Judgment at Nuremberg

Rating:
Summary: NOT ANAMORPHIC BUT BETTER THAN AVERAGE
Review: "Judgment at Nuremberg" is Stanley Kramer's often stagy, often stoic, though never anything less than completely engrossing, post-WWII melodrama. It's high octane film making driven by star performances and masterfully scripted dialogue; a vital, tragic, yet overall life affirming message picture about the difference between abiding the law and doing what is just in an unjust world. The film stars Spencer Tracy as the honorable American Judge Dan Haywood, assigned to supervise the trial of four German justices, including Dr. Ernst Janning (Burt Lancaster) who have been accused of sending innocent men to their brutal deaths in Nazi concentration camps. Put up in the home of a former high ranking Nazi official, Haywood gains personal insight into the aftermath of Germany's political climate through his engagement of the servants (Ben Wright and Virginia Christine) and through a chance meeting with their former mistress, Madame Bertholt (Marlene Dietrich). But the real spark of this film is to be found in the mutual bitterness between passionate Defense Attorney Hans Rolfe (Maximilian Schell) and the pronouncedly defiant Colonel Tad Lawson (Richard Widmark), who serves as lead prosecutor. In a cameo appearance Judy Garland is remarkably heartbreaking as Irene Hoffman, a middle-aged frump whose fatherly relationship with a Jewish gentleman resulting in his death. Nominated for an astounding 11 Academy Awards, and winner of 2, "Judgment at Nuremberg" remains a benchmark of 60s cinema - a powerful and emotionally satisfying film for the ages.

Although MGM's DVD is NOT anamorphically enhanced, it delivers a very smooth image that will surely not disappoint. The B&W picture is remarkably clean, with minimal film grain, accurately rendered contrast levels, deep solid blacks and very clean whites. The audio has been remixed to 5.1 (the original mono is also included). The two are practically identical in their spatial separation and fidelity, though in the 5.1 mix the music track is decidedly the benefactor. Extras include a 20 minute thoroughly insightful featurette in which screenwriter Abby Mann and co-star Maximilian Schell speak of their experiences on the film. Both are so well spoken and frank that they put many a new audio commentary track to shame with their genuine ability to talk on cue. Also included is a 15 minute tribute to Stanley Kramer that is very nicely done, if all too brief. A photo gallery, theatrical trailer and promotional junket materials round out the extras.


Rating:
Summary: DVD version matches the quality of the film
Review: 'Judgment At Nuremberg' is perhaps my favorite film. The story is relevant to all Huamnity. It offers a fair and in-depth accounting of how both sides (America and her allies and the Germans) allowed a Hitler to bring humankind to the brink of insanity and genocide. One human being can't bring the world to its bloody knees by himself, it takes a conspiracy of silence and passivity to have brought events to such a horrific conclusion. 'Judgment' reveals the cruelity and mindlessness of not just a Hitler or the Nazis, but of all men in all ages. History spares and exonerates no one or country. The theme is that we must all take responsibility, and dare to act when our conscience compels us.

Every performance evokes the strongest emotions. Judy Garland and Montgomery Clift are raw and brave in their performances. Marlene Dietrich brings elegance and dignity. Spencer Tracy is the struggle of everyman's conscience to understand and be compassionate, yet hold strong to what is right and what is wrong. Maximillian Schell plays the defence counsel with a dignity and pride of being a German, even when being a German is at the moment a disgrace. Every perspective has a reason for being as it is, every human being has a struggle between blind alligence and thinking for oneself. It is not only the Germans who are being held accountable for their actions, but everyman and all of Humanity.

The quality and extras of this dvd are excellent. This is an important film to be viewed again and again by everyone and each generation.

Rating:
Summary: Big arguments galore...
Review: 1961 was a year of brilliant films. "West Side Story" won most of the Oscars. Also, "The Hustler" with Paul Newman was riveting human drama; "The Guns of Navarone" was a taut WW II thriller that never failed to entertain. Another nominee was "Fanny", a light sweet film which was only a tribute to the great Charles Boyer. The last Best Picture nominee, "Judgment at Nuremberg", was in a class of it's own, a screenplay by Abby Mann and directed by the most maverick Stanley Kramer. Kramer used Spencer Tracy often, and for good reason. Tracy centers this film. Kramer has never shied away from any subject that might make people uncomfortable, whether "Inherit the Wind" or "The Defiant Ones", or, later, "Ship of Fools". He attracts the best actors and has directed many to acting nominations; he also knew how to use a large cast to good advantage (much like our present-day maverick, Robert Altman). Maximillian Schell was auspicious as the defense attorney and won the Oscar (over Tracy, also nominated). Abby Mann's screenplay also won. Schell is, indeed, brilliant; also nominated was Montgomery Clift as the feeble-minded guy (not a stretch, since word has it he was drunk the whole time); the real treat is a sublime and courageous performance by Judy Garland, which will break your heart. I'm also glad that Kramer asked Marlene Dietrich to appear. Aside from her natural beauty, no one seems to remember her wonderful performances in "Morocco", "Golden Earrings" or Hitchcock's "Stage Fright". Here, she's confident and sure, as always. This is a powerful film, as I would expect from Stanley Kramer. Though the names have all been changed, we cannot forget the brutality of the situations involved. We've come a long way, baby...but let's never forget.

Rating:
Summary: Finally...this great film is on DVD!!!
Review: 4.5 stars. About five years ago I was in a Spencer Tracy mode, going out of my way to watch any film he had done, when I came across this gem of a film from 1961 called "Judgement at Nuremberg." The best aspects of this film are the incredible script, a phenomenal cast, and an inspired director named Stanley Kramer. The first time I saw this film I was in equal parts shocked and moved by all the excellent acting and enthralled with the magnificent screenplay. I cannot emphasize enough how well written the script is. Also, the cast is exceptional with standout performances from Spencer Tracy, Judy Garland, Maximilian Schell, and an amazing short scene from Montgomery Clift which got him an Oscar nomination for less than ten minutes screen time. All the actors here have their moments, the only slightly overdone performance coming from Burt Lancaster who conveys the proper emotional context to the fantastic words he is given, but he simply cannot speak properly with a German accent. Then there are a couple of moments shot on sound sateges with the actors speaking their lines in automobiles with a fake backdrop moving behind them; one of which was completely unnecessary. These two scenes standout mostly because the rest of the film is so honest and genuine and subsequently they feel manufactured and plastic. This film was nominated for 11 Oscars, winning 2 for Best Actor(Maximilian Schell) and Best Adapted Screenplay, respectively. The special features on this DVD are non-essentials. The most annoying being a conversation between Maximilian Schell and screenwriter Abby Mann where they basically praise each other for ten minutes or so for their contributions to the film. "No, no...your contribution was more important." "No, yours was more important." etc. This is a very solid film at a very good price. Just skip the special features section beacuse there is simply nothing special about it. Thank you.

Rating:
Summary: "FOR LOVE OF COUNTRY"
Review: Fascism is defined in the American Heritage dictionary as "a system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism."

Burt Lancaster's character, Ernst Janning, explains in his defense that the people of Germany remained silent "for love of country", and many other of their actions were motivated by that highest regard of theirs for their country. They remained silent when their neighbors disappeared at night, when innocent people were denied their rights etc. under the Nazi's administrations. The Nuremberg trials were held over a period of four years; there were thirteen different trials in all. This movie is based on the third military tribunal which tried judges and other legislative officials who sentenced people to death, deportation, or prison because of violation of laws enacted by the Nazis. The script was written by Abby Mann who won an Oscar for Best Writing; Maximilian Schell won an Oscar for Best Actor in a leading role. The Austrian born actor had worked with Clift before in Young Lions which also featured Marlon Brando. Most of the characters in the movie are fictional, though some, Judy Garland's role and Burt Lancaster's, were based on actual persons, yet the names were changed. I highly recommend that this movie be seen and that web sites on the subject be looked at, in that there is so much material to those trials that this 3 hour long movie couldn't contain. The trials were unique in many ways. The framework for these trials was suggested as early as September of 1944 by a Colonel in the U.S. War Department. Nuremberg was where the Nazis held their war rallies and where the Nuremberg Laws regarding citizenship and race were enacted in 1935 and was the chosen site for the 13 trials; the Justice Case, which this movie is based on, was governed by Military Tribunal III in 1947.

The acting is superb in this movie; I, personally, thought Judy Garland's was the most stellar, was moved to tears by her defense of herself accused of having a physical relationship with a non-Aryan, in her case, a jew, in violation of the Nuremberg Laws. The filming is very effective too; this 1961 movie was filmed in black and white which is fitting given the mood and atmosphere of the setting; Nuremberg was in ruins, 90% of its buildings had been destroyed, and the mood of its citizens in the war's aftermath and looming trial dark indeed.

I think this film, more than its 2000 counterpart, best reveals the sentiments of the Germans post war, mainly through Judge Haywood's (Spencer Tracy) interactions with Germans he came in contact with, for example, the servants of the innkeeper who housed him during the trial. Also, the feelings of the Germans were also effectively expressed by Lancaster's character and Schell's during the trial. Judge Haywood is fair minded and commends Mr. Rolfe (Maximilian Schell), the defense attorney for the 16 Nazi defendants, for his logical skills, agreeing with some of the things he said. Yet, he then goes on to say that in consideration of the crimes "to be logical is not to be right." In meeting with Ernst Janning at the trial's end, Judge Haywood accepts the gift of Janning's court papers, yet is not swayed by the logic that Janning had no idea that millions of people had been killed the way they had been. Judge Haywood replies, "it came to that the first time you sentenced to death a man you knew to be innocent". Hans Rolfe (Schell) stated that the blame for the crimes should be shared by everyone all over the world who supported Hitler financially, materially, or spiritually, for example, the Vatican, American industrialists, and others who shared Hitler's ideology. Yet, historically, German military officers condoned the Armenian genocide of WWI and as early as 1903, funded by the Deutsche Bank, were working on completing a railway going from Baghdad to Berlin, see Sander's The High Walls of Jerusalem.

The footage shown during the trial of concentration camp atrocities was the actual film shown on November 29, 1945 in the first trial which is the subject matter for Nuremberg, the film of 2000. The list is too long to mention the many ways the Nazis terrorized their own citizens; the other testimony in this trial was of Mr. Petersen (Monty Clift) who is sterilized because the Nazis, in their Spartan approach to citizenship, would sterilize the mentally infirm, disabled, or non-Aryan, in order to obtain a pure race. (Violence against homosexuals in Nazi Germany began on June 30, 1934 when a military officer, Ernst Rohm, an SA chief of staff, was murdered by Himmler and Goring, an event nicknamed "the night of the long knives"; Clift had only one male partner all his life, so his role was fitting in that gays under Hitler were undoubtably similarly abused).

Of the 16 men tried, 10 were found guilty, 4 were acquitted. The other 2 were seriously ill, one dying before the verdict. My favorite statement of Judge Haywood, at the trial's end, was that the decisions were a result of "what we (the tribunal) stand for: justice, truth, and the value of a single individual". This movie is a MUST SEE.

Rating:
Summary: Where guilt comes to reside, when madness is implemented
Review: I'd been on a bit of a Stanley Kramer kick when I picked up this DVD, thinking it would be like a History Channel run-down, only what we have here is a look inside of the actual fabric of German National Socialism, 1933 - 1945, through the exposed actions of a number of indicted judiciary officials from the Reich. Spencer Tracy does a great spot, as central among "your honors" in the Nuremburg Hall of Justice. It's all woven in with various antics among the German people of 1948, and was apparently produced to show the Berlin Airlift as amplification of the Berlin Wall crisis that was going on in 1961. Tracy is put in the spot of attempting to find the true source of law, when law is perverted in the interest of political rampage. Though the defendants will accuse the entire world of sitting by during the time of the mass execution and murder, it comes down to the responsibility of those who are actually at the fore and sentencing people to male sterilization and death in the interest of racial purity. All the mushy plot involving Marlene Dietrich (though quite a Nazi-era notable to put in a film about Germany) and the human interest parts were a detraction, so I'm going to downgrade my overall rating to a 4.7. It was a lot to sit through, but gives a lot to think about, for those who choose to go along yet still have a conscience.

Rating:
Summary: Judgment at Nuremberg
Review: It has been three years since the most important Nazi leaders had already been tried. This trial is about 4 Judges who used their offices to conduct Nazi sterilization and cleansing policies. Retired American Judge, Judge Dan Haywood has a daunting task ahead of him. The Cold War is heating up and no one wants any more trials as Germany, and allied Governments, want to forget the past. But is that the right thing to do is the question that the tribunal must decide.



Rating:
Summary: Kramer's High Point
Review: Jeeze, I guess they'll let just about anything go out of circulation these days.

Back in the pre-Schindler era, this film possessed considerable mana as one of the most effective of the early films dealing with Nazi war crimes--rather surprising, considering it was produced and directed by the mediocre Stanley Kramer, auteur of any number of simplistic '50s "social problem" pictures.

Part of the film's power comes from its narrow focus: it deals with the little-known 1948 "judge's trial" rather than the earlier trials of the regime's big figures, allowing the film to concentrate on matters of justice rather than more sensational aspects.

But most of the credit goes to the actors, who do an outstanding job virtually without exception, easily overcoming the film's slow pace and Kramer's obvious directorial failings. Of the principals, Tracy and Dietrich turn in effective variations of their customary roles of the period, the low-key man of decency and the aging but still potent high-class femme. Widmark is very fine here; this is one of his few "good-guy" roles that allowed him to utilize the obsessive qualities apparent in his sociopath portrayals. Too bad he didn't do more like this.

But the two outstanding performances are Clift and Lancaster. Clift plays a man driven mad by his suffering under the Nazis, in a portrayal that is excruciating to watch (with our knowledge that it reflects Clift's own personal agonies) and utterly unforgettable, for all that it lasts a total of fifteen minutes or so. Lancaster, as Dr. Emil Jannings, is another matter. He says almost nothing for the first hour-and-a-half of the film, but his presence dominates proceedings all the same. And when he at last speaks, his portrayal of a man clinging to the last shreds of dignity, knowing he has not earned them and does not deserve them, is nearly as harrowing as Clift's. Beginning with "All My Sons" in the 40s, Lancaster did a number of pictures on this level when he wasn't playing acrobats or cowboys. It would be nice for some Amazonite to put together a List.

(It should be noted that this is probably your sole opportunity to see William Shatner in a role in which he does not overact. In a just world the secret behind this, which Kramer kept to himself, would have been turned over to the UN for distribution to the international film community.)

In the end, "Nuremberg" does not match its subject. No film could, but Kramer's implication that his particular brand of earnest liberalism is the antidote to government terror comes across as especially inane. It didn't help in Germany, and it wouldn't help anywhere else. But revealing what doesn't work paves the way toward discovering what does. On that level, at least, "Nuremberg" is a worthwhile effort.

Rating:
Summary: SCHELL, TRACY, GARLAND, LANCASTER, CLIFT & WIDMARK GREAT!
Review: This is a superb film by Stanley Kramer with an unbelievably great cast at the height of their craft. Each of the legendary actors were at the top of their performances in the reinactment of the Judge's Trial at Nuremberg. The world was tired of the Nuremberg trials. This one was a mopping up operation. Against a backdrop of an escalating Cold War with the Soviet Union, the selling out of justice by prominent Nazi judges serving the Third Reich is put on trial. Spencer Tracey plays Judge Dan Haywood, a retired Maine circuit court judge brought out of mothballs to serve as the chief justice. Amazingly, the usual action actor Burt Lancaster plays the top Nazi judge who at first does not recognize the Nuremberg tribunal's authority to judge him. For some mysterious reason, critics over the years failed to acknowledge the tremendous acting job he did in convincingly carrying off what was perhaps this film's most dynamic character change. However, my personal favorite was Maximillian Schell whose quintessential Germanic Hans Rolfe, the defense attorney released the full range of this incredible actor's virtuosity. For this he deservedly won an Academy Award Oscar.

One thousand words are not enough to celebrate this timeless film: Judy Garland (in perhaps her last film role) delivers a heartbreaking middle aging Irene Hoffman, reliving her experiences of Nazi cruelty on the witness stand; once again. However, not very good was the young Canadian actor, William Shatner playing Army Captain Byers, the aide de camp to Judge Haywood (Tracy). [The Starship Enterprise didn't seem to improve Shatner's skills any.] Richard Widmark (the moody, hostile prosecutor) and Montgomery Clift [who begged for the role he was willing to play without pay!] were excellent. Clift plays a slightly retarded German laborer, sterilized by Nazi doctors because of his mental slowness. This is among the very best films made by Kramer in the decade of the 1960s. Amazingly, it was released one year after INHERIT THE WIND, another Tracy-Kramer classic!

Rating:
Summary: a really disappointing film
Review: This isn't really much of a film. Its not really even much
about the real trials at Nuremburg. Its a big hollywood
exercise in moral outrage years after the events in question.
And the moral outrage is directed all over the map.

Its a film that hates America as much (or possibly more)
than it hates nazi germany. It goes into american history
to "indict" america and then in the end it blames America
for not putting more Germans in prison after the war, for
not overthrowing hilter..etc. In the
end, it becomes less an anti-nazi film and more an anti-cold
war/anti-american film.

The crimes of the judges are carefully selected in the film.
And they are as much (or more) about the american civil rights
movement than they are about nazis. The core crimes are
anti "race" mixing laws and sterlization laws. Kramer couldn't
make a film directly about those issues at the time, but
this served as a vehicle to say it another way.

The characters are wooden and overly melodramatic at the
expense of any realism. Spencer Tracy plays the super-judge
with the pure all-american heart who gets all the moralizing
sermon lines. In the end, he makes an arguement for "real"
law being centered in vengence and how all that fancy
book-learnen law is just for moral cowards. The problem with
that is that those involved in the film only believed in this
concept of "real" law on a selective basis (i.e. in Germany)
and against "bad" people. The problem with that theory of law
is that law can't decide between the good and the bad before
the trial begins. "common sense" application of the law always
ends up being politically subjective application of the law.

Burt Lancaster, in his usual hammy style, plays
the repentant nazi. He isn't convincing as a german judge.
What the film doesn't deal with is that
the real trials, "repentance" was often false and done in
exchange for deals. The worst example being Albert Speer
who traded reptentance at trial for "rehabilitation" and
a whitewashing of his criminal role. Lancaster would of course
soon after go on to make a hero out of a psychopathic killer
in birdman of alcatraz.

Marlene Dietrich slithers in and out of the film in a rather
useless way. But she is mostly in the film just to be seen
and probably to make her own moral statement. She could
have been put to much better effect in any number of ways.

But really, most of the film is just window-dressing anyway.
The real purpose of the film at the time was to get the US
Army camp liberation films out in front of the public. They are
the real center of the film.

The issues the film touches on could be used to give people
much to think about, but in the end the film wants to do the
thinking itself. And its outrage is directed at America
rather than at the war criminals.