At the end of World War II, coming up on 66 years ago, Nazi leaders were put on trial in Nuremberg, Germany, charged with a variety of war crimes. The U. S. government commissioned Stuart Schulberg, a screenwriter and brother of Budd Schulberg, to shoot a documentary film of the trial, called, simply, ":Nuremberg." A few years later, director Stanley Kramer did a feature called "Judgment at Nuremberg" with an all-star cast.
It's still a very good movie, but now the original is being re-released, put together by Josh Waletsky and Stuart Schulberg's daughter, Susan. It opens today, with Liev Schrieber offering newly written narration.
Robert Jackson, an associate justice of the U. S. Supreme Court, served as the chief prosecutor, and in the dock were such as Hermann Goering, Rudolf Hess and Albert Speer, all prominent members of Adolf Hitler's inner circle. With newsreel footage from then 1930s to back the rather dry courtroom action, this is a fascinating and gripping film, a perfect view of the banality of evil, spiced with particularly scary examples of man's inhumanity to man.
Very much worth seeing, and thinking about.
Nuremberg opes today at the Plaza Frontenac
-- Joe
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