The Incident (1990) Synopsis

"Prisoners have rights. Even prisoners who would deny those rights. Nazis, for example, have the right to a fair trial when accused in an American court."It is 1944. Harmon J. Cobb (Walter Matthau) is a lawyer in the small town of Lincoln Bluff in Colorado. His son Harold, in peacetime a school teacher, is away in France with the U.S. Army. Cobb lives with Harolds wife Billie (Susan Blakely) (who calls him Dad) and their daughter Nancy (Ariana Richards), who is about eleven years old and is evidently very fond of her grandpa.The opening scene could be in Germany in the early 1940s: a detachment of German servicemen in various uniforms --- Wehrmacht (army) and Luftwaffe (air force) --- are carrying a coffin draped in the Third Reich (Nazi swastika) flag through a stretch of scrubby woodland to burial. One man at the head of the group is carrying before him, like a banner, a wooden marker in the shape of a German cross and with the inscription. in Schwartzschrift (the traditional angular lettering used in Germany until after World War II), Unteroffizier Ernst Schmidt. This was an NCO: in the Wehrmacht an Unteroffizier would be a sergeant; in the Luftwaffe it corresponds to a corporal (RAF) or an airman first class (USAF). As the first of the movies titles appears in front of the picture, the scene switches to a town meeting in the open air, with a makeshift stage under an awning and a sizeable audience seated on rows of folding chairs, listening to Cobb who is at a microphone, addressing them through a public address system: Soldiers like me . Well my friends America is the greatest nation that ever existed under the sun. So we are to know that Cobb is a World War I US army veteran and a patriot, and also that he is well known to everyone in town. The crowd includes his daughter-in-law Billie and granddaughter Nancy (who is holding a rod with a stars and stripes flag --- a foot wide, not one of those tiny ones) and a fair number of soldiers in uniform, as well as civilian citizens of the town. This is an occasion with all the trimmings. Cobb talks of the death in Europe of one of his comrades in arms. Then the band plays America and everyone sings the anthem.The scene cuts between this speech at the meeting, and the German military detail which proceeds with the burial of Unteroffizier Schmidt. Here too a speech is going on: the speaker, Hauptfeldwebel Hans Riefenstahl (as we will later meet him) (Norbert Weisser), is clearly a Nazi, referring reverently, as he does, to the Führer. He ends Lang lebe Deutschland (Long live Germany) and all give the Nazi salute. But there are no Americans present here.There is a scene in the saloon we see the other old men of the town, including Doctor George Hansen (Barnard Hughes) a local physician who, we gather, also has to work at the nearby Camp Bremen, which holds German prisoners of war. We gather that the townsfolk hate Germans including the prisoners of war because so many of them have sons away fighting in the war. When Doc Hansen arrives the men ask how many more prisoners were on the latest trainload. About a hundred; the Doc starts to say something else about the Germans then changes his mind and ends with What I learn at the camp stays at the camp and then asks one, Clarence Heathcote, whether the two of them are going fishing. He says hell bring the beer.Harmon Cobb who is also there gets up to leave, saying dryly Thanks for the conversation but he has a client to see. Knowing him too well for that, they ask whether the client is Jim Beam or Jack Daniels. Back in his office we see Cobb on the phone begging the store proprietress (a Miss Barnes) to allow him to pay only $25 of his current outstanding grocery bill this month, but he suddenly starts to pretend his call is with a male client, when his friend the town police chief John Wallace (William Schallert) stops by, but Wallace is not fooled. It is evident Cobb has no work and is very short of money. Invited to do so, he helps himself to the whiskey from the bottle hidden on the filing cabinet.Cobb is late back and Billie is angry that hes late. Nancy is practising at the piano. Billie tells him that Harold has written another letter home, which Billie reads out to him, all except for the endearments at the end (what Cobb and Nancy always call mushy love stuff). We learn briefly about how all such letters from forces in war were censored, as Harold cannot say where he is (Nancy knows they are in France); however he says the locals all speak French, and that part of the letter isnt censored, a point not lost on Nancy.Cobb finishes his dinner, gets the letter, and steps outside onto the front porch to read it again. He immediately notices Doc Hansen who is evidently drunk, leaning against a lamppost right in front of Cobbs house and sinking to the ground in the pool of light it casts on him. Cobb runs over to help him. Doc says something about dead soldiers. We know he has been fishing with Clarence, for which he took along a lot of beer. Cobb gathers that Doc is afraid to go home to his wife Edna Mae in his present state, but he wont let Cobb give him the generous amount of hot coffee Cobb says he needs to sober up. Cobb has to let Doc wander off into the night as he is.Next morning, Harmon Cobb is watering his tree when John Wallace drives by to tell him that Doc is dead, killed in the night. Soon a cavalcade of automobiles with motorcycle MP (military police) outriders swings into Lincoln Bluff bringing a German prisoner to the town courthouse. Harmon Cobb is in the diner telling his friends that the town is full of US marshals and that he heard Clarence Darrow would be the only lawyer able to defend the German prisoner except he has been dead six years. The jokes laughter is interrupted when one of those US Marshall (Rick Zahradnik) walks in, shows his badge and asks Cobb to go with him.Cobb is taken to the town courthouse. The death has indeed been made a federal case: some very young US attorneys, some federal marshals, and an elderly federal judge by the name of Bell (thats B E L L) have arrived in town. The judge (Harry Morgan) proceeds to tell Cobb that he has been chosen to represent the German prisoner of war, one Hauptfeldwebel Wilhelm Geiger (the judge does not know the name, and asks one of the young federal lawyers (Stephen West ) to read it out; then he asks what the rank means and is told it is German for Sergeant. (It is actually a senior sergeant rank, the British equivalent being something like Company Sergeant Major.) The judge says well why didnt you say so?!The judge then tells him that the President of the USA has ordered that this man be tried in public, in a civil court, with all the visible evidence of fairness that can be developed, in order to provide an example of American justice in a trial on a capital offence. This aims to provide something with which to bargain for the lives of three Americans who are on trial for their lives in Darmstadt, Germany. Harmon Cobb is not at all keen to act as this mans defence lawyer and says so; the judge tells him to wait and announces to the room that Cobb and he are going for a stroll. They proceed on a tour of the spacious, almost palatial courthouse building which is everywhere bustling with activity: people rushing about and porters bringing in filing cabinets on trolleys. They take a ride upstairs in an elevator, ending up in the courtroom itself.Cobb has to tell the judge why he doesnt want the job: he has to live in the town and anyone seen defending the German prisoner in this murder case will be a pariah. Also he is only qualified to do it, being a member of the New York district bar, because the certificate looked good on my wall. He claims to know nothing of federal court procedures. But Judge Bell is not going to allow Cobb to turn the job down. Evidently the judges aim is to have Cobb take part because he is just an obviously unsuccessful small town lawyer so he will not complicate the business of prosecuting the prisoner, quickly finding him guilty and condemning him to capital punishment quite soon so as to meet this ulterior requirement; and yet Cobbs ineffectuality will not be known to anyone further afield or abroad, so that the piece of theatre will not be affected. The judge tells Cobb he will be paid several thousand dollars as a fee and that he knows he needs the money. He also tells him that if he still refuses. He will debar him (force him to resign) and then have him thrown into jail for contempt for good measure, and that Cobb can tell his friends in town that the judge forced him to do the job. Cobb has no choice but to accept. The first hearing is to be at 3.00 that afternoon.Cobb is very unhappy. He sets out into the corridor and meets federal prosecutor Domsczek (Robert Carradine) who is directing porters setting up his office. He summarizes for Cobb the evidence against the defendant. Meanwhile it also emerges that Cobb never went to law school: He studied alone (like Abe Lincoln) and also split rails and wrestled; whereas the young hotshot went to Harvard.Cobb goes to see the defendant, Geiger (Peter Firth). Geiger is hostile and dismissive. At this time, he just recites his name rank and serial number, plus regiment. Cobb turns round and leaves, as the prisoner repeats his recitation over and over. In the diner bar, his supposed friends have already heard the news and are not speaking to him. One even gets up and leaves, and the waitress suggests a German dish instead of his usual. Already Cobb has to protest loudly that the federal judge told him hed throw him in jail if he didnt take the job. The others, including Clarence Heathcote (Douglas Rowe) and John Wallace, take that seriously and accept Cobb had no choice. He goes on: All Im going to do is make sure that snotty prosecutor doesnt make me look like a hick; then Im going to go watch the hanging. I may even ask to spring the trap door. Wallace asks what hes going to do to put up any sort of defence. Cobb jokes his star witness will be Ay-dolf Hitler.Cobb drives out to the POW camp, Camp Bremen, meets Major Lilly (Joe Horváth) and is shown the dispensary where Doc Hansen was killed. Now, in contrast to the diner, Cobb says little and lets Lilly do the talking. The major is mainly concerned that Cobb understand the Docs death was not his (the majors) responsibility; that the camp is excellently run, but that Geiger was always trouble, and even has the Iron Cross for being a good Nazi.Cobb is taken to see prisoners of war working on open ground. He is looking for men who know Geiger and can speak for him as character witnesses. Different groups of Germans in different uniforms are evidently being extremely cautious about saying anything. One first says he doesnt speak English, then when the farmer for whom they are working says he does, the man asks, in English, whether he is being ordered to do this. Cobb leaves with suspicion growing that there is something odd about the case.When he arrives home, Cobb finds Billie scrubbing red painted swastikas off the front of their house. There are also silent phone calls. Nancy had a fight at school and is nursing a cut lip.Next morning Cobb goes to see Geiger again. He pushes a little: he has to find a defence of some sort. He tells him he wants to know the truth, and that Geiger cannot be in a worse position than he already is (he is facing death for murder) and that he may as well tell him the truth. Geiger says he can admit to the murder, and also to sinking the Lusitania. His is a counsel of despair. Cobb tells him of the visit to Geigers men who wouldnt admit they knew their own Sergeant and would only testify if ordered to. Geiger says Sehr gut. He refuses to order his men to testify: No; I do not want them harmed. Cobb: Nothing is going to happen to them; this is the United States of America! Not in Camp Bremen. Do you want a defence? Then what about the truth? Shall I tell you about the murder of Ernst Schmidt? about the Lager-Gestapo in Camp Bremen? No, you want only vengeance.In a brief scene back at his home with Billie, Harmon Cobb is close to despair. Billie is diligently reading army records trying to help him. He says he has no case: no character witnesses, and if he puts Geiger on the witness stand it will make a travesty of it. If he retires with no defence, that tough old judge will have me shot. I should have been a farmer Maybe, says Billie, you should keep reading.Cobb drives to the courthouse again. Surrounded by news reporters, asked about acting defending the Nazi he says he had no choice and quips a second time about Clarence Darrow. The case starts and we get an abridged view of the hearings beginning with MP Corporal Sweazy (Henry Crowell Jr.): the Doc went to the prison camp after midnight (on the night Cobb had seen him drunk). Major Lilly takes the stand. Allegedly the Doc encountered Geiger, who battered him to death. A baseball bat with the Docs blood and hair on it was subsequently found in Geigers locker. Only one prisoner has been awarded the Iron Cross: Geiger; and this decoration was in the dead Doc Hansens hand, its ribbon torn. At this time Cobb says he has no questions.At home there is another letter from Harold: he has been promoted to sergeant.Next day in court a new doctor describes graphically the terrible damage to the old Docs face and head when he was beaten to death with the baseball bat (which was admitted as exhibit B). The next witness is Hauptfeldwebel Hans Riefenstahl, He says that Sergent Geiger had said to him that it was his duty as a German prisoner of war to be Hitlers angel of death, and to kill any American he could. He says that he is not a member of the National Socialist party but that Geiger is --- so Geiger had told him. (We later learn that both these claims are lies.) Court is adjourned and as he is escorted out of the room he calls out to Cobb: What is the year? You think that it is 1944, dont you? Well, you are wrong. Cobb is left puzzling over this.Just as Harmon Cobb gets home from court, another army officer arrives at Cobbs house: 2nd Lieut. Jack Morton of the Adjutant Generals office. He comes with the news that his son Harold has been killed in action. Cobb has tears in his eyes as he says hell tell Billie, for Morton had offered to stay and do so. Cobb goes back to town to ask the judge to be relieved, but the judge insists he continue as the defence lawyer. But Judge Bell grants him a continuance, meaning an interruption of court sessions until the following Monday --- today being Wednesday, meaning they get a four day weekend. Take care of yourself, says Bell. He says he will be away at his home (in Denver; so he is resident in the same state).We see nothing of the next two days, but on Saturday morning Harold S. Cobbs dad is still in mourning and despair. Nancy finds Cobb sitting inside his chicken house in the back yard, with his face up against the chicken wire. She begs him to take her fishing, saying she is upset too and Mum says it will do them both good. Go away, Nancy. Please dont be mad at me, Grandpa; Im sad too.We next see them standing in the river in the sunshine, with their rods, like seasoned anglers. Nancy has a bite, and reels in a hefty rainbow trout (about 50cm/20 inches long). She admired the beautiful colours and begs to keep it. Grandpa Cobb explains that if they keep him the trout will die and the colours will disappear. So Nancy decides to let him go so he will continue to have his beautiful colours and they can always remember what he was like while he was alive. Its a moment of happiness in their shared grief. Cobb removes the hook and, released, the trout swims away.They arrive home that afternoon in heavy rain, to find Clarence Heathcote waiting. He starts, pacing nervously up and down the porch, to ask what will happen next week in the case. I suppose theres no doubt about Geigers guilt though hes officially innocent until etc. --- the American way. He is clearly uneasy and wants to talk to Cobb about something specific but goes away without doing so.But later, around 3 a.m., John Wallace turns up with something to show Cobb. Clarence Heathcote had given it to him having only just found it in his tackle box the previous morning and then chickened out of giving it to Harmon Cobb himself. It is a small sheet of paper with something written on it by the Doc when they (Doc and Clarence) were out fishing the afternoon before he got so drunk and then was murdered. Billie is also up now, in her dressing gown, and Cobb shares his worries about what he fears the death of Doc Hansen was really about. He sits thinking till she comes down again at dawn. Then at 6 a.m. on Sunday morning Cobb calls Major Lilly at the camp and asks about Corporal Ernst Schmidt. Lilly says he had only been at Camp Bremen a week but had then died of natural causes.That morning, Cobb finds Doc Hansens widow Edna Mae (Helen Stenborg) sitting in the park. He asks her whether her husband George ever mentioned Corporal Ernst Schmidt. Edna Mae takes the view that Cobb is wrong to be acting for the German at all and disgusted that he should make any attempt to see Geiger go free. She admits Doc was scared to death about something, but asked why only says ask your client why. She tells him that Geiger pushed George down and that Doc George reported this to Major Lilly. As far as Edna Mae is concerned, Geiger murdered her husband. He last words as she gets up and walks away briskly are I dont think you have a right to call yourself an American any more. Everything we know about Cobb right from that speech seen in the first minute of the movie tell us how much this affects him.Cobb goes to talk to Geiger for the third time. The other day you tried to tell me about Ernst Schmidt; I wasnt interested, but now I am. So Geiger tells Cobb about the camp gang, the small group who are Nazi party members (in court their leader Riefenstahl denied being one and said that Geiger was one) and that they operate with the connivance of Major Lilly. He says the Nazi gang, the prison camp arm of the Gestapo, are called the Lager-Gestapo or the Heilige Geist (Holy Ghost). Riefenstahl and his Holy Ghost visit you in the night and kill you if you speak against Hitler. He says that this is why he asked what year it was: In Berlin it is 1944 but in Camp Bremen it is 1941. The Lager-Gestapo tell the other prisoners that Germany is winning the war. Geiger and his men were the first new arrivals in over a year. They had seen what life was like in Germany now: Germany is losing the war but the Lager-Gestapo still tell the prisoners in Camp Bremen that they are winning. They instil fear. Major Lilly, Geiger now goes on to say, needs the Lager-Gestapo to maintain fear and therefore order, for he cannot.Geiger now explains how Ernst Schmidt had said something disrespectful about Hermann Goering and had disappeared in the night; he had gone to bed in good health and yet when Geiger went to ask Major Lilly what had happened to Schmidt, Lilly told him Schmidt had died in the infirmary in the night of natural causes. Geiger had then gone to see the doctor. Doc Hansen had signed the death certificate, with the natural causes. I put my hands on him and I can hurt him but no, I stop. Then the doctor called the Major and Geiger had gone away. Next morning, he awakes to be told he is under arrest for the murder of Doc Hansen. But I did not murder Doctor Hansen.So now Cobb goes out to Bremen to see Lilly, but the Major stonewalls him: there was no assault by Geiger on the Doc that particular afternoon, no letter Doc Hansen wrote before he died; then he says he has no time for him and shuts the door in Cobbs face so he returns home to Billie. She starts again on looking at army prison camp paperwork. That evening John Cobb is there, with Nancy on his knee. Cobb walks to and fro and Billie studies reports and makes notes, telling them to be quiet as shes concentrating. They are discussing why Lilly denies the incident of Geiger accosting Doc Hansen, and why Domsczek has not raised the matter in court. Meanwhile Billie discovers that, whereas in all the other prisoner of war camps run by the army in the US there are odd numbers of deaths for various reasons, at the local camp there are only deaths from natural causes --- the cause of death recorded for Ernst Schmidt. And there have been eight such deaths. Also of all the prisoner of war camps, Bremen is the only one with no escape attempts.Cobb and Wallace decide they have to go to the camp and look at the medical records of these eight who died deaths from natural causes. It is late evening but they drive out to the camp and persuade the young military police corporal Sweazy at the gates to let them in, saying when he attempts to ask the Major for permission that they work for the federal government and that the Major himself is under investigation by the US government. They are allowed in.They find the Docs office, and the records of the eight dead men, and note that all were handed over to the same undertaker in the town for burial: Shoat. They are then surprised by three German prisoners wielding baseball bats who advance menacingly. Wallace draws his gun and orders them to back off and get out. Then he and Cobb leave quickly. They ask the Corporal about the men inside. They are responsible for security inside the perimeter fence during the hours of night (from taps till reveille). He and the MPs are responsible for security outside the perimeter fence only, during those hours.When the court resumes, Cobb asks Major Lilly when he appears as a witness whether the Doc put a phone call through to him during the day before his fateful visit to the camp. On that occasion Geiger had found him and pushed him down about the death of Schmidt, but had then gone back to quarters. Major Lilly says no phone call was put through to him. He also says he looked at bodies of the prisoners who had died before they were taken away, and that Schmidts body looked normal.Cobb wants to introduce the sheet of paper but the judge immediately suspends the hearing and calls a meeting in chambers. He says, with Cobb only but the young prosecuting counsel insists on being there. When the judge says he will not let Cobb show the paper and risk delaying or preventing the quick guilty verdict he wants, the prosecutor says HE will call for its admittance and if denied will move for declaring a mistrial. The judge is forced to go along with Cobb and try to get the truth.Back in court, Cobb calls Clarence and has him explain where the paper came from, and to read it out. It appears that the natural causes deaths are a cover-up for murder of the dead men by the German camp security gang with the baseball bats. If any of the Germans steps out of line, such as making any adverse reference to the Nazi system or the Hitler regime, they are punished, possibly killed.The MP Corporal gives evidence that they only patrol outside the fence at night, the German gang patrolling inside. An officer under Major Lilly states that a phone call from the Doc was put through to Major Lilly on the day in question. The town undertaker Shoat (Charles Hudson) --- the name on all the natural causes death certificates in the Camp Bremen dispensary --- is called, and he states that the dead Corporal Ernst Schmidt had broken arms and his head was battered in (as from murder by battery with baseball bats). Then the Major is recalled and Cobb asks him whether he wishes to change his evidence that no call was put through to him. He caves in.The body of Schmidt is exhumed with the lawyers, the judge, the defendant and all watching; and when they open the box (the coffin looks like the most basic rectangular, plywood crate) and look on what is inside all are shocked; the judge simply asks Geiger if that is Schmidt, and he says it is. Nobody else speaks. All we see is their faces as they stare down, the camera being in the grave hole just next to the coffin. The judge orders the coffin re-buried but the exhumation of the remaining natural causes coffins for examination.The next thing we see is the gate of the prison camp. The ordinary German soldier prisoners are behind the wire looking out. The Lager-Gestapo prisoners are being marched out under close US army MP armed guard to a prison bus.After thay have gone Cobb is driven up to the gates with the young prosecutor. He hs come to say goodbye to Geiger who is back among his fellow prisoners. Geiger says to Cobb: You saved my life.The final scene is a funeral service by a gravestone in the name of Harold. Cobb, Billie and Nancy stand there, Billie and Nancy in tears as Clarence says a few words.The camera moves back to show the scene of the graveyard on a grassy slope with the group in a corner almost under a stand of trees, which remains as the background image for the closing titles of the movie.

"Prisoners have rights. Even prisoners who would deny those rights. Nazis, for example, have the right to a fair trial when accused in an American court."It is 1944. Harmon J. Cobb (Walter Matthau) is a lawyer in the small town of Lincoln Bluff in Colorado. His son Harold, in peacetime a school teacher, is away in France with the U.S. Army. Cobb lives with Harolds wife Billie (Susan Blakely) (who calls him Dad) and their daughter Nancy (Ariana Richards), who is about eleven years old and is evidently very fond of her grandpa.The opening scene could be in Germany in the early 1940s: a detachment of German servicemen in various uniforms --- Wehrmacht (army) and Luftwaffe (air force) --- are carrying a coffin draped in the Third Reich (Nazi swastika) flag through a stretch of scrubby woodland to burial. One man at the head of the group is carrying before him, like a banner, a wooden marker in the shape of a German cross and with the inscription. in Schwartzschrift (the traditional angular lettering used in Germany until after World War II), Unteroffizier Ernst Schmidt. This was an NCO: in the Wehrmacht an Unteroffizier would be a sergeant; in the Luftwaffe it corresponds to a corporal (RAF) or an airman first class (USAF). As the first of the movies titles appears in front of the picture, the scene switches to a town meeting in the open air, with a makeshift stage under an awning and a sizeable audience seated on rows of folding chairs, listening to Cobb who is at a microphone, addressing them through a public address system: Soldiers like me . Well my friends America is the greatest nation that ever existed under the sun. So we are to know that Cobb is a World War I US army veteran and a patriot, and also that he is well known to everyone in town. The crowd includes his daughter-in-law Billie and granddaughter Nancy (who is holding a rod with a stars and stripes flag --- a foot wide, not one of those tiny ones) and a fair number of soldiers in uniform, as well as civilian citizens of the town. This is an occasion with all the trimmings. Cobb talks of the death in Europe of one of his comrades in arms. Then the band plays America and everyone sings the anthem.The scene cuts between this speech at the meeting, and the German military detail which proceeds with the burial of Unteroffizier Schmidt. Here too a speech is going on: the speaker, Hauptfeldwebel Hans Riefenstahl (as we will later meet him) (Norbert Weisser), is clearly a Nazi, referring reverently, as he does, to the Führer. He ends Lang lebe Deutschland (Long live Germany) and all give the Nazi salute. But there are no Americans present here.There is a scene in the saloon we see the other old men of the town, including Doctor George Hansen (Barnard Hughes) a local physician who, we gather, also has to work at the nearby Camp Bremen, which holds German prisoners of war. We gather that the townsfolk hate Germans including the prisoners of war because so many of them have sons away fighting in the war. When Doc Hansen arrives the men ask how many more prisoners were on the latest trainload. About a hundred; the Doc starts to say something else about the Germans then changes his mind and ends with What I learn at the camp stays at the camp and then asks one, Clarence Heathcote, whether the two of them are going fishing. He says hell bring the beer.Harmon Cobb who is also there gets up to leave, saying dryly Thanks for the conversation but he has a client to see. Knowing him too well for that, they ask whether the client is Jim Beam or Jack Daniels. Back in his office we see Cobb on the phone begging the store proprietress (a Miss Barnes) to allow him to pay only $25 of his current outstanding grocery bill this month, but he suddenly starts to pretend his call is with a male client, when his friend the town police chief John Wallace (William Schallert) stops by, but Wallace is not fooled. It is evident Cobb has no work and is very short of money. Invited to do so, he helps himself to the whiskey from the bottle hidden on the filing cabinet.Cobb is late back and Billie is angry that hes late. Nancy is practising at the piano. Billie tells him that Harold has written another letter home, which Billie reads out to him, all except for the endearments at the end (what Cobb and Nancy always call mushy love stuff). We learn briefly about how all such letters from forces in war were censored, as Harold cannot say where he is (Nancy knows they are in France); however he says the locals all speak French, and that part of the letter isnt censored, a point not lost on Nancy.Cobb finishes his dinner, gets the letter, and steps outside onto the front porch to read it again. He immediately notices Doc Hansen who is evidently drunk, leaning against a lamppost right in front of Cobbs house and sinking to the ground in the pool of light it casts on him. Cobb runs over to help him. Doc says something about dead soldiers. We know he has been fishing with Clarence, for which he took along a lot of beer. Cobb gathers that Doc is afraid to go home to his wife Edna Mae in his present state, but he wont let Cobb give him the generous amount of hot coffee Cobb says he needs to sober up. Cobb has to let Doc wander off into the night as he is.Next morning, Harmon Cobb is watering his tree when John Wallace drives by to tell him that Doc is dead, killed in the night. Soon a cavalcade of automobiles with motorcycle MP (military police) outriders swings into Lincoln Bluff bringing a German prisoner to the town courthouse. Harmon Cobb is in the diner telling his friends that the town is full of US marshals and that he heard Clarence Darrow would be the only lawyer able to defend the German prisoner except he has been dead six years. The jokes laughter is interrupted when one of those US Marshall (Rick Zahradnik) walks in, shows his badge and asks Cobb to go with him.Cobb is taken to the town courthouse. The death has indeed been made a federal case: some very young US attorneys, some federal marshals, and an elderly federal judge by the name of Bell (thats B E L L) have arrived in town. The judge (Harry Morgan) proceeds to tell Cobb that he has been chosen to represent the German prisoner of war, one Hauptfeldwebel Wilhelm Geiger (the judge does not know the name, and asks one of the young federal lawyers (Stephen West ) to read it out; then he asks what the rank means and is told it is German for Sergeant. (It is actually a senior sergeant rank, the British equivalent being something like Company Sergeant Major.) The judge says well why didnt you say so?!The judge then tells him that the President of the USA has ordered that this man be tried in public, in a civil court, with all the visible evidence of fairness that can be developed, in order to provide an example of American justice in a trial on a capital offence. This aims to provide something with which to bargain for the lives of three Americans who are on trial for their lives in Darmstadt, Germany. Harmon Cobb is not at all keen to act as this mans defence lawyer and says so; the judge tells him to wait and announces to the room that Cobb and he are going for a stroll. They proceed on a tour of the spacious, almost palatial courthouse building which is everywhere bustling with activity: people rushing about and porters bringing in filing cabinets on trolleys. They take a ride upstairs in an elevator, ending up in the courtroom itself.Cobb has to tell the judge why he doesnt want the job: he has to live in the town and anyone seen defending the German prisoner in this murder case will be a pariah. Also he is only qualified to do it, being a member of the New York district bar, because the certificate looked good on my wall. He claims to know nothing of federal court procedures. But Judge Bell is not going to allow Cobb to turn the job down. Evidently the judges aim is to have Cobb take part because he is just an obviously unsuccessful small town lawyer so he will not complicate the business of prosecuting the prisoner, quickly finding him guilty and condemning him to capital punishment quite soon so as to meet this ulterior requirement; and yet Cobbs ineffectuality will not be known to anyone further afield or abroad, so that the piece of theatre will not be affected. The judge tells Cobb he will be paid several thousand dollars as a fee and that he knows he needs the money. He also tells him that if he still refuses. He will debar him (force him to resign) and then have him thrown into jail for contempt for good measure, and that Cobb can tell his friends in town that the judge forced him to do the job. Cobb has no choice but to accept. The first hearing is to be at 3.00 that afternoon.Cobb is very unhappy. He sets out into the corridor and meets federal prosecutor Domsczek (Robert Carradine) who is directing porters setting up his office. He summarizes for Cobb the evidence against the defendant. Meanwhile it also emerges that Cobb never went to law school: He studied alone (like Abe Lincoln) and also split rails and wrestled; whereas the young hotshot went to Harvard.Cobb goes to see the defendant, Geiger (Peter Firth). Geiger is hostile and dismissive. At this time, he just recites his name rank and serial number, plus regiment. Cobb turns round and leaves, as the prisoner repeats his recitation over and over. In the diner bar, his supposed friends have already heard the news and are not speaking to him. One even gets up and leaves, and the waitress suggests a German dish instead of his usual. Already Cobb has to protest loudly that the federal judge told him hed throw him in jail if he didnt take the job. The others, including Clarence Heathcote (Douglas Rowe) and John Wallace, take that seriously and accept Cobb had no choice. He goes on: All Im going to do is make sure that snotty prosecutor doesnt make me look like a hick; then Im going to go watch the hanging. I may even ask to spring the trap door. Wallace asks what hes going to do to put up any sort of defence. Cobb jokes his star witness will be Ay-dolf Hitler.Cobb drives out to the POW camp, Camp Bremen, meets Major Lilly (Joe Horváth) and is shown the dispensary where Doc Hansen was killed. Now, in contrast to the diner, Cobb says little and lets Lilly do the talking. The major is mainly concerned that Cobb understand the Docs death was not his (the majors) responsibility; that the camp is excellently run, but that Geiger was always trouble, and even has the Iron Cross for being a good Nazi.Cobb is taken to see prisoners of war working on open ground. He is looking for men who know Geiger and can speak for him as character witnesses. Different groups of Germans in different uniforms are evidently being extremely cautious about saying anything. One first says he doesnt speak English, then when the farmer for whom they are working says he does, the man asks, in English, whether he is being ordered to do this. Cobb leaves with suspicion growing that there is something odd about the case.When he arrives home, Cobb finds Billie scrubbing red painted swastikas off the front of their house. There are also silent phone calls. Nancy had a fight at school and is nursing a cut lip.Next morning Cobb goes to see Geiger again. He pushes a little: he has to find a defence of some sort. He tells him he wants to know the truth, and that Geiger cannot be in a worse position than he already is (he is facing death for murder) and that he may as well tell him the truth. Geiger says he can admit to the murder, and also to sinking the Lusitania. His is a counsel of despair. Cobb tells him of the visit to Geigers men who wouldnt admit they knew their own Sergeant and would only testify if ordered to. Geiger says Sehr gut. He refuses to order his men to testify: No; I do not want them harmed. Cobb: Nothing is going to happen to them; this is the United States of America! Not in Camp Bremen. Do you want a defence? Then what about the truth? Shall I tell you about the murder of Ernst Schmidt? about the Lager-Gestapo in Camp Bremen? No, you want only vengeance.In a brief scene back at his home with Billie, Harmon Cobb is close to despair. Billie is diligently reading army records trying to help him. He says he has no case: no character witnesses, and if he puts Geiger on the witness stand it will make a travesty of it. If he retires with no defence, that tough old judge will have me shot. I should have been a farmer Maybe, says Billie, you should keep reading.Cobb drives to the courthouse again. Surrounded by news reporters, asked about acting defending the Nazi he says he had no choice and quips a second time about Clarence Darrow. The case starts and we get an abridged view of the hearings beginning with MP Corporal Sweazy (Henry Crowell Jr.): the Doc went to the prison camp after midnight (on the night Cobb had seen him drunk). Major Lilly takes the stand. Allegedly the Doc encountered Geiger, who battered him to death. A baseball bat with the Docs blood and hair on it was subsequently found in Geigers locker. Only one prisoner has been awarded the Iron Cross: Geiger; and this decoration was in the dead Doc Hansens hand, its ribbon torn. At this time Cobb says he has no questions.At home there is another letter from Harold: he has been promoted to sergeant.Next day in court a new doctor describes graphically the terrible damage to the old Docs face and head when he was beaten to death with the baseball bat (which was admitted as exhibit B). The next witness is Hauptfeldwebel Hans Riefenstahl, He says that Sergent Geiger had said to him that it was his duty as a German prisoner of war to be Hitlers angel of death, and to kill any American he could. He says that he is not a member of the National Socialist party but that Geiger is --- so Geiger had told him. (We later learn that both these claims are lies.) Court is adjourned and as he is escorted out of the room he calls out to Cobb: What is the year? You think that it is 1944, dont you? Well, you are wrong. Cobb is left puzzling over this.Just as Harmon Cobb gets home from court, another army officer arrives at Cobbs house: 2nd Lieut. Jack Morton of the Adjutant Generals office. He comes with the news that his son Harold has been killed in action. Cobb has tears in his eyes as he says hell tell Billie, for Morton had offered to stay and do so. Cobb goes back to town to ask the judge to be relieved, but the judge insists he continue as the defence lawyer. But Judge Bell grants him a continuance, meaning an interruption of court sessions until the following Monday --- today being Wednesday, meaning they get a four day weekend. Take care of yourself, says Bell. He says he will be away at his home (in Denver; so he is resident in the same state).We see nothing of the next two days, but on Saturday morning Harold S. Cobbs dad is still in mourning and despair. Nancy finds Cobb sitting inside his chicken house in the back yard, with his face up against the chicken wire. She begs him to take her fishing, saying she is upset too and Mum says it will do them both good. Go away, Nancy. Please dont be mad at me, Grandpa; Im sad too.We next see them standing in the river in the sunshine, with their rods, like seasoned anglers. Nancy has a bite, and reels in a hefty rainbow trout (about 50cm/20 inches long). She admired the beautiful colours and begs to keep it. Grandpa Cobb explains that if they keep him the trout will die and the colours will disappear. So Nancy decides to let him go so he will continue to have his beautiful colours and they can always remember what he was like while he was alive. Its a moment of happiness in their shared grief. Cobb removes the hook and, released, the trout swims away.They arrive home that afternoon in heavy rain, to find Clarence Heathcote waiting. He starts, pacing nervously up and down the porch, to ask what will happen next week in the case. I suppose theres no doubt about Geigers guilt though hes officially innocent until etc. --- the American way. He is clearly uneasy and wants to talk to Cobb about something specific but goes away without doing so.But later, around 3 a.m., John Wallace turns up with something to show Cobb. Clarence Heathcote had given it to him having only just found it in his tackle box the previous morning and then chickened out of giving it to Harmon Cobb himself. It is a small sheet of paper with something written on it by the Doc when they (Doc and Clarence) were out fishing the afternoon before he got so drunk and then was murdered. Billie is also up now, in her dressing gown, and Cobb shares his worries about what he fears the death of Doc Hansen was really about. He sits thinking till she comes down again at dawn. Then at 6 a.m. on Sunday morning Cobb calls Major Lilly at the camp and asks about Corporal Ernst Schmidt. Lilly says he had only been at Camp Bremen a week but had then died of natural causes.That morning, Cobb finds Doc Hansens widow Edna Mae (Helen Stenborg) sitting in the park. He asks her whether her husband George ever mentioned Corporal Ernst Schmidt. Edna Mae takes the view that Cobb is wrong to be acting for the German at all and disgusted that he should make any attempt to see Geiger go free. She admits Doc was scared to death about something, but asked why only says ask your client why. She tells him that Geiger pushed George down and that Doc George reported this to Major Lilly. As far as Edna Mae is concerned, Geiger murdered her husband. He last words as she gets up and walks away briskly are I dont think you have a right to call yourself an American any more. Everything we know about Cobb right from that speech seen in the first minute of the movie tell us how much this affects him.Cobb goes to talk to Geiger for the third time. The other day you tried to tell me about Ernst Schmidt; I wasnt interested, but now I am. So Geiger tells Cobb about the camp gang, the small group who are Nazi party members (in court their leader Riefenstahl denied being one and said that Geiger was one) and that they operate with the connivance of Major Lilly. He says the Nazi gang, the prison camp arm of the Gestapo, are called the Lager-Gestapo or the Heilige Geist (Holy Ghost). Riefenstahl and his Holy Ghost visit you in the night and kill you if you speak against Hitler. He says that this is why he asked what year it was: In Berlin it is 1944 but in Camp Bremen it is 1941. The Lager-Gestapo tell the other prisoners that Germany is winning the war. Geiger and his men were the first new arrivals in over a year. They had seen what life was like in Germany now: Germany is losing the war but the Lager-Gestapo still tell the prisoners in Camp Bremen that they are winning. They instil fear. Major Lilly, Geiger now goes on to say, needs the Lager-Gestapo to maintain fear and therefore order, for he cannot.Geiger now explains how Ernst Schmidt had said something disrespectful about Hermann Goering and had disappeared in the night; he had gone to bed in good health and yet when Geiger went to ask Major Lilly what had happened to Schmidt, Lilly told him Schmidt had died in the infirmary in the night of natural causes. Geiger had then gone to see the doctor. Doc Hansen had signed the death certificate, with the natural causes. I put my hands on him and I can hurt him but no, I stop. Then the doctor called the Major and Geiger had gone away. Next morning, he awakes to be told he is under arrest for the murder of Doc Hansen. But I did not murder Doctor Hansen.So now Cobb goes out to Bremen to see Lilly, but the Major stonewalls him: there was no assault by Geiger on the Doc that particular afternoon, no letter Doc Hansen wrote before he died; then he says he has no time for him and shuts the door in Cobbs face so he returns home to Billie. She starts again on looking at army prison camp paperwork. That evening John Cobb is there, with Nancy on his knee. Cobb walks to and fro and Billie studies reports and makes notes, telling them to be quiet as shes concentrating. They are discussing why Lilly denies the incident of Geiger accosting Doc Hansen, and why Domsczek has not raised the matter in court. Meanwhile Billie discovers that, whereas in all the other prisoner of war camps run by the army in the US there are odd numbers of deaths for various reasons, at the local camp there are only deaths from natural causes --- the cause of death recorded for Ernst Schmidt. And there have been eight such deaths. Also of all the prisoner of war camps, Bremen is the only one with no escape attempts.Cobb and Wallace decide they have to go to the camp and look at the medical records of these eight who died deaths from natural causes. It is late evening but they drive out to the camp and persuade the young military police corporal Sweazy at the gates to let them in, saying when he attempts to ask the Major for permission that they work for the federal government and that the Major himself is under investigation by the US government. They are allowed in.They find the Docs office, and the records of the eight dead men, and note that all were handed over to the same undertaker in the town for burial: Shoat. They are then surprised by three German prisoners wielding baseball bats who advance menacingly. Wallace draws his gun and orders them to back off and get out. Then he and Cobb leave quickly. They ask the Corporal about the men inside. They are responsible for security inside the perimeter fence during the hours of night (from taps till reveille). He and the MPs are responsible for security outside the perimeter fence only, during those hours.When the court resumes, Cobb asks Major Lilly when he appears as a witness whether the Doc put a phone call through to him during the day before his fateful visit to the camp. On that occasion Geiger had found him and pushed him down about the death of Schmidt, but had then gone back to quarters. Major Lilly says no phone call was put through to him. He also says he looked at bodies of the prisoners who had died before they were taken away, and that Schmidts body looked normal.Cobb wants to introduce the sheet of paper but the judge immediately suspends the hearing and calls a meeting in chambers. He says, with Cobb only but the young prosecuting counsel insists on being there. When the judge says he will not let Cobb show the paper and risk delaying or preventing the quick guilty verdict he wants, the prosecutor says HE will call for its admittance and if denied will move for declaring a mistrial. The judge is forced to go along with Cobb and try to get the truth.Back in court, Cobb calls Clarence and has him explain where the paper came from, and to read it out. It appears that the natural causes deaths are a cover-up for murder of the dead men by the German camp security gang with the baseball bats. If any of the Germans steps out of line, such as making any adverse reference to the Nazi system or the Hitler regime, they are punished, possibly killed.The MP Corporal gives evidence that they only patrol outside the fence at night, the German gang patrolling inside. An officer under Major Lilly states that a phone call from the Doc was put through to Major Lilly on the day in question. The town undertaker Shoat (Charles Hudson) --- the name on all the natural causes death certificates in the Camp Bremen dispensary --- is called, and he states that the dead Corporal Ernst Schmidt had broken arms and his head was battered in (as from murder by battery with baseball bats). Then the Major is recalled and Cobb asks him whether he wishes to change his evidence that no call was put through to him. He caves in.The body of Schmidt is exhumed with the lawyers, the judge, the defendant and all watching; and when they open the box (the coffin looks like the most basic rectangular, plywood crate) and look on what is inside all are shocked; the judge simply asks Geiger if that is Schmidt, and he says it is. Nobody else speaks. All we see is their faces as they stare down, the camera being in the grave hole just next to the coffin. The judge orders the coffin re-buried but the exhumation of the remaining natural causes coffins for examination.The next thing we see is the gate of the prison camp. The ordinary German soldier prisoners are behind the wire looking out. The Lager-Gestapo prisoners are being marched out under close US army MP armed guard to a prison bus.After thay have gone Cobb is driven up to the gates with the young prosecutor. He hs come to say goodbye to Geiger who is back among his fellow prisoners. Geiger says to Cobb: You saved my life.The final scene is a funeral service by a gravestone in the name of Harold. Cobb, Billie and Nancy stand there, Billie and Nancy in tears as Clarence says a few words.The camera moves back to show the scene of the graveyard on a grassy slope with the group in a corner almost under a stand of trees, which remains as the background image for the closing titles of the movie.

Published Time: 2020-07-21 09:47:53