Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This is truly an astonishing movie. After seeing it one wonders that Spencer Tracy did not win the Academy Award for his performance here. Of course, another actor in the cast, Maxmillian Schell, playing the German defense attorney, did! In many ways the movie is the senior brother to "Schindler's List", acting to probe thoughtfully through the mist of euphemisms, excuses and exaggerations of the era. And sifting out some remarkable, memorable, and noble notions about what human beings should be held responsible for in terms of their social attitudes, civic behavior and public actions. Ostensibly, the action takes place after the more sensational trials of the Nazi hierarchy, when the public appetite for blood, revenge, and harsh justice had been somewhat abated. Tracy plays a relatively obscure retired rural American judge called upon to act as one of the three presiding judges in overseeing the trials of prominent German jurists who had co-operated, collaborated, and then presided over the gradual civil drift from a nation whose conduct and laws were based on a corpus of jurisprudence to one characterized by crackpot eugenic policies, blatant racism, & officially-sanctioned violence and mayhem. Burt Lancaster plays a pre-eminent German judge, one famed for his legal treatises and international reputation as a jurist. Through the prism of the testimony of both the judges on trial and their cross examination by a zealous American military prosecutor played masterfully by a young Richard Widmark, the viewer begins to understand much more about the slippery slope most of the jurists had unwittingly embarked upon. Add into this equation the introduction of a sensational set of key witnesses played by Judy Garland and Montgomery Clift, and the full emotional impact and profound significance of what these judges had allowed to happen truly gels. This is an unforgettable and remarkably unique movie, truly a classic and cautionary tale based on the historical record of what the Germans did to each other, based on fact. And by the way, be sure to listen carefully to the final several scenes in which Tracy takes full advantage of several opportunities to cut through all the equivocations, half-truths, and "honest mistake" nonsense, literally electrifying the screen with the power of his monologue and his superb acting. He was truly one of a kind, too. Wow! Don't miss this