Today, on good ol' Facebook, I spotted a photo of Al Franken and his grandkids sprawled on a couch, with the caption "Our annual family viewing of Judgement at Nuremberg." They all looked rather glum
and I wondered if it wasn't a joke. So I did some investigating, and found similar pictures with similar captions—varying levels of engagement, but engagement, definitely—from the last two years:
Judgement at Nuremberg, huh? For Thanksgiving? Yeah, it's probably just an elaborate, sustained joke. But anyway, it got me to bite.
I'd heard of the movie but never seen it. I googled, and found that it was made in 1961, directed by Stanley Kramer, and starred Spencer Tracy, Maximilian Schell (who won the Academy Award for best actor), Burt Lancaster, Judy Garland, Marlene Dietrich, Richard Widmark, and Montgomery Clift—oh, and even William Shatner, before he became Captain Kirk. It gets 93% on Rotten Tomatoes, 8.3 on IMDb. And it clocks in at 180 minutes.
I figured, if it's something Al Franken wants to encounter year after year—on Thanksgiving, of all days—with his grandkids' total acquiescence—(ha ha?)—I should probably see it. I also figured, at three hours long, we could pause it halfway through and watch the second half tomorrow. (It is currently playing on Amazon Prime, but only for three more days. Caught it just in time.)
And... wow. We were riveted. No pausing required. Indeed, I can't recall such a compelling movie, not that I've seen recently. It hits so many important issues. Ones that are always current, even if you're not living in post-Nazi Germany, having to do with right and wrong, being engaged or getting by, speaking the truth or not. And Spencer Tracy: he is mesmerizing. (Though I have to say, I wondered if Stanley Kubrick didn't base his Dr. Strangelove on Schell's defense attorney Herr Rolfe, they sounded so alike in their agitation.)
Anyway, here's the movie trailer:
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