For those whose knowledge comes filtered through Judgment at Nuremberg, the packed-with-stars 1961 Hollywood extravaganza, here is the somber actuality. A curious choice for a theatrical release, Nuremberg: Its Lesson for Today offers a 35mm restoration of a historic artifact, a 1948 US government documentary that combined footage of the trial of Hitler's commanders who survived the war — Goering, Hess, Streicher, etc. — with a flashback history of the rise and fall of Nazi Germany. What's new: a crisp voiceover by Liev Schreiber. The writer/director of the 1948 film was Stuart Schulberg, who died in 1979; his daughter, Sandra Schulberg, produced the restoration, along with Josh Waletsky. For audiences today, the story of the Third Reich is familiar. As for the Nuremberg proceedings, we see those through the lens of the Eichmann trial: all those stone-faced Nazis looking like tired businessmen who plundered Europe because that was their job.
