One Long Year of Waiting

On May 11, 2014 I wrote a blog called Another Judy Garland Movie and at that time I requested a movie from Netflix where Judy Garland had been nominated for an academy award. The response from Netflix, month after month, was "a very long wait." Finally, after waiting over fourteen months I received Judgement at Nuremberg and I can see why she was nominated for an Oscar. She did not win and I am sorry she didn't
because she played a good part. I barely recognized her in her role as a young woman who was accused of having sexual relationships with an older Jewish man. There was a German law about the mixing of Jewish and non-Jewish persons in a relationship. After a trial he was killed and she served two years in prison though the relationship was platonic.

The blurb on the disc envelope regarding the movie states: This Academy Award winning film by Stanley Kramer stars Spencer Tracy as American judge Dan Haywood who's chosen to guide a 1948 tribunal that's trying Germans suspected of engaging in atrocities during World War II. Against the backdrop of the Cold War, Haywood must obtain justice in a case with raised states and mixed emotions. Maximilian Schell co-stars in an Oscar lauded performance as defense counsel for the Nazi prisoners.

I had seen the movie many years ago, and bits and pieces I could recall. Other movie stars in the movie that I recognized were Marlene Dietrich, Richard Widmark, Montgomery Clift, a very young William Shatner, and Burt Lancaster. Even though the movie is very depressing seeing the mass murders of over millions of people, yet it made me realize (again) how cruel and disgusting were the horrible acts committed by some of the German leaders. The defense argued that the judges on trial were following the law of the land.

The film is a three hour movie but I found it to be so interesting that the time moved right along. Great acting by all the actors and I was disappointed that Rita Moreno won the Academy for West Side Story that year and Judy Garland did not. Maximilian Schell did win an Oscar for his performance and so did the writer.

At the end of the movie we learn that of the ninety-nine defendants sentenced to prison, none were serving their terms in 1961 when the movie was made. 

"The holocaust also shows us

how a combination of events and attitudes

can erode a society's democratic values."

Tim Holden