Judgment at Nuremberg
HUGE topic! HUGE stars! LONG movie! Sounds like an epic! Well, not really. It's a really long trial with the occasional scene outside the courtroom to provide context. So there is no grandure, but there are big themes and a lot of intensity.
It is a strange context. It is based on the Judges Trial in Nuremberg, in which it was determined whether a handful of judges were guilty of breaking international law in their judgements under Nazi Germany. However, in this fictional representation of the trial, none of the names are the same, and few of the facts are the same, even down to the idea that they had to pull a retired judge from Maine to run it, rather than important American judges. So much has changed that it makes me wonder why they bothered to use a real-life trial at all. They should have used a fictional town in Germany or something. And the final card at the end has nothing to do with the real trial, although it gives that impression. I get it: it's a story, it's fiction and a touch of reality feels good, but it just seems misleading. Especially the idea that the real-life sentences of the guilty parties were felt to be too lenient by the German people, instead of the fictional idea that the people felt that they were too harsh.
The film itself is fine. It's a good courtroom drama, although a bit shouty, focused on the idea of international v. national law. But the real point of the film, mentioned multiple times, is American judgement of the German people for agreeing to these crimes. I really liked Spenser Tracy as the "aw shucks" judge, but tough-as-nails in the courtroom. Burt Lancaster is too silent until the end of the film. Apart from these two, it seems that the big names just distracted from the fiction they were presenting, especially Judy Garland. I get it, you want her to represent the "innocent girl" trope, and she is great for that, but she just exudes Judy Garland in every movement and it is hard to imagine her as a German maid, traumatized by past experience.
Honestly, I think I would have preferred a shorter, more direct approach, like 12 Angry Men. Keep most of the cast, but edit it down and make it more punchy. It is a good film that I guess I would have done differently, and I couldn't not try to "fix it" even while I'm watching it.
3.5/5