Discover
-
Ernest Gold
Original Music Composer -
Stanley Kramer
Director -
Joe King
Costume Design -
Wayne Fitzgerald
Title Designer -
Abby Mann
Screenplay -
Marshall Schlom
Script Supervisor -
George Milo
Set Decoration -
Ivan Volkman
Assistant Director
-
CinemaSerf 4/20/2023 1:58:51PM
Spencer Tracy is the presiding judge at the fictitious trial of some of the most evil Nazis to have survived the end of WWII. Chief amongst them is the formidable former jurist "Dr. Ernst Janning" (Burt Lancaster). Richard Widmark is tasked with leading the prosecution; Maximilian Schell as their defender. Make no mistake, this is no standard courtroom melodrama. The performances from all - especially a sensitive and measured Tracy who tries, despite every sense of humanity within himself pulling him otherwise - to remain as impartial and fair in the face of the evidence of brutality presented to him and his fellow judges. There are a couple of wonderful cameo performances from victims of the alleged abuses - notably Judy Garland and Monty Clift with Marlene Dietrich as the widow of a former Nazi general who seems to be in some sort of a daze of denial (we are never quite certain what she did/didn't know). The story challenges the very basis of an independent judiciary and the principles of blind obedience motivated by pure evil, zeal or fear. The use, only once, of actual British footage from a liberated concentration camp is heart-rending and sickening in equal measure. A real must see.
Burt Lancaster
Ernst JanningWilliam Shatner
Harrison ByersHans Moebus
Assistant Defense Attorney (uncredited)Ed Nelson
Captain at Nightclub Announcing Call-up of Officers (uncredited)Richard Widmark
Tad LawsonJack Stoney
Courtroom Spectator (uncredited)Judy Garland
Irene Hoffman WallnerKarl Swenson
Heinrich Geuter