Whether or not Walter Matthau made this and a subsequent television film with the intention of trying the waters to create a series co-starring Harry Morgan is a question I can't answer. Matthau and Morgan made these two moderately interesting films together, set in the 1940s and dealing with an attorney named Harmon Cobb and a lower level Federal judge named Bell (Morgan). The chemistry between the two was good in their scenes, but one wonders how long the story lines would have been kept up - especially as in the first film Morgan's judge is somewhat flawed as a person.
This film dealt with a subject rarely touched on in our World War II films or books - that during the war years nearly 370,000 Axis and Fascist Prisoners of War were held in camps in the southwest United States. The reason for these out of the way camps was to keep them far from the war industries of the west coast and the mid west and east and south. As far as I know there were incidents in these camps of vicious killings, but usually they were die-in-the-wool Nazis finding a fellow prisoner who was not as supportive of the regime or was of questionable (i.e., racially mixed) heritage. In one case a prisoner was killed and five Nazis were tried and several hanged for the murder. So there is a basis for the story line, though here it is taken beyond that point.
Cobb is a defense attorney that the government asks to defend a Nazi prisoner of war Geiger (Peter Firth) by Judge Bell. The German soldier is accused of killing a doctor (Barnard Hughes) in the prison infirmary, and the evidence seems clear that Geiger did attack the Doctor (he does not deny this). So Cobb's defense would be relatively weak to begin with. However it is wartime, and the doctor was the only one in the town Cobb lives in, and his neighbors are upset that he would agree to defend a Nazi. Moreover, Cobb and his daughter-in-law learn that his son (who was drafted) has been killed fighting in France. So this assignment is far from his favorite type of work.
But as he gets into it, things begin not adding up. It seems the Doctor wrote a cryptic note that suggests he was having a serious crisis regarding whatever work he was doing in the camp. The note was not regarded as important by the prosecution led by a hotshot attorney named Domsczek (Robert Carridine), but Cobb proceeds to dig deeper into it. There seems to be something hidden in the background of the Doctor's death that nobody in the camp from it's commander Major Lilly (Joe Horvath) on down really wants probed.
The trial has begun, and Cobb seeks to get permission from Judge Bell for looking at some of the Doctor's camp records on other deaths in the camp recently. And here he meets a shock. Hitherto Bell has been a relatively straightforward type who made the government order to defend the Nazi more like a request for help. But now he finds that the Judge is dead set against any chance of the Nazi being acquitted. As he explains to a shocked Cobb, the latter is only a jester, and the hero is going to be Domsczek, and the Judge is going to sentence Geiger to death.
With the help of his friend the local sheriff (William Schallert), Cobb does bluff his way into the prison, and does find more than he bargained for in terms of what is going on. I won't go into further detail, for the story (despite it's improbabilities) might happen under certain circumstances. But he finds Major Lilly has odd ideas about prison trustees and their duties, and he also finds that the reason for the rubber-stamp style of injustice for Geiger has to do with Judge Bell assisting the Federal Government in producing a bargaining chip against the Nazi Government.
For a typical television show it is well acted. It gives Schallert - too frequently given quiet comic parts - a moment to show his abilities to be an effective dramatic actor. It's leads demonstrate how they could squeeze juice out of interesting situations and roles. Matthau and Firth cannot become friends, but their mutual war tragedies (Firth's parents were killed in a bombing) give them a kind of bond. Morgan's Judge is never over-done, but his behavior is interesting in what it tells you about his own personality and what our government does to the so-called "independent judiciary". And Carridine too surprises us, being quite rigidly more honorable than Morgan expects. While a minor film for Matthau it is definitely well-done.
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