Sealed Verdict (1948) User Reviews

Already dated

[bkoganbing · 6/10 · 6 April 2014]

The all star cast and impressive budget are not the only things differing Judgment At Nuremberg with Sealed Verdict. For one thing there is no mention at all in 1948 of the Cold War which was now a fact. We still have four allied nations conducting the trials of the people of the Third Reich guilty of war crimes, the definition of which we were trying to arrive at still.

Ray Milland has just successfully prosecuted Nazi general John Hoyt for the massacre of the men of a village. A survivor lived to tell the tale. A French woman appeared as a defense witness for Hoyt who did in fact do a random of act of kindness for her, rare in their higher echelons of the Third Reich. Florence Marly's testimony in fact has brought her to the attention of French occupation forces who are looking at her as a possible collaborator.

We sure didn't see Richard Widmark second guessing himself over those four judges he prosecuted in Judgment At Nuremberg. But Milland whose case was made on the eye witness testimony of one man starts to doubt. He starts reinvestigating the case.

Here the Allied powers seem to be worried about a German underground springing to life. I think Judgment At Nuremberg was far more realistic on this point, the Germans themselves were worried about the Russians as were we. Where were the filmmakers who made Sealed Verdict on this issue?

Like that other Paramount feature A Foreign Affair some second unit cinematography was done in occupied Germany. I wouldn't be surprised if some of that footage found its way into Sealed Verdict.

Milland and cast deliver nice performances, but the film came to the American movie-going public already dated.

"We were all soldiers following orders! ... They were weren't they?"

[theowinthrop · 8/10 · 23 June 2006]

Somehow this film has become forgotten in studies of World War II and post-War movies about the effects of the war. Generally most people will think of JUDGEMENT AT NUREMBURG, with it's all star cast, as the best film about German guilt and the trials of the guilty. And it is, but that should not have prevented SEALED VERDICT from getting pushed into the shadows.

The story is very simple - Major Lawson (Ray Milland) is attached to the American Army's tribunal trying Nazi War Criminals. They have just had a trial of General Otto Stiegman (John Hoyt), who has been convicted of mass murders and war crimes. But the evidence against Stiegman, though bad, is not really as strong as the verdict suggests. There is evidence that if anything happened, Stiegman passed down orders for the atrocities, but nothing shows he planned them. So Stiegman contacts Lawson (who helped in the prosecution) and insists he's innocent of the crimes that have resulted in a death sentence for him. He begs Lawson to re-investigate, even giving some names of additional parties who might clear his name. Lawson is dubious, but Stiegman is so convincing he decides to look closer again.

The film is a very disheartening look at the ruins of a defeated nation. Billy Wilder did the same thing (with some humor) in A FOREIGN AFFAIR, but here we just see the cynical covering of hatred or the sense of loss. There is no time here for Frederick Hollander's tunes (although "Among The Ruins of Berlin" would not be totally amiss here). Lawson digs, and digs, and digs, but in the end he finds the results not conclusive one way or another. Too frequently a witness will show a sense of opportunism and lasting hatred and bigotry that undercuts the actual evidence that could help Stiegman. So Lawson reports at the end to Stiegman that he can't find the proof.

And here is the spoiler for this movie review (which unfortunately is the sole one for this good, little film as of 06/23/2006). Stiegman takes the news as well as he can. But something he says suggests that something is up that Lawson has missed. Stiegman is caught trying to pull a "Herman Goering" act with some poison. He is stopped in time, and goes to the gallows exulting in how he had served the fatherland and the Fuhrer. Personally, I think that was an error (but an understandable one, given the angry feelings of the time towards Germany's wartime leadership). The film should have ended with a degree of ambiguity as to Stiegman's actual guilt or not. It is the one flaw of the film.

Milland does well with the perplexed Lawson, but it's Hoyt, used sparingly but tellingly here, who dominates the film to the end. This, with his evil billionaire in WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE are his two best film performances. Hopefully you will be able to catch it again on Turner Network or some other cable station.

Sympathy for the Devil?

[planktonrules · 3/10 · 10 October 2023]

"Sealed Verdict" is a film based on a faulty premise. In the film, a prosecutor wonders if perhaps there's a rush to judgment and a Nazi officer is actually innocent of war crimes. However, in reality, following WWII, there were many trials and practically none of these evil men were punished. In total, only about a dozen top Nazis were sentenced to death...and there certainly was no rush to judgment. Because of this, the film seems oddly sympathetic towards some genuinely evil people.

Major Lawson (Ray Milland) does an excellent job trying a case against a Nazi general...so much so that his superior officer is thrilled with the conviction. However, over time, Lawson starts to wonder if the man actually is innocent...especially when the main witness against the General admits he lied under oath!

The film seemed to strongly imply that the Nuremburg Trials might have been miscarriages of justice. While it is true, it's NOT because the innocent were prosecuted but because MANY truly vicious murderers were allowed to get away with their crimes. As such, the film is amazingly sympathetic towards the notion that the trials were somehow rigged or unjust...which simply isn't the case. A VERY flawed and irritating film, in fact, and you wonder WHO at Paramount Studio thought such a film was a good idea.

Sealed plot with no direction.

[mark.waltz · 3/10 · 22 July 2020]

This is a film that will perplex me for years to come. It starts off as a view of what is happening with the Allied Forces over in Germany Prosecuting war criminals, particularly Major John Hoyt. But all of a sudden it moves on to the story of a woman who murdered an American whose baby she is pregnant with, and the sudden arrival of the dead man's parents.

Ray Milland is appropriately serious, but he is defeated by a script with so many curves that it is impossible to figure out in what direction it is going or where it will end up. Florence Marly is an uninteresting Leading Lady, and soon-to-be Oscar recipient Broderick Crawford is completely wasted in a pointless role.

Of the supporting cast, Hoyt and Elisabeth Risdon come off best, with Hoyt claiming that as a German officer, he only did as ordered, and Risdon willing to take in her grandchild in spite of the mother's crime against her son because, as she says, the baby is not guilty of the sins of its parents. This had great potential to be uninteresting post-war drama, but fails in its efforts to create unintelligible story and thus, it ends up a complete misfire.