Unlimitedia Sick Product of a Sick System

Moustroll Good movie but grossly overrated

MoPoshy Absolutely brilliant

Fleur Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Prismark10 With a star studded cast and a very long running time, this is a philosophical but fictionalised account of the Nuremberg trials inspired by true events.Once the more infamous Nazis have been tried and prosecuted, it is the turn for the more lesser known suspects. Spencer Tracy as lead Judge Dan Haywood presides over the trial of four judges who have been charged with war crimes as they implemented the laws of the Nazi regime. These include enforcing laws of racial purity and sterilising undesirables such as the feeble minded.Burt Lancaster plays a renowned jurist Ernst Janning whose activities baffle Dan Haywood as his work on the law is so well respected.In the background of rising tensions between the Americans and the Russians with the developing Cold War, there is a ferocious courtroom battle between prosecuting attorney, Colonel Lawson (Richard Widmark) and Hans Rolfe (Maximilian Schell) who relentlessly badger the witnesses.Lawson who liberated one of the concentration camps holds the entire nation responsible for the atrocities, yet his own actions at the courtroom are cynical. Rolfe is more pragmatic about any other nation trying to claim a moral high ground. As he tells Janning, the Americans dropped a nuclear bomb in Hiroshima that killed countless women and children.Judge Haywood tries to understand himself about the German people during the war, he mingles with locals and gets to know a widow, Frau Bertholt played by Marlene Dietrich. Her own husband was executed by the Nuremberg trials but she insists that many Germans had no idea about the holocaust. However Haywood is troubled about the Nazi atrocities, those who were enablers and other who turned a blind eye to it.Director Stanley Kramer keeps this long film enthralling, some of the court cases are vignettes allowing actors such as Montgomery Cliff and Judy Garland to give short memorable performances.Maximilian Schell gets the more emotional role as the defence lawyer and at times he gets to chew the scenery but he also won a best actor Oscar. Burt Lancaster is more restrained as Janning, he hardly speaks for most of the film but his face is solemn and stern. A man who has realised he did wrong by condemning some of his own people to death and now has to pay the price for just following orders.

elvircorhodzic JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG is a tense and provocative courtroom drama, which on a powerful and realistic way shows the nature of a war crimes trial.Four German judges and prosecutors stand accused of crimes against humanity for their involvement in atrocities committed under the Nazi regime. A military court convened in Nuremberg. A prominent lawyer and scientist has condemned so many people to death. Residents of Germany have, at the moment become blind and deaf to the crimes of the Nazi regime. However, each individual has a different view of the war and killings in the war. Each of the warring forces carries a certain part of the blame...Simple questions give quite confusing answers. Moral and responsibility of important people are faced with interests of their state. Civil servants have to respect inhuman and immoral laws!? Then and now. Nothing's changed. However, some people still have to answer for war crimes.This movie is full of strange contrasts. The main judge is generally a very curious. German defense counsel is an emotional person, who is concerned about the fate of his own people. The prosecutor is a very sharp and theatrical. Witnesses (ordinary people) are scared of both sides. Two words have emerged between curiosity, accusation, defense and emotions - an interest and compromise. There is no room for justice and right in these words. That's the point in this movie.Mr. Kramer has mostly focused on a legal access and political philosophy. Characterization is very good. The horror on the faces of the protagonists is a very disturbing and compelling.Spencer Tracy as Chief Judge Dan Haywood is a curious old judge, who wants to reveal the truth. However, he has realized something else - political logic. Maximilian Schell is a quite convincing as defense counsel Hans Rolfe, but his intentions and his attacks on witnesses are somewhat destructive. Richard Widmark is unscrupulous and decisive as prosecutor Col. Tad Lawson. Policy has cut off his wings at the end.Marlene Dietrich as Frau Bertholt is a sad and sensitive woman. Her character is an interesting view of the German aristocracy after World War II. However, she was closely related to the war and her perspective is truly amazing.Montgomery Clift (Rudolph Peterson) and Judy Garland (Irene Hoffmann-Wallner) are real tragic characters in a malicious court game. They are victims in the true sense of the word.Burt Lancaster (Dr. Ernst Janning) is an unusual serious defendant. His face reflects sympathy with the victims of the war. He is the voice of reason that nobody wants to hear.All actors have offered, more or less, impressive performances.This story is sketchy. Wars are, unfortunately, part of our everyday life. Innocent people are dying trapped between interests and compromises. A trashy trial will not open our eyes.

Takethispunch Judgment at Nuremberg centers on a military tribunal convened in Nuremberg, Germany, in which four German judges and prosecutors stand accused of crimes against humanity for their involvement in atrocities committed under the Nazi regime. Judge Dan Haywood (Spencer Tracy) is the Chief Trial Judge of a three-judge panel that will hear and decide the case against the defendants. Haywood begins his examination by trying to learn how the defendant Ernst Janning (Burt Lancaster) could have sentenced so many people to death. Janning, it is revealed, is a well- educated and internationally respected jurist and legal scholar. Haywood seeks to understand how the German people could have turned blind eyes and deaf ears to the crimes of the Nazi regime. In doing so, he befriends the widow (Marlene Dietrich) of a German general who had been executed by the Allies. He talks with a number of Germans who have different perspectives on the war. Other characters the judge meets are US Army Captain Byers (William Shatner), who is assigned to the American party hearing the cases, and Irene Hoffman (Judy Garland), who is afraid to provide testimony that may bolster the prosecution's case against the judges.

George Wright Directed by Stanley Kramer, this movie is the story of a great courtroom drama involving judges of Nazi Germany. The judges, including a great jurist who became the Minister of Justice, administered laws aimed at imposing racial purity and mandatory sterilization. Human beings were treated as pawns in the hands of these men in the name of the Nazi state. The presiding judge, played superbly by Spencer Tracey, is a model of integrity. In the role of the former minister of justice is Burt Lancaster, a cut above the other small-minded tyrants who had no conscience in carrying out their cruel sentences to produce the master race. Despite his character and his great legal mind, he too was complicit in the tragedy. In fact, his sharp sense of revulsion about these crimes, made him even more repellant as he went against his own conscience and training. The other cast members include Maximilian Schell as the defence attorney, Richard Widmark as the prosecuting attorney, Judy Garland and Montgomery Clift as key witnesses as well as victims, and Marlene Dietrich as the widow of wartime criminal already executed. All the cast are outstanding. While the story is overly long, we get a strong sense of the characters and how Tracey as a judge lived and mingled with the people of Nuremberg during his time in the occupied post-war country. The director, Stanley Kramer, made movies that showed people of conscience in conflict with the established order. He made use of great acting talents like Burt Lancaster and Spencer Tracey to issue strong statements of principle. This movie is a prime example of his great legacy as a director.