Once in a great while, all the right elements come together – script, director, and talent – then movie magic strikes, the “lightning in a bottle” that can never be captured again. In 1960 it was David Lean’s spectacular “Lawrence of Arabia”. The next year, it was Stanley Kramer’s “Judgment at Nuremberg” – an epic courtroom drama with a star-studded cast and one of the most intelligent, penetrating scripts ever put on film. The newly-released DVD version is remarkably clean and sharp, with extras that include a conversation between screenwriter Abby Mann and actor Maximilian Schell, and a retrospective of Kramer’s career featuring his widow, actress Karen Sharpe.

Set in 1948, the film opens in the bleak, bombed-out ruins of postwar Germany, where trials of Nazi war criminals have dragged on for two years already. Chief Judge Dan Haywood (Spencer Tracy) arrives in Nuremberg and is installed in one of the few surviving mansions by his aide Capt. Harrison Byers (William Shatner). Haywood is here for the trial of four German judges; it’s a low-prestige case, for the Third Reich’s most infamous villains were dealt with long before.

The defendant judges: Emil Hahn (Werner Klemperer), Werner Lampe (Torben Meyer), Friedrich Hofstetter (Martin Brandt), and Dr. Ernst Janning (Burt Lancaster) are charged with having signed orders for forced sterilizations and executions on political grounds, and by their cooperation giving Hitler’s inhuman regime the appearance of legitimacy. Though the American press and public are weary of the trials by this time, Haywood takes this case very seriously and seeks to understand how a civilized nation (and especially its judges, who should have known better) could have sunk so low.

Attorney Hans Rolfe (Maximilian Schell) has the unenviable task of defending the judges as best he can to save a shred of dignity for the German people, now despised by the world and living under military occupation. The lead prosecutor, Colonel Tad Lawson (Richard Widmark), has a crusader’s zeal for justice from having personally seen the death camps at the war’s end. The witnesses he brings into court are like nails for the judges’ coffins: Rudolph Petersen (Montgomery Clift), a tormented victim of forced sterilization, and Irene Hoffman Wallner (Judy Garland), whose alleged affair with an older Jewish man led to the scandalous “Feldenstein case” (and the man’s execution under Nazi race laws).

Rolfe’s merciless cross-examination of these witnesses raises the specter of the very regime he opposed, to Ernst Janning’s dismay. Of all the judges on trial, Janning had the most respected career and the fewest illusions about the threat of Nazism. Janning’s position is problematic, for he stands apart from the unrepentant patriot Hahn and the others who were “just doing their jobs” and trying to make Germany secure. Janning feels his guilt more acutely, making Rolfe’s job even more difficult.

Between court sessions, Judge Haywood explores the town and gets to know the locals, esp. Madame Bertholt (Marlene Dietrich), the widow of a general recently executed – in her view, a victim of victor’s justice. Bertholt seeks to acquaint Haywood with Germany’s good side, to balance the negative postwar view and perhaps influence his verdict. Meanwhile political pressure builds on both Haywood and Lawson. The Soviet blockade of Berlin has brought the Cold War out into the open – therefore the Germans should be given favorable treatment to win them over as allies against Communism (an irony Hahn cannot resist pointing out).

As the trial develops, it becomes clear that the film’s subject is not just the Germans and the Holocaust, but the moral relationship between the individual and the state, anywhere, at any time, and the sharing of culpability for the crimes of one’s government. Each character's point of view appears just and rational to him or her, and together all these views illuminate the vast gray region between black-&-white guilt and innocence. This film’s frankness and depth of insight was startling in its day, and now seems an eerily prophetic wake-up call for our time. I highly recommend that every American see this film and consider its implications before it’s our turn to be judged by history.

As Haywood says in his summation:
“There are those in our country today, too, who speak of the protection of the country. Of survival. The answer to that is: survival as what? A country isn't a rock. And it isn't an extension of one's self. It's what it stands for, when standing for something is the most difficult.”

Awards (partial list):
Abby Mann: Oscar, Best Adapted Screenplay
Maximilian Schell: Oscar & Golden Globe, Best Actor
Stanley Kramer: Golden Globe, Best Director

Nominations:
Stanley Kramer: Oscar, Best Director and Best Picture
Spencer Tracy: Oscar, Best Actor
Judy Garland: Oscar & Golden Globe, Best Supporting Actress
Montgomery Clift: Oscar, Best Supporting Actor
Ernst Lazlo: Oscar, Best B&W Cinematography
Frederic Knudtson: Best Film Editing

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good for Groups
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older