This is not a great movie. You have only to compare it with another, later movie about the trial of Nazi war criminals, Judgement at Nuremberg (1961), which is a great if flawed movie, to see how far this one falls short of greatness.
That said, however, this movie is very workmanlike. There are no real surprises, but it moves along effectively and makes all the expected points. The war criminal here, Wilhelm Grimm, very well played by Alexander Knox, is an understated monster with no surprising complications. I suppose in 1944 there would have been no other way to depict him, but it makes his character predictable and not very interesting. Hannah Arendt's study of "the banality of evil" would later show that these monsters, though indeed true monsters, were often not monstrous in everything, which made their monstrosity harder to understand.
The final, short scene, in which the judges address the world after the war, might have made sense in 1944 before Germany had been defeated, but it seems very hokey now.
It's worth a watch, but it's not particularly memorable.
That said, however, this movie is very workmanlike. There are no real surprises, but it moves along effectively and makes all the expected points. The war criminal here, Wilhelm Grimm, very well played by Alexander Knox, is an understated monster with no surprising complications. I suppose in 1944 there would have been no other way to depict him, but it makes his character predictable and not very interesting. Hannah Arendt's study of "the banality of evil" would later show that these monsters, though indeed true monsters, were often not monstrous in everything, which made their monstrosity harder to understand.
The final, short scene, in which the judges address the world after the war, might have made sense in 1944 before Germany had been defeated, but it seems very hokey now.
It's worth a watch, but it's not particularly memorable.