Arthur Hiller directs from a play by Jaws star and stalwart British leading man Robert Shaw, with the late Maximillian Schell as an elderly Jewish businessman who is arrested in his Manhattan penthouse under suspicion of being a war criminal. His courtroom testimony, from inside a glass booth, makes up the majority of the action in this talky but highly absorbing meditation on guilt and accusation. Schell got an Oscar nomination, and although his role initially seems like a caricature, the peeling away of layers reveals a highly complex central-point to a provocative and ambitious film.
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