War has played a key role in the history of the United States, from the nation's founding

right down to the present. War made the U.S. independent, kept it together, increased its

size, and established it as a global superpower. Understanding America's wars is essential for understanding American history.

Welcome to Key Battles of American History,

a podcast in which we discuss American history through the lens of the most important battles of America's wars.

Here is your host, James Early.

Thank you. your host, James Early. Hello and welcome to another episode of key films of World War II in Europe.

This is your host, James Early, as always.

And of course, I have Sean McGuire with me, as always, as well.

In this episode, we are going to discuss the classic 1961 film Judgment at Nuremberg. Our last regular episode was about

the Holocaust, and I think this one fits really well with that episode. So let's talk about

some of the basics of the film before I handed over to Sean to talk about some of the background and the production.

This is a long one. Another long one, it's two hours and 59 minutes. On Rotten Tomatoes,

92% of the critics gave it a positive rating and 93% of the fans did. The IMDB rating is 8.3, which as you know is very good.

The director was Stanley Kramer, and the cast is an all-star one.

It stars Spencer Tracy, Bert Lancaster, Richard Widmark, Marlene Dietrich, Maximilian

Shell, Judy Garland, Montgomery Clift, William Shatner,

a very young William Shatner, Edward Burns, and Kenneth McKenna, as well as many years.

It was based on a 1959 episode of the TV series Playhouse 90, which was also called Judgment in

Nuremberg.

I think this is the first movie we've ever done that was based on a TV episode.

Well, it was a TV movie, but yeah.

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