The Trial (1948)

Director
G.W. Pabst

Main cast
Ernst Deutsch; Ewald Balser; Marianne Schönauer; Josef Meinrad; Heinz Moog

Genres
Drama

Description
In 1882 a country girl disappears from a small Hungarian village. The inhabitants suggest that she was murdered by the Jews. Everything is done to accuse them before the trial. A study in stubbornness, racism and intolerance and how to fight against it.


Similar movies

Known as the best satire about communism, banned for over a decade in Hungary. 'The Witness' has become a cult classic, well received by critics and general audiences when it was finally released outside of Hungary. 'The Witness' takes place during the height of the Rákosi Era, which was closely modeled after the ruthless and brutal Stalin regime. The film follows the life of an ordinary dike keeper, József Pelikán, who has been caught for illegally slaughtering his pig, Dezsõ. Instead of doing hard time for his "heinous" crime, Pelikán is elevated into an important position, generally reserved for the communist elite. His new benefactor, the mysterious Comrade Virág, is reluctant to reveal the real reason behind Pelikán's preferential treatment. Thus, begins Pelikán's hilarious adventure deep within the "sophisticated" communist society... Until one day, when he gets called for to return the "favour" by falsely testifying against his long-time friend in a mock-up show trial.
A 17th century Hungarian countess embarks on a murderous undertaking, with the belief that bathing in the blood of virgins will preserve her beauty.
A reconstruction of the trial of Joan of Arc (based entirely on the transcripts of the real-life trial), concerning Joan's imprisonment, interrogation and final execution at the hands of the English, filmed in a spare, low-key fashion.
The trial story of Viviane Amsalem's five year fight to obtain her divorce in front of the only legal authority competent for divorce cases in Israel, the Rabbinical Court.
After a wonderful time in Hungary Sissi falls extremely ill and must retreat to a Mediterranean climate to rest. The young empress’ mother takes her from Austria to recover in Madeira.
In order to be reinstated to the bar and recover custody of her daughter, a hotshot lawyer, now in recovery and on probation, must take on the appeal of a woman wrongfully convicted of murder.
During the Boer War, three Australian lieutenants are on trial for shooting Boer prisoners. Though they acted under orders, they are being used as scapegoats by the General Staff, who hopes to distance themselves from the irregular practices of the war. The trial does not progress as smoothly as expected by the General Staff, as the defence puts up a strong fight in the courtroom.
A Communist officer falls hard for a married woman trying to escape from Hungary.
Eva and Max Gruber enjoy a healthy marriage. While she works as a journalist in the cultural sector, he is an independent artist teaching at a local college. The unconventional yet well-liked pedagogue can get his students to enjoy almost anything, even nude drawing. Until one day the police turn up – and accuse him of sexual misconduct. Max and Eva are shocked when the allegation comes at them like a bolt out of the blue. Following several interviews, however, it soon becomes clear that the girl did spend a night at Max’s atelier the previous weekend. Sabine Boss’s TV drama shows how social and media instigation can back a teacher into a corner.
Luke O'Brien, a washed-up salesman turned night law student, decides to sue Satan for $8 trillion dollars. On the last day before Luke files a default judgment, Satan appears to defend himself. On Satan's legal team are 10 of the country's best trial lawyers. The entire world watches on Legal TV to see who will win the Trial of the Century
Set in a detention camp in Hungary in 1869 at a time of guerilla campaigns against the ruling Austrians.
The story takes place in alternative America where the blacks are members of social elite, and whites are inhabitants of inner city ghettos. Louis Pinnock is a white worker in a chocolate factory, loving husband and father of two children. While delivering a package for black CEO Thaddeus Thomas, he is mistaken for a voyeur and, as a result, loses his job, gets beaten by black cops and his family gets evicted from their home. Desperate Pinnock takes a gun and kidnaps Thomas, demanding justice.
Poland 1943: An unlikely pair - a concentration camp prisoner and a captain in Hitler's notorious SS - free themselves from the wreckage of a crashed SS airplane. The two appear to be strangely familiar with each other and the extent of their extraordinary relationship is thrillingly revealed.
The behind-the-scenes true life story of a groundbreaking producer, Milton Fruchtman, and blacklisted TV director Leo Hurwitz who, overcoming enormous obstacles, set out to capture the testimony of one of the war's most notorious Nazis, Adolf Eichmann, who is accused of executing the 'final solution' and organising the murder of 6 million Jews. This is the extraordinary story of how the trial came to be televised and the team that made it happen.
It is the real story of Giorgio Perlasca (Luca Zingaretti). During the 1920s he was an Italian Fascist supporter, fighting in Africa an in the Spanish civil war where he deserved a safe conduct for Spanish embassies. After some years, disillusioned by fascism, he is a fresh supplier for the Italian army. In the war years he is in Budapest for his business. He lives an easy life there, well introduced into the Hungarian high society, without any problem coming from the war situation. When the Nazi occupied Hungary, in 1944, instead to leave (Italy had already surrendered to the Allies) he escaped to the Spanish embassy in Budapest using his old safe conduct and becoming a Spanish citizen, changing name into Jorge Perlasca. He starts working as a diplomat here. When Sanz Briz (Geza Tordy), the Spanish consul, is removed, Perlasca immediately substitutes him, like if he was officially appointed from Spanish authorities... Written by 1felco
This film was directed by Gao Qunshu and is about the International Military Tribunal for the Far East after Japan's surrender in World War II. The movie presents the trial from the point of view of the Chinese judge Mei Ju-ao. The director and his crew spent more than a year doing research to finish the script, which is based on historical data. It cost 18 million yuan (2.25 million U.S. dollars). This film hired actors from 11 countries, including mainland China, Hong Kong, Japan and other places, including actors such as Kenneth Tsang and Damian Lau. They recreated court scenes from the trial in Chinese, English and Japanese. It was shown in cinemas and around 100 universities across mainland China to mark the 75th anniversary of the start of Japan's invasion of China.
Rootless Hungarian émigré Willie, his pal Eddie, and visiting sixteen-year-old cousin Eva always manage to make the least of any situation, whether aimlessly traversing the drab interiors and environs of New York City, Cleveland, or an anonymous Florida suburb.
Hannah Arendt is a portrait of the genius that shook the world with her discovery of “the banality of evil.” After she attends the Nazi Adolf Eichmann’s trial in Jerusalem, Arendt dares to write about the Holocaust in terms no one has ever heard before. Her work instantly provokes a furious scandal, and Arendt stands strong as she is attacked by friends and foes alike. But as the German-Jewish émigré also struggles to suppress her own painful associations with the past, the film exposes her beguiling blend of arrogance and vulnerability — revealing a soul defined and derailed by exile.
Children of Glory will commemorate Hungary's heroic Revolution of 1956, and takes place in Budapest and at the Melbourne Olympic Games in October and November of that year. While Soviet tanks were destroying Hungary, the Hungarian water polo team was winning over the Soviets in the Olympic pool in Melbourne, in what has been described as the bloodiest water polo match in history.
An unassuming office worker is arrested and stands trial, but he is never made aware of his charges.
Iván is living in exile from Hungary when he receives word that an old flame is ill. His return to Budapest rekindles old memories and reopens old wounds.
The Dallas trial of Lee Harvey Oswald, President John F. Kennedy's alleged assassin, is enacted as it might have occurred. After the defense enters pleas of "not guilty" and "not guilty by reason of insanity," 23 witnesses for the prosecution testify. No verdict is returned.
A mentally-challenged guy was put into trial after allegedly raping his teacher. And as Amanda, Julian, and Ronald try to mount a convincing defense, they discover soon that they're all connected in more ways than just the case.
Drawing inspiration from the death-squad murders of several Gypsy families in Hungary in 2008, director Bence Fliegauf's chilling and unforgettable real-life horror story follows a family whose dreams of emigration and escape are suddenly, horribly destroyed.
On the run again, Dr. David Banner is jailed for assault after interrupting a mugging. Blind attorney Matt Murdock enlists Banner's help in locating the muggers because he believes they work for his longtime foe, Fisk, the head of an international crime network. But David, afraid of public exposure, breaks out of jail as the Hulk. Tracking David down, Murdock reveals his own secret: His blindness came from a radioactive spill, and after developing his other senses so incredibly, he has become the amazingly athletic crime fighter called Daredevil. Fisk must now face off against Daredevil and the Incredible Hulk!
Andras Varda grows up in a turbulent, war-torn Hungary, where he procures local girls for the occupying G.I.'s during World War II. Disappointed by girls of his age, he meets Maya, a married women in her thirties, who tutors him in the lessons of love and romance. Maya is only the first of many mature women that Andras will meet through his teenage and young adult life.
Biting political satire starring Robert Lindsay as a beleaguered Tony Blair, who stubbornly refuses to see the danger he faces from a Special Tribunal on Iraq that has been set up to investigate war crimes
The Toth family resides in Northern Hungary. The couple has a daughter and a son, the latter a member of the armed forces. When his weary major is ordered to take a vacation, the son talks him into a visit to his family home. Comedy endues when the Toth's go overboard trying to make things pleasant for the visiting major in hopes of an easier life for their son the soldier.
Joseph K. awakes one morning, to find two strange men in his room, telling him he has been arrested. Joseph is not told what he is charged with, and despite being "arrested," is allowed to remain free and go to work. But despite the strange nature of his arrest, Joseph soon learns that his trial, however odd, is very real, and tries desperately to spare himself from the court's judgement.
Political and sexual repression in Hungary, just after the revolution of 1956. In 1958, the body of Eva Szalanczky, a political journalist, is discovered near the border. Her friend Livia is in hospital with a broken neck; Livia's husband, Donci, is under arrest. In a flashback to the year before, we see what leads up to the tragedy. Eva gets a job as a writer. She meets Livia and is attracted to her. Livia feels much the same, but as a married woman, has doubts and hesitations. In their work, they (and Eva in particular) bang up against the limits of telling political truths; in private, they confront the limits of living out sexual and emotional truth.
A woman is tried for the murder of her lover. Director Bayard Veiller's 1929 courtroom drama stars Norma Shearer, Lewis Stone, Lilyan Tashman and H. B. Warner.
In a small, dilapidated village in 1990s Hungary, life has come to a virtual stand-still. The Autumn rains have started. A few of the villagers expect to receive a large cash payment that evening, and then plan to leave. Some want to abscond earlier with more than their fair share of the money. However they hear that the smooth-talking Irimias, whom they thought had died, is returning. They are apprehensive that he will take all their money in one of his grandiose schemes to keep the community going.
One of the doyennes of Hungarian film deals with a dark period of national history: the Soviet regime in Hungary. She portrays it through the fate of the former prime minister and national hero, Imre Nagy. The script is based on the diary written by Imre Nagy, and the memories of his daughter, Erzsébet Nagy, as well as authentic documents and records.
The fate of a Hungarian Jewish family throughout the 20th century.
Inspired by a true story set in Missouri, "The Trial of Old Drum" tells the story of a valiant golden retriever, Old Drum, an orphan dog that becomes a boy's best friend and is then forced to stand trial for killing a neighbor's sheep.
A Hungarian family forced to flee the Communist country for the United States, must leave a young daughter behind. Six years later the family arranges to bring the absent daughter to the United States where she has trouble adjusting. The daughter then decides to travel to Budapest to discover her identity.
Mary Dugan is a young woman accused of murdering her billionaire lover. In the process, his defense lawyer acts wrongly against them, and is replaced by a young lawyer, the brother of the accused
A story of two young people in Hungary, Jancsi and Kata. First they are good friends, later lovers. Soon after the 1956 Revolution Kata leaves Hungary, Jancsi stays there. After 10 years Jancsi is allowed to visit Kata in France, their love is reborn, but after a short, very happy period Jancsi has to return to Hungary and their love fades as years have gone by.
A sewerage worker's dead body is found inside a manhole in Mumbai. An ageing folk singer is tried in court on charges of abetment of suicide. He is accused of performing an inflammatory song which might have incited the worker to commit the act. As the trial unfolds, the personal lives of the lawyers and the judge involved in the case are observed outside the court.
Budapest in the thirties. The restaurant owner Laszlo hires the pianist András to play in his restaurant. Both men fall in love with the beautiful waitress Ilona who inspires András to his only composition. His song of Gloomy Sunday is, at first, loved and then feared, for its melancholic melody triggers off a chain of suicides. The fragile balance of the erotic ménage à trois is sent off kilter when the German Hans goes and falls in love with Ilona as well.
After Billy Jack in sentenced to four years in prison for the "involuntary manslaughter" of the first film, the Freedom School expands and flourishes under the guidance of Jean Roberts. The utopian existence of the school is characterized by everything ranging from "yoga sports" to muckracking journalism. The diverse student population airs scathing political exposes on their privately owned television station. The narrow-minded townspeople have different ideas about their brand of liberalism. Billy Jack is released and things heat up for the school. Students are threatened and abused and the Native Americans in the neighboring village are taunted and mistreated. After Billy Jack undergoes a vision quest, the governor and the police plot to permanently put an end to their liberal shenanigans, leaving it up to Billy Jack to save the day.
Set in Milan, it tells the story of an immigrant family from the South and its disintegration in the society of the industrial North.
Set during the fading glory of the Austro-Hungarian empire, the film tells of the rise and fall of Alfred Redl (Brandauer), an ambitious young officer who proceeds up the ladder to become head of the Secret Police only to become ensnared in political deception.
NELU, a man in his forties, works as a security guard in the local supermarket in Salonta, a small town on the Romanian-Hungarian border. This is the place where many illegal emigrants try to cross, by any means posible, to Hungary and then further to Western Europe. One morning, NELU will “fish” something different out of the river: a Turkish man trying to cross the border. Not able to communicate verballly, the two men will somehow understand each other. NELU takes the stranger to the farmhouse, gives him some dry clothes, food and shelter. He doesn’t really know how to help this stranger. The Turkish man gives NELU all the money he has on him so he will help him cross the border. Eventually, NELU takes the money and promises he will help him cross the border tomorrow, MORGEN…
Justice Robert H. Jackson leads Allied prosecutors in trying 21 Germans for Nazi war crimes after World War II.
A ruthless inquisitor spins the superstitions of local peasants into religious heresy, finding cause to accuse dozens of innocent men and women of witchcraft. The inquisitor targets nobles and merchants, whose property and goods are then confiscated. After suffering an array of medieval tortures, most of the accused confess–only to be burned alive at the stake as helpless villagers watch. With its bold and striking cinematography, the film captures scenes of both daring nudity and brutal torture
In the mid-1930s a group of Croatian anarchists cross the dense forests at the northern border of Yugoslavia in an effort to seek refuge in Hungary.
This story takes place in a small town on the Hungarian Plain. In a provincial town, which is surrounded with nothing else but frost. It is bitterly cold weather — without snow. Even in this bewildered cold hundreds of people are standing around the circus tent, which is put up in the main square, to see — as the outcome of their wait — the chief attraction, the stuffed carcass of a real whale. The people are coming from everywhere. From the neighboring settlings, even from quite far away parts of the country. They are following this clumsy monster as a dumb, faceless, rag-wearing crowd. This strange state of affairs — the appearance of the foreigners, the extreme frost — disturbs the order of the small town. Ambitious personages of the story feel they can take advantage of this situation. The tension growing to the unbearable is brought to explosion by the figure of the Prince, who is pretending facelessness. Even his mere appearance is enough to break loose destructive emotions...
Vlad Tepes is a great hero, but when he learns the Sultan is preparing for battle and needs to form an army of 1,000 boys, including Vlad's son, he vows to find a way to protect his family. Vlad turns to dark forces in order to get the power to destroy his enemies and agrees to go from hero to monster as he's turned into the mythological vampire Dracula.
Remake of a 1956 Fritz Lang film in which a novelist's investigation of a dirty district attorney leads to a setup within the courtroom.
Having suffered as a boy under a brutal Communist-era coach, champion Hungarian gymnast Miklos moves to Canada years later in search of a new start - only to find himself unwittingly perpetuating the very same cycle of abuse among his own pupils.
Fifteen deaf patients took part in an experimental clinical trail aimed at hearing restoration. Within days, fourteen of the fifteen participants in the trial become violently psychotic, ultimately taking their lives to stop violent side effects brought on by the treatment. This is the story of the sole survivor of the experiment, Patient #14 - Liza Raines, who participation in the experiment gave her super-normal hearing abilities - particularly, the ability to hear the frequency emitted by the brain when it thinks. When her life is suddenly thrown into jeopardy, Liza is forced to use her ability against those set on covering up the fact that she even existed
Judgment at Nuremberg is an American film based on the trials of 4 Nazi judges in Nuremberg Germany in 1948 by an American court.
In the Seventeenth Century, while Hungary is fighting the Turks, the population of a small village in...
Michael needs a change in his life, so when he hears about clinical trials for a new anti-depressant, he signs up to be a guinea pig - without telling his family. Because of dangerous side effects, the trial is subsequently abandoned but Michael continues to take the pills. Having lost all control, Michael's repressed instincts resurface with a force and violence that no-one could have predicted.
When jobless Tommy Collins discovers that sequestered jurors earn free room and board as well as $5-a-day, he gets himself assigned to a jury in a murder trial. Once there, he does everything he can to prolong the trial and deliberations and make the sequestration more comfortable for himself.
A Japanese-American fisherman may have killed his neighbor Carl at sea. In the 1950's, race figures in the trial. So does reporter Ishmael.
The beginning shows Hungary devastated by the war and the postwar reconstruction with its communist government. Our hero (played first by Dániel Erdély and later, as a young man, by András Bálint) is clearly determined to find out what he can about his father who died young. All he knows is that he was a doctor and perhaps he was an honored victim of fascism. He never really finds out but his relationship with his mother, his friends and his Jewish girlfriend will make him totally independent of this need to find all about Apa or Father.
The defense and the prosecution have rested and the jury is filing into the jury room to decide if a young Spanish-American is guilty or innocent of murdering his father. What begins as an open and shut case soon becomes a mini-drama of each of the jurors' prejudices and preconceptions about the trial, the accused, and each other.
Paralleling the dramatic student protests and riots that were exploding across the world in the 1960s at the time the film was made, The Confrontation is a story of protest and rebellion in 1947 Hungary when the Communist Party have just taken power. Jancsó's first colour film is another virtuoso display by a director at the peak of his powers, and eloquently explores the complex issues and inherent problems of revolutionary democracy.

© Valossa 2015–2024