Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)

Director:

Stanley Kramer

Writers:

Abby Mann (written by)
Abby Mann (original story)
(more)

Release Date:

18 December 1961 (Sweden)

Genre:

Drama | History | War

Tagline:

More than a motion picture...It is an overwhelming experience in human emotion you will never forget!

Plot:

In 1948, an American court in occupied Germany tries four Nazi judges for war crimes.

Plot Keywords:

Judge | Nazi | Trial | Cold War | War Crime

Awards:

Won 2 Oscars. Another 16 wins & 21 nominations

Cast

Spencer Tracy	...	Chief Judge Dan Haywood
Burt Lancaster	...	Dr. Ernst Janning
Richard Widmark	...	Col. Tad Lawson
Marlene Dietrich	...	Mrs. Bertholt
Maximilian Schell	...	Hans Rolfe
Judy Garland	...	Irene Hoffman
Montgomery Clift	...	Rudolph Petersen
William Shatner	...	Capt. Harrison Byers
Werner Klemperer	...	Emil Hahn
Kenneth MacKenna	...	Judge Kenneth Norris
Torben Meyer	...	Werner Lampe
Joseph Bernard	...	Maj. Abe Radnitz
Alan Baxter	...	Brig. Gen. Matt Merrin
Edward Binns	...	Sen. Burkette
Virginia Christine	...	Mrs. Halbestadt
Otto Waldis	...	Pohl
Karl Swenson	...	Dr. Heinrich Geuter
Martin Brandt	...	Friedrich Hofstetter
Ray Teal	...	Judge Curtiss Ives
John Wengraf	...	Dr. Karl Wieck
Ben Wright	...	Halbestadt
Howard Caine	...	Hugo Wallner
Olga Fabian	...	Mrs. Elsa Lindnow
Paul Busch	...	Schmidt
Bernard Kates	...	Max Perkins
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Oscar Beregi Jr.	...	Waiter at Court Lounge (uncredited)
Chet Brandenburg	...	Concert Attendee (uncredited)
Asher Brauner	...	Translator (uncredited)
Sheila Bromley	...	Mrs. Ives (uncredited)
John Clarke	...	Prison Guard (uncredited)
Joseph Crehan	...	Courtroom Spectator at Verdict (uncredited)
Sayre Dearing	...	Courtroom Spectator (uncredited)
Bess Flowers	...	Concert Attendee (uncredited)
Herman Hack	...	Concert Attendee (uncredited)
Sam Harris	...	Courtroom Spectator (uncredited)
Colin Kenny	...	Courtroom Spectator (uncredited)
Harold Miller	...	Courtroom Officer (uncredited)
Ed Nelson	...	Captain at Nightclub Announcing Call-up of Officers (uncredited)
William H. O'Brien	...	German Prisoner in Cafeteria (uncredited)
Norbert Schiller	...	Waiter (uncredited)
Rudy Solari	...	Interpreter in Courtroom (uncredited)
Bert Stevens	...	German Prisoner in Cafeteria (uncredited)
Hal Taggart	...	German Counsel (uncredited)
Jana Taylor	...	Elsa Scheffler (uncredited)

Directed by
Stanley Kramer

Writing credits
Abby Mann		(written by)
Abby Mann		(original story)
Montgomery Clift		uncredited

Produced by
Stanley Kramer	....	producer
Philip Langner	....	associate producer

Original Music by
Ernest Gold

Cinematography by
Ernest Laszlo		(photographed by)

Film Editing by
Frederic Knudtson		(film editor)

Casting by
James Lister		(uncredited)

Production Design by
Rudolph Sternad

Set Decoration by
George Milo

Makeup Department
Robert J. Schiffer	....	makeup artist

Production Management
Clem Beauchamp	....	production manager

Art Department
Art Cole	....	property master

Sound Department
Walter Elliott	....	sound editor
Jean L. Speak	....	sound engineer (as James Speak)

Camera and Electrical Department
Don L. Carstensen	....	chief gaffer
Martin Kashuk	....	assistant company grip
Morris Rosen	....	company grip
Charles F. Wheeler	....	camera operator (as Charles Wheeler)

Costume and Wardrobe Department
Joe King	....	costumes
Jean Louis	....	gowns: Ms. Dietrich's

Music Department
Art Dunham	....	music editor
Robert Tracy	....	music editor (uncredited)

Other crew
Pia Arnold	....	crew: German
Richard Eglseder	....	crew: German (as R. Eglseder)
Egon Haedler	....	crew: German
Lyn Hannes	....	crew: German
Albrecht Hennings	....	crew: German
Hubert Karl	....	crew: German
Stanley Kramer	....	presenter
L. Ostermeier	....	crew: German
Richard Richtsfeld	....	crew: German (as R. Richtsfeld)
Marshall Schlom	....	script supervisor
Ivan Volkman	....	assistant to the director
Laci von Ronay	....	crew: German (as Laci Ronay)
Hannelore von Winterfeld	....	crew: German (as Hannelore Winterfeld)
Frank Winterstein	....	crew: German
Wayne Fitzgerald	....	title designer (uncredited)

Production Companies

• Roxlom Films Inc.

Distributors

• United Artists (1961) (USA) (theatrical) (as A United Artist Release)
• United Artists Films (1961) (Finland) (theatrical)
• United Artists (1961) (West Germany) (theatrical)
• American Broadcasting Company (ABC) (1965) (USA) (TV) (original airing)
• Yleisradio (YLE) (1978) (Finland) (TV)
• CBS/Fox Home Video (1986) (USA) (VHS)
• MGM/UA Home Video (1996) (USA) (VHS) (pan and scan)
• MGM Home Entertainment (2000) (Germany) (VHS)
• FS Film Oy (2004) (Finland) (DVD)
• MGM Home Entertainment (2004) (Germany) (DVD)
• MGM Home Entertainment (2004) (USA) (DVD)
• MGM Home Entertainment (2004) (USA) (VHS)
• MGM Home Entertainment (2007) (USA) (DVD)
• AmaFilms (2008) (Greece) (theatrical) (re-issue)
• United Artists Europa (????') (Spain) (theatrical)
• Warner Home Vídeo (????) (Brazil) (VHS)

Other Companies

• MGM/UA Home Entertainment  VHS package design
• Pacific Title  titles and opticals
• Solters & Digney  publicity (uncredited)
• Stalmaster-Lister Co.  casting

Also Known As:

Runtime:

186 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | German

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.75 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Australia:PG | Finland:K-16 (1961) | Spain:18 | Sweden:15 | UK:PG | Norway:16 | West Germany:16 (f) | Finland:S (1990) | Portugal:M/12 (Qualidade) | Germany:12 (DVD rating) | USA:Approved (PCA #19930) | USA:TV-14 | USA:Not Rated | Netherlands:14 (orginal rating)

Filming Locations:

Tower of London, Backlot, Universal Studios - 100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City, California, USA

Company:

Roxlom Films Inc.

Trivia:

For the premiere, producer Stanley Kramer flew hundreds of journalists from America to Germany. The German critics were understandably less impressed with the film than their American counterparts.

Goofs:

Incorrectly regarded as goofs: At the end of the movie a graphic states that 99 people were tried and sentenced at Nuremberg and that by the date of the movie (1961) none remained in prison. Some critics have pointed out that Deputy Fuehrer Rudolf Hess was tried at Nuremberg, found guilty on two of four counts charged (crimes against peace and conspiracy) and sentenced to life in 1946. He died in 1987 still imprisoned in Spandau Prison. Yet the caption in the film states that the statistic refers only to the Nuremberg trials "held in the American sector." Hess and the other major defendants were tried by the International Military Tribunal (with judges and prosecutors from each of the four victorious Allied powers). After this major trial, other trials were held in each of the four occupation sectors. By 1961, all of the defendants sentenced in the American trials were indeed free; the graphic is therefore correct.

Quotes:

Ernst Janning:There was a fever over the land. A fever of disgrace, of indignity, of hunger. We had a democracy, yes, but it was torn by elements within. Above all, there was fear. Fear of today, fear of tomorrow, fear of our neighbors, and fear of ourselves. Only when you understand that - can you understand what Hitler meant to us...

Movie Connections:

Featured in "Siskel & Ebert: Villains: So Bad, They're Good" (1995)

Soundtrack:

Liebeslied

Revelation of Horror

This is a fine film by a fine director, but I can only hope that Stanley Kramer, in committing to full length film a television story, knew at heart the message his movie was trying to say. Because this is truly a message movie, for all mankind, but if the reviews I've read on this site are any indication, the message has been lost to some degree.

I've entitled my review "Revelation of Horror", but the horror revealed was not the Holocaust. That had already been revealed, although Kramer's film certainly lent its emotional impact. The revelation was a deep, true insight into how it happened, and the horror is that it happened in a civilized country. Few on this earth can imagine the true horror of Nazi Germany--I've read criticism of Widmark's Colonel Lawson as too preachy, but the character and the acting conveyed the mission of one who actually saw the horrors, beyond any scope we can identify with.

Kramer's achievement is that everything in this movie reminds us that the Nazi's used every facet of civilization, no matter how minute, to foster their extermination of their enemies, to inculcate it as an ordinary part of life. That was why judges were chosen to portray the issue of "obeying orders" versus "human decency." Herr Rolf is "forced" to defend the worst criminals imaginable, and yet his very defense and the principles behind it are abused in the process, used as a weapon against the very law they represent. Thus did the Nazis prevail with the willing acquiescence of the German people, and the abominable disregard of the rest of the world.

The other horror revealed in this film is the incessant excusing of it. Beyond the obvious pleas of the guilty ("We didn't know", or as one judge says to another, "Was it possible to kill like that?") are the multiplicity of subtle excuses: the reminder of centuries' old German culture, Rolf's plaintive cry of "unfairness" at the showing of the death camp films because of their inflammatory nature, the invocation of "Lili Marlene" throughout the film, to name just a few. While the song evokes sadness, a guilty German society meant for it to invoke sadness. Long before Germany had its country destroyed by bombs, it had its soul destroyed by Hitler.

Because this is a courtroom drama, respecting the sacred role of the Rule of Law in safeguarding humanity, almost every scene, every line is a statement that Nazi Germany perverted the Rule of Law, as did the very defense of the war criminals. But what is principle on a small scale of a single man being judged by society becomes outrage when used to defend the indefensible on an impossibly massive scale. Tracy's character at the film's end has a realization that this is so, as well as an awareness that what happened in Germany during the Third Reich was an Aristotelian tragedy for anyone touched by it, even remotely, so that any personal considerations (such as Mrs. Berthold) are made utterly impossible.

Rolf's speech about the guilty responsibility of the rest of the world was valid--but he was indicting the world to save one man. Where have we heard that in our own time? This quality about "Judgment at Nuremburg" makes its message forever fresh--and its warnings.