Judgment at Nuremberg
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Movie Reviews of Judgment at Nuremberg
Movie Review: A Movie That Will Change You
Summary: 5 Stars
Judgment at Nuremberg started off as television movie. It was adapted and expanded for the big screen.
Spencer Tracey heads the star studded cast as American justice Dan Haywood. The Nuremberg trials have been going on for a while and all the high profile cases have been decided. Left are the minor defendants.
What writer Abby Mann has decided to explore is where does the blame and responsibility stop. He explores it from two points of view, minor officials and the general citizens.
Dan Haywood knows that he wasn't the first choice, nor even the tenth. But he is going to take his job as serious as if he was the first choice.
The defendants are judges Emil Hahn (Werner "Hogan's Heroes" Klemperer), Friederich Hoffsteder, Werner Lamper and Ernst Janning (Burt Lancaster).
The prosecutor (Richard Widmark) is US Army and the defense attorney (Maximilian Schell) is a young German attorney/
The key witnesses are Rudolph Peterson (Montgomery Clift), a slightly slow baker's helper who was sterilized and Irene Hoffman (Judy Garland), who as a girl was sterilized for consorting with a Jew - the man was executed.
Justice Haywood tried to understand the public atmosphere through his servants and the woman who used to live at the house he is living at, Mrs. Bertol (Marlene Dietrich).
This film brings up many questions of when do you follow the law and when do you go refuse to enforce or follow unjust laws. The original teleplay was written just after the McCarthy hearings. This was a direct attack on what happened during the hearings. But it has grown to something bigger. The basic premise is when can you follow blatantly unjust laws and say you were just following orders.
In a time when people are asked to follow leaders blindly without question, this film makes you think twice.
Add to this stunning performances all around. Spencer Tracey is the greatest film actor of all time, this was one of his final films and showed that he was as still one of the best. Maximilian Schell was a virtual unknown and this made him a star in America. Burt Lancaster was at the top of his stardom and took a small but pivotal role. It was a great triumph for him and the film. But the best and biggest surprise was Judy Garland who gave a shattering performance and should have won the Academy Award.
No one who watches this film will be unmoved.
DVD EXTRAS:
In Conversation: Abby Mann and Maximilian Schell - A 19 minute interview with the writer and the actor about the original 1959 Playhouse 90 television production, the subsequent 1961 film and the 2003 Broadway production.
The Value of a Single Human Being - This is a 6 minute tirade by Abby Mann comparing McCarthyism to the Nazis. I am not saying that he does not make a lot of salient points but it loses a little bit in the presentation.
A Tribute to Stanley Kramer - A 14 minute tribute to Kramer by his wife Karen and writer Abby Mann. They principally talk about Nuremberg but other Kramer films are discussed.
Movie Review: "This is not an ordinary trial."
Summary: 5 Stars
"Judgment at Nuremberg," directed by Stanley Kramer from a screenplay by Abby Mann, is set in 1948, three years after the most important Nazi leaders had been tried for their crimes. In the dock are four German judges who issued rulings in line with the Nazi policies of forced sterilizations and racial purity. Spencer Tracy plays an American judge who heads the tribunal that will adjudicate the fate of the defendants. Hans Rolfe, portrayed by Oscar-winner Maximilian Schell, is a fiery defense attorney who insists that his client, Ernst Janning (Burt Lancaster), is not only a judge but a respected intellectual and patriot who did what he thought was right. Janning merely carried out the laws of the land; it was not his job to question or interpret these laws. Colonel Tad Lawson (Richard Widmark), is the passionate prosecuting attorney who vehemently disagrees with this argument. Lawson maintains that judges, of all people, should have the insight to see through the rationalizations of a corrupt regime. He contends that these men should have resigned rather than send innocent people to their deaths.
Those who have not seen this 1961 movie for many years will be amazed at how well it has stood the test of time. Mann's exceptional screenplay is as relevant today as it ever was. He raises such controversial and important questions as: Should a country's leaders do whatever they deem necessary to insure their nation's survival? Does political expedience take precedence over decency and justice? Should a person who is ordered to commit immoral acts be punished for doing as he is told? Is it true that "we have to forget [the past] if we are to go on living?" There are no easy answers. Many individuals will find themselves thinking about these questions and their implications long after they have viewed the film.
The cast is extraordinary. The great Spencer Tracy is thoughtful, restrained, and compassionate as Judge Dan Haywood, a man of conscience who will not be bullied. He walks the streets of Nuremberg, chats with ordinary Germans, reads Janning's books, and immerses himself in every aspect of the trial so that he can render a fair decision. Montgomery Clift (Rudolph Peterson), Judy Garland (Irene Hoffman), and Marlene Dietrich (Mrs. Bertholt) are all excellent in key supporting roles. It is impossible to remain unmoved when Garland and Clift take the stand to tell their heartrending stories or when we see archival footage showing the unspeakable atrocities committed in the concentration camps. Although Lancaster spends much of the movie sitting stone-faced in the courtroom, at one point he stands and delivers an electrifying speech that changes the course of the trial. The DVD extras add very little, but they are not really needed since "Judgment at Nuremberg" still speaks for itself, loudly and clearly, approximately fifty years after it was made.
Movie Review: Without a doubt one of the greatest films ever made.
Summary: 5 Stars
When was the last time you were able to stay wide awake and interested for a three hour movie? I usually have a tough time staying alert for a two hour flick. "Judgement At Nuremberg" is one of those rare motion pictures that grabs your attention at the outset and simply never lets go. The issues addressed in this film are monumental and the all-star cast make this one of the most compelling films that I have ever seen. "Judgement at Nuremberg" features one of my all-time favorite actors Spencer Tracy cast as Chief Judge Dan Haywood who was chosen to oversee the post World War II tribunal convened to determine the culpability of four Nazi judges who were responsible for sending millions of Jews to concentration camps and ultimately to their deaths. While the story in "Judgement at Nuremberg' is fictionalized it is clearly based on actual events that took place during the Nazi reign of terror. Richard Widmark is splendid as Chief Prosecutor Col. Tad Lawson while Maximilian Schell walked away with an Oscar for Best Actor for his passionate portrayal of lead defense attorney Hans Rolfe. Other memorable performances include Burt Lancaster as defendant Dr. Ernst Janning, Marlene Dietrich as Mrs. Bertholt and of all people Judy Garland who was quite convincing in her brief but important role as Mrs. Irene Hoffman Wallner.
The Nuremberg Trials were conducted just a few years after the conclusion of World War II in 1948. These proceedings, which lasted for about eight months, made headlines worldwide.
What I found particularly compelling about "Judgement at Nuremberg" was observing Chief Judge Haywood continuously struggling with the enormity of the crimes that had been committed. Although these events were familiar to just about everyone in that courtroom having to actually see, hear and digest the evidence proved quite unsettling to say the least. Perhaps the most moving part of the film is several minutes of actual footage from the concentration camps that document the prosecutions case in an incredibly graphic way. This is footage that you will likely never forget.
In my humble opinion, "Judgement at Nuremberg" should be required viewing for every high school student in America. They say that those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it. It is important that our young men and women are aware of what happened here. At the same time students will get a chance to see one of the greatest films ever made. Great performances and top notch writing make "Judgement At Nuremberg" one of those "must see" motion pictures. It is easy to see why in June 2008 the American Film Institute honored "Judgement At Nuremberg" as one of the 10 best courtroom dramas ever made. Highly recommended!
Movie Review: "Judgment' both great acting and great history!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
History films and dramatic films come and go. Rarely is a film good at both drama and historic fidelity.
Note that "Judgment at Nuremburg" is cited in one of the Nuremburg trials online websites. Why? The lightly fictionalized trial of the middle management judges (disguised, no doubt, to protect the guilty) portrays well the main point and historians have noticed!!!
Justice (and the judges) became whatever Hitler wanted them to be. Then the Nazis lost and the Allies judged the leaders, including the "middle management" justices...persons who should have known better than to let Hitler seduce them into perpetrating injustice against other humans.
burt Lancaster (as the most famous judge on trial) has a fabulous speech about the Nazi Judges!
And watch young Maximilian Schell portray the intelligent but essentially still morally warped defense counsel. He deservedly got an Oscar (tm) because you feel sorry for him yet angry at him--at the same time.
The best casting is in two witnesses. Montgomery Clift and Judy Garland---both who were not many years off from their life's end. Their attractive yet somewhat ravaged faces and demeanor help them portray two other large (but mostly forgotten) victim groups...the disabled or maybe mentally slow (Clift) and those "aryans" (Garland) who just possibly had a romantic encounter with Jews.
No this film is not a super action movie. But your teen should watch it with you...And Judgment resonates today as we receive much power to manipulate the genetics of the future generation.
Will we do what the Nazis (in their genetic courts) did and sterilize the "unfit" as was done to Clift's character in this movie? This was the Nazi's first (and forgotten) holocaust...where they sharpened their mass murdering skills before they turned them fullforce on the Jews & other non0Aryans.
I watched this DVD again when the Terri Schiavo case was going on. If you research "Nazi Eugenics' online, be prepared for a shocker. In some parts of the US and the world, we are starting up the same old bad eugenics stuff the Nazis used!!! Don't believe me. Research for yourself!!!
*****
Again, good and great movies not only are good drama, but if they porport to be historical and actually stand up to years of scholarly scrutiny, then you are DOUBLE blessed when you buy their DVD!!!
Movie Review: One to have for any home collection
Summary: 5 Stars
Judgment at Nuremberg asks the hard questions relevant not only to jurisprudence but to all of life. We speak of upholding the law and of civil disobedience, both as important individual duties weighing especially, but not exclusively, upon judges and lawyers. Each of us has to decide where we draw the line between loyalty and fanaticism, between righteousness and treason. When do we do the right thing no matter what, and when do we just do what we must to survive? And as Richard Widmark asks as Tad Lawson, the prosecuting attorney in an "unimportant" episode of the Nuremberg trials, "Just for laughs, what was the war all about?"
The drama is compelling, the acting is both stunning and credible, and the story is significant historically, societally, and personally. No part played in this film was played poorly; the beautiful directing and an all-star cast, including Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Maximilian Schell, Judy Garland, and a painfully realistic performance by Montgomery Clift as well as numerous others make it a see-again.
Perhaps the most significant thing about this film is the decent and balanced view it takes, showing that the prosecution's side is not the only side with a valid complaint. There are the Germans in Nuremberg, trying to get on with life three years after the war, and there are the families of those who have already been imprisoned or executed for Nazi war crimes, stripped of their homes and possessions. The story does not speak of the evil Germans losing and the good Americans defeating them and meting out justice, but of the indifference and complicity shared by many nations which enabled one man to take a desperate country by storm and lead it--and a good portion of Europe--to its darkest hour in history. The most important message this film can put forth is summated in a dialogue between the condemned Judge Ernst Janning and the man who handed down the verdict, Judge Dan Haywood. Janning says to Haywood of the horrors of the holocaust, "Those people, those millions of people, you must know...I didn't know it would come to that." Whereupon Haywood looks at him and responds sadly, "Herr Janning, it came to that the first time you sentenced a man to death you knew to be innocent."