Barely free from the Birdman of Alcatraz’ prison cell, Burt Lancaster plays Third Reich judge Ernst Janning in the torrential courtroom drama based on the trials of secondary war criminals at Nuremberg. The gnawing, complex questions of culpability and morality, allegiance and compromise passionately articulated and manifesting in various human incarnations crystalize in the figure of Janning, whose capabilities as an extraordinary thinker and sensitive human complicate a viewer’s hasty prosecution. Spending much of his time inscrutably silent in a courtroom packed with startling performances – including troubled stars Judy Garland and Montgomery Clift as heartbreaking casualties of the regime – it is the solid American movie icon as a Nazi that stirs deep unease for a US audience. By the time Lancaster delivers his scorching testimony, the focus has shifted back onto the viewer’s conscience and the film’s assertion that it was not simply Germany, but a world on trial.