Never Forget (1991) Review

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(More customer reviews)An outstanding movie of gripping determination and bulldog tenacity!
Leonard Nimoy and Blythe Danner play Mr. & Mrs. Mel Mermelstein, a true-life California couple, thrown into the spotlight of judicial history in the 1980's. He is a Hungarian-born Jew, sole-survivor of his family's extermination at Auchwitz, and she is a Southern Baptist from Tennessee. Their four children are good kids, typical Americans, with just enough spunk and orneriness to irritate each other, but enough love and class to pull together when it counts.
When challenged by a hate group to prove that Jews were actually gassed at Auchwitz, Mel Mermelstein rises to the occasion with the support of his wife and children, in spite of the dangers to himself, his business, and his family.
Dabney Coleman provides Mel's legal help (pro bono) as a lawyer, originally a Roman Catholic from Texas, and brilliantly and believably fits out a role that is my personal favorite among any role he has ever played.
Leonard Nimoy is brilliant as always, and aside from playing Golda Meir's husband opposite Ingrid Bergman, if there was ever a role that shattered his Spock image, this would be it. (Not that I dislike Spock. On the contrary!) Nimoy plays a man who is empassioned, vulnerable to an extent, but tenaciously determined to prove the hate groups to be liars.
Why so committed to such a course? Because before Mermelstein's father died in Auchwitz, he commissioned Mel and his brother (who died shortly thereafter) to "Never Forget" what happened, and to bear witness to the facts of history. Mel Mermelstein did just that, and the United States finally took Judicial Notice of the truth of the Holocaust, some 40 years after WWII.
A great movie! (I taped mine off of TNT a few years ago, when it aired this movie in timed connection with the network premeir of Schindler's List, and this airing was hosted by Leonard Nimoy. I have since worn out my tape. I plan to buy a professional copy when the price drops.)

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Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) Review

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(More customer reviews)This is truly an astonishing movie. After seeing it one wonders that Spencer Tracy did not win the Academy Award for his performance here. Of course, another actor in the cast, Maxmillian Schell, playing the German defense attorney, did! In many ways the movie is the senior brother to "Schindler's List", acting to probe thoughtfully through the mist of euphemisms, excuses and exaggerations of the era. And sifting out some remarkable, memorable, and noble notions about what human beings should be held responsible for in terms of their social attitudes, civic behavior and public actions.
Ostensibly, the action takes place after the more sensational trials of the Nazi hierarchy, when the public appetite for blood, revenge, and harsh justice had been somewhat abated. Tracy plays a relatively obscure retired rural American judge called upon to act as one of the three presiding judges in overseeing the trials of prominent German jurists who had co-operated, collaborated, and then presided over the gradual civil drift from a nation whose conduct and laws were based on a corpus of jurisprudence to one characterized by crackpot eugenic policies, blatant racism, & officially-sanctioned violence and mayhem.
Burt Lancaster plays a pre-eminent German judge, one famed for his legal treatises and international reputation as a jurist. Through the prism of the testimony of both the judges on trial and their cross examination by a zealous American military prosecutor played masterfully by a young Richard Widmark, the viewer begins to understand much more about the slippery slope most of the jurists had unwittingly embarked upon. Add into this equation the introduction of a sensational set of key witnesses played by Judy Garland and Montgomery Clift, and the full emotional impact and profound significance of what these judges had allowed to happen truly gels.
This is an unforgettable and remarkably unique movie, truly a classic and cautionary tale based on the historical record of what the Germans did to each other, based on fact. And by the way, be sure to listen carefully to the final several scenes in which Tracy takes full advantage of several opportunities to cut through all the equivocations, half-truths, and "honest mistake" nonsense, literally electrifying the screen with the power of his monologue and his superb acting. He was truly one of a kind, too. Wow! Don't miss this

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Nominated* for eleven Academy AwardsÂ(r), including Best Picture, Judgment at Nuremberg is "magnificent" (Los Angeles Times), "continuously exciting" (The New Yorker) andboasts brilliant performances by an all-star cast. American judge Dan Haywood (Spencer Tracy) presides over the trial of four German jurists accused of "legalizing" Nazi atrocities. But as graphic accounts of sterilization and murder unfold in the courtroom, mounting political pressure for leniency forces Haywood to make the most harrowing and difficult decision of his career.*1961: Actor (Maximilian Schell, won); Actor (Spencer Tracy); Supporting Actor (Montgomery Clift); Supporting Actress (Judy Garland); Director; Adapted Screenplay (won); Cinematography (B&W); Art Direction (B&W); Film Editing; Costume Design (B&W).

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