Judgment at Nuremberg Reviews

For the patient starwatcher, a revelation. In its day, JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG was a sensation--the first film to deal seriously with the trials of Nazi war criminals. The chief Allied judge, Dan Haywood (Spencer Tracy), has been sent to Germany after failing to be reelected to the bench in New England, a political payoff that does not go unnoticed by his adversaries. Prosecuting attorney Tad Lawson (Richard Widmark), an Army colonel, indicts several Germans who have committed war crimes in enforcing Hitler's mad mandates. Defense attorney Hans Rolfe (Maximilian Schell) roars that his clients were merely upholding Hitler's laws, and that to place them on trial is to judge all of Germany. Meanwhile, Haywood, in his off hours, wanders the ancient city of Nuremberg trying to understand what went wrong with a whole people and a great culture. The rest of the cast in this three-hour-plus picture is equally distinguished: Marlene Dietrich is the widow of a German general who was executed for ordering the slaughter of captured American soldiers at Malmedy; Burt Lancaster is an intellectual German judge who unwillingly aided the Nazis; Montgomery Clift is a dim-witted victim of sterilization who testifies for the prosecution; and Judy Garland is a woman who "polluted the Aryan race" by having sex with a Jew. Though unrelentingly bleak, JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG is absorbing from beginning to end. Dietrich and Tracy contribute polished, seemingly effortless work; at the other end of the thespian spectrum are Clift and Garland, who turn in harrowing, nakedly emotional perfomances. These are star turns, to be sure, but the Hollywood-style interplay between image, portrayal, and reality is fascinating to behold.