Judgement at Nuremberg at the Oscars (2025)

Seems funny how the unknown Maximillian Schell in a small role won Best Actor yet Montgomery Clift and Judy Garland in Oscar baity roles lost. Were they thought to have a chance at winning?

(Rita Moreno and George Chikaris of West Side Story beat them.)

Schell wasn't completely unknown. He was in "The Young Lions" with Clift and Brando in '58, and starred in the televised version of Judgment at Nuremberg to critically acclaimed in '59.

I think Clift and Garland were the Oscar frontrunners that year, so Moreno and Chakiris' wins were suprising upsets.

[quote] Garland and Clift, but they both overact like crazy in this.

It was disgusting.

This bleak, black and white ordeal was supposed to be solemn and profound and depressing as a church sermon. And because we were getting bored and claustrophobic after the interval these two 'carnival freaks' were wheeled in with their Hollywood facial tics and twitching and ruined any sense of gravitas.

The TV version on Youtube is better because it's shorter. It features the gravitas of Claude Rains and Paul Lukas and the even younger and more beautiful Maximilian.

PS It told me things I didn’t know. Such as Oliver Wendell home suggested that three generations of imbeciles should be sterilised.

This movie should have swept at the Oscars...instead West Side Story did.

This was the last chance for Judy and Monty to win any Oscars. Obscure hacks like Rita Moreno and George Chakiris stole their Oscars. I'll give it to Rita that she at least kept her name in the headlines but when's the last time anybody ever talked about George Chakiris?

[quote] when's the last time anybody ever talked about George Chakiris?

He played a corpse after a 3 minute appearance on that Angela Lansbury Jessica Fletcher TV show. And that must be 40 years ago now.

I agree R9. It's a terrible movie. Spencer Tracy is ok and Marlene might have been if her face didn't look so bizarre. She could not move one part of her face.

This film is so ponderous and self important and Clift and Garland STINK in it. Really, they do. They are like some punch and judy freak show.

Yes the film footage was harrowing. No, it's not worth it. Burt Lancaster, spare me.

[quote] Yes the film footage was harrowing.

My father was stationed in Germany right after the war. His first posting was in Nuremberg. My mother joined him shortly after his arrival. She was offered a job working on the trials. Not sure which ones. She got pregnant and decided that she didn't want those awful images in her head while she was pregnant. She declined. When she told me that I was furious that she didn't tough it out and be part of history. My older sister still turned out to be a cold-hearted PITA.

[quote] My older sister still turned out to be a cold-hearted PITA.

She turned out to be a cold 'thin flat bread that can be separated easily into two layers to form a pocket'.