Judgment at Nuremberg

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Judgment at Nuremberg
film poster
Directed by	Stanley Kramer
Produced by	Stanley Kramer
Written by	Abby Mann
Starring	Spencer Tracy Burt Lancaster Richard Widmark Marlene Dietrich Maximilian Schell Judy Garland Montgomery Clift William Shatner
Cinematography	Ernest Laszlo, ASC
Editing by	Frederic Knudtson
Distributed by	United Artists (theatrical version) Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (DVD)
Release date(s)	December 19, 1961
Running time	186 min.
Language	English

Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) is a fictionalized film account of the post-World War II Nuremberg Trials, written by Abby Mann and directed by Stanley Kramer, starring Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark, Marlene Dietrich, Maximilian Schell, Judy Garland, Montgomery Clift, Werner Klemperer, and William Shatner. Originally written for television,^[1] the film depicts the trial of certain judges who executed Nazi law. Such a trial did occur: the film was inspired by the Judges' Trial before the U.S. Nuremberg Military Tribunal in 1947. By the time the film was made, all of the convicts had already been released, including four of them who were sentenced to life in prison. A key thread in the film's plot involves a "race defilement" trial known as the "Feldenstein case". In this fictionalized case, based on the real life Katzenberger Trial, an elderly Jewish man was tried for an improper relationship with an "Aryan" woman, and put to death in 1942.

Contents 1 Synopsis 2 Accolades 3 Adaptations 4 Cast 5 See also 6 References 7 External links

[edit] Synopsis

Judgment at Nuremberg centers around a military tribunal in which four judges are accused of crimes against humanity for enacting Nazi law. Judge Haywood (Tracy), the chief justice in the case, attempts to understand how defendant Ernst Janning (Lancaster) could have passed sentences resulting in genocide, and by extension how the German people could have turned blind eyes to the Holocaust. In so doing, he befriends the widow of a Nazi officer (Dietrich) and talks with a number of German people with different perspectives on the war.

The film examines the questions of individual complicity in crimes committed by the state. For example, defense attorney Hans Rolfe (Schell) raises such issues as the support of U.S. Supreme Court justice, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., for the practice of eugenics, and Winston Churchill's words of praise for Adolf Hitler. In the end, Janning makes a statement condemning himself and his fellow defendants for "going along" with the Third Reich, and all four are found guilty and sentenced to life in prison.

The film is notable for showing actual historical footage filmed by American soldiers after the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps. Shown in court by prosecuting attorney Col. Tad Lawson (Richard Widmark), the footage of huge piles of naked corpses lain out in rows and bulldozed into large pits was exceptionally gruesome for a mainstream film of its day.

The film ends with Haywood having to choose between patriotism and justice. He rejects the call to let the Nazi judges off lightly to gain Germany's support in the Cold War against the Soviet Union.^[2]

[edit] Accolades

The movie won the Academy Award for Best Actor (Maximilian Schell) and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium, and was nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Spencer Tracy), Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Montgomery Clift), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Judy Garland), Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White (Rudolph Sternad, George Milo), Best Cinematography, Black-and-White, Best Costume Design, Black-and-White, Best Director, Best Film Editing and Best Picture.^[3] This is one of the few times that a film had multiple entries in the same category (Tracy and Schell for Best Actor), and Schell was the first Best Actor winner to be billed fifth. Many of the big name actors who appeared in the film did so for a fraction of their usual salaries because they believed in the social importance of the project.

In June 2008, the American Film Institute revealed its "Ten top Ten" — the best ten films in ten "classic" American film genres — after polling over 1,500 people from the creative community. Judgment at Nuremberg was acknowledged as the tenth best film in the courtroom drama genre.^[4]

[edit] Adaptations

In 2001, a stage adaptation of the film was produced for Broadway, starring Schell and George Grizzard, with John Tillinger as director.^[5]

[edit] Cast

Actor	Role
Spencer Tracy	Chief Judge Dan Haywood
Burt Lancaster	Dr. Ernst Janning
Richard Widmark	Col. Tad Lawson
Marlene Dietrich	Mrs. Bertholt
Maximilian Schell	Hans Rolfe
Judy Garland	Irene Hoffman
Montgomery Clift	Rudolph Peterson
Ed Binns	Sen. Burkette
Werner Klemperer	Emil Hahn
Torben Meyer	Werner Lampe
Martin Brandt	Friedrich Hofstetter
William Shatner	Capt. Harrison Byers

[edit] See also

• List of Holocaust films
• Trial movies
• War crimes trials
• Nuremberg Trials (film) (a Soviet film on the trials)

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Judgment at Nuremberg (1961 film)

• Judgment at Nuremberg at the Internet Movie Database
• Judgment at Nuremberg at Allmovie
• 3 Speeches from the Movie with Text, Audio and Video from AmericanRhetoric.com

v • d • e Films directed by Stanley Kramer 1950s Not as a Stranger • The Pride and the Passion • The Defiant Ones (1958) • On the Beach (1959) 1960s Inherit the Wind (1960) • Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) • It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World • Ship of Fools (1965) • Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) • The Secret of Santa Vittoria (1969) 1970s R.P.M. • Bless the Beasts & Children (1971) • Oklahoma Crude • The Domino Principle (1977) • The Runner Stumbles (1979)