Spencer Tracy_ A Biography - James C. Curtis [471]
Kramer soothed the management at UA with the casting of Burt Lancaster, who, with the release of Elmer Gantry, was in line for an Oscar nomination. Artistically, he justified the move with the reasoning that Lancaster was not the “obvious choice” for the part. “His character was guilty and he was aware of it—that gave him a hook and I think he grabbed it.” The Austrian actor Maximilian Schell was retained from the TV production, and Kramer filled out the cast with Richard Widmark, Montgomery Clift, Judy Garland, and Marlene Dietrich.
Dietrich’s character provided a compelling counterpoint to the Germans on trial. “We thought there should be a woman, or a romance,” said Abby Mann,
and, at the time, Stanley said to me, “I’d like to use Paul Newman and his wife [Joanne Woodward] in the film.” He said, “Supposing [Haywood] has a daughter, and the daughter has an affair with Newman?” I tried it, but it didn’t seem to work. Then [in Berlin] I met a woman who was the widow of a general. She was talking to me about herself, and she was saying, “My husband was a soldier. I didn’t want him to be hanged, but to be shot. I wanted a soldier’s death for my husband, and I hated the Americans for not permitting it.” She said, “I’m writing a book about it,” but I could sense that she would never finish the book because she didn’t want to tell how much Germans were really involved with what happened. So I came back, and I met with Stanley in a Chinese restaurant. He said, “How’s the Newman part coming?” “Well,” I said, “you know …” And I told him about this woman. I said, “I wonder whether Dietrich might do this?” He said, “That’s a good idea!” That was the major difference between the TV version and the film. And I must say Marlene was wonderful.
Clift agreed to do the film for expenses, as Kramer needed the name value but couldn’t afford the actor’s usual salary. “Since it’s only a single scene and can be filmed in one day,” Clift told the New York Times, “I strongly disapproved of taking an astronomical salary. But in the business I felt it was more practical to do it for nothing rather than reduce my price or refuse a role I wanted to play.”
Garland was the last major figure added to the cast, having not appeared in a movie since A Star Is Born in 1955. Her part, like Clift’s, was that of a prosecution witness, but she could ill afford to play the role for free. Her deal was for a flat $35,000; Kramer made the surprising announcement in New York, garnering considerable publicity for the picture.
“We call these ‘pace-setting performances,’ ” Kramer said. “Their function is not unlike those of the runner who sets the pace in a key race for the man who is out to set a record. These are speaking roles that last up to seven minutes on the screen. They have an explosive quality—that is, a beginning, a middle, and an end—and are pertinent to the main theme. Unlike cameos, they don’t simply drop an actor in front of some scenery for the value of his name on the marquee; they utilize his talents in more than one scene and in a developing type of characterization.”
Kramer followed up with a full-page ad in the Times, committing to a December 14 premiere at Kongresshalle in Berlin, the scene of the first public screening of Inherit the Wind. Immediately following the premiere, Judgment at Nuremberg would open in the major European capitals and in reserved seat engagements in six U.S. cities, including New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. The failure of The Diary of Anne Frank as a roadshow attraction didn’t faze him, and he pointed instead to the record advance that had greeted the benefit openings of Otto Preminger’s Exodus. “It’s our intent to go hard ticket, but I wouldn’t want to book 45 theaters now.” The setting of a target date (der Tag) would serve as a “tremendous