramer did not want to present such a serious subject in any way that may seem too flashy. Werner Klemperer, Edward Binns and William Shatner are in it too. The music score is by Ernest Gold and the B&W cinematography is by Ernest Laszlo. Clift, unable to remember his dialog, reportedly improvised much of his part. Director Kramer would lighten up considerably with his next film (IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD).