A True Cinematic Masterpiece

Rating: 10/10 (25 September 2004)

"Judgment at Nuremberg" is one of the great films of all time. This can be attributed to the excellent script written by Abby Mann, its skillful direction by Stanley Kramer and possibly one of the greatest casts ever assembled for a motion picture.
The subject trial takes place in 1948 long after the trials of the major German military generals when most people had lost interest in such proceedings. Writer Mann chose to write about the trial of German judges, the people who above all, should have seen the evil of Hitler and his followers coming.
Assigned to the trial as Chief Judge is Dan Haywood (Spencer Tracy) a low profile justice who by his own admission was not the original or subsequent choice. The prosecutor is Col. Tad Lansing (Richard Widmark) an "army man" who vows to convict the four ex-German Judges. Defending the accused is Hans Rolfe (Maximillian Schell) who must convince the court that the defendants were acting only for the love of their country.
Among the defendants are respected Judge Ernst Janning (Burt Lancaster) who has written several books on law accepted the world over. Lawson accuses the defendants of signing orders for the sterilization of innocent men and the execution of those who opposed to the Reich and the extermination of the jews. He puts Rudolph Peterson (Montgomery Clift) on the stand as a victim of sterilization. Rolfe manages to expose the pitiful Peterson as mentally challenged. Later Irene Hoffman (Judy Garland) is put on the stand to explain her alleged affair at the age of 16 with an elderly jew. As his coup de grace, Lawson shows a film depicting the horrors of German concentration camps.
In between the sessions, Judge Haywood strikes up a friendship with Madame Bertholt (Marlene Dietrich) the widow of a former German general, in whose former home the judge is staying. In spite of their differences they begin to grow fond of each other.
The army pressures Lawson to ease up and suggests that acquittal or light sentences would best serve American interests since this was the time that the blockade of Berlin was beginning. Judge Haywood is also pressured to go easy on the sentencing.
Maximillian Schell deservedly won an Oscar for his outstanding performance as Rolfe. Any one of the other principals could have easily won as well. Clift and Garland are simply outstanding as are Widmark and Lancaster. And Tracy, did he ever give a bad performance? The still beautiful Dietrich was also excellent.
Others in the cast are a very young William Shatner as Capt. Byers, a court officer, Werner Kemperer as Emil Hahn the most militant of the defendants and Ray Teal as Judge Ives. Teal had long been a fixture in westerns and is probably best remembered for playing Sheriff Coffey on TV's Bonanza.
The DVD release contains an excellent conversation between Abby Mann and Maximillian Schell plus an interview with Kramer's widow, the still beautiful former actress Karen Sharpe.
A true cinematic masterpiece.