Again, taking my own advice, I went to the DVR yesterday and watched this absolutely terrific 1961 movie, Stanley Kramer's "Judgement at Nuremberg". What a great movie. Abby Mann won the Oscar in 1961 for his screenplay on this movie and what a piece of writing. He gave to almost each of his principal actors some fabulous set pieces of dialog to deliver, and every one of them delivered.
The actors you see in the picture above are Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark, Marlene Dietrich, Maximilian Schell, Judy Garland, and Montgomery Clift. At one point or another in the movie, each of these actors had the opportunity to deliver scenes and dialog that fairly screamed "Academy Award", and they all delivered. Tracy and Schell had several such scenes, and each were nominated for Best Actor that year, with Schell winning the Oscar. Both Clift and Garland received supporting actor nominations, and both gave performances that were almost painful to watch - and I mean that in a complimentary way, of course. And then there was Lancaster as one of the accused war criminals. He didn't have a lot of dialog, only one lengthy piece near the end when he testified, but, man, what he could say with his eyes and his facial expressions. The acting alone makes this movie a real treat to watch. Kramer was also nominated for Best Director.
The story may be a familiar one - 1948 Nazi war crimes trials, the Holocaust, who knew what, who is to blame, should the entire country be held accountable for the crimes of a few monsters, and the political pressures and realities that were arising as the political realities of a post-WW II world was emerging are all spotlighted in this long, but riveting movie.
It is a movie that should be mandatory viewing in all high school history classes, I believe. In fact, it might not be a bad thing if it were mandatory viewing for everyone once, say, every five years or so.
Great, great movie.
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