For a long time Hollywood shied away from confronting the
Holocaust. Stanley Kramer was one of the first directors to broach the subject
in his Judgment
At Nuremberg
(1961), an epic rendition of the postwar trial of Nazi war criminals. Its
three-plus hours features harrowing testimony, intense courtroom drama, the
Oscar-nominated black-and-white cinematography of Ernest Laszlo, and a stellar,
if sometimes unlikely cast, including the reassuring Spencer Tracy as a judge,
Marlene Dietrich, Judy Garland, and Montgomery Clift as victims, a perky
William Shatner as a US army adjutant, and Burt Lancaster and the Oscar-winning
Maximilian Schell as defendants.