kijii The Man in the Glass Booth is a challenging movie. One finds it difficult to understand completely. First—Some observations: ---The original novel and play of this story were written by actor Robert Shaw, whose inspiration seemed to come from the 1960 abduction of Nazi criminal Adolf Eichmann. Eichmann was captured in Argentina by Mossad, Israel's intelligence service, transferred to Israel, tried there, found guilty of war crimes, and hanged in 1962. ---For some unknown reason, Shaw did not want to have his name credited in the movie. ---Maximilian Schell was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for this movie, filmed by The American Film Theatre. ---It seems to have been hard to find this movie for some time, either on VHS or DVD, but is now available through Amazon Prime streaming (with no extra cost). Personally, I am happy for this since, in my opinion, its dialogue is rich and dense, and several viewings may be necessary-- for me at least--to understand it. Due to another user's comment, I am not alone: ..this film deserves, even demands repeated viewing due to its complex and difficult to understand plot.---Schell presents an over-the-top performance, here, in which he completely dominates all the other actors. ---The play seems to touch on many topics: Religion, Ethics, Morality, and Law (both national and international), ---Finally, the very issue of what sanity and insanity is is explored if it is measured in terms of one's relationship to ones' culture and surroundings. ========================================= Arthur Goldman (Maximilian Schell) is a VERY rich Jewish industrialist who lives in a Manhattan high-rise overlooking his "children"—the many buildings of his empire. His young assistant is Charlie Cohn (Lawrence Pressman) who carries out his orders and listens to his endless ramblings about Christianity, Judaism, sports, and his life in general. While Charlie is looking through Goldman's papers, he is shocked to see a newspaper from November 20, 1964 that is enfolding 2 million dollars in baggies. Why so much cash on hand?!! The "why" of the cash is not as interesting to Goldman as what the old New York Herald Tribune had reported: The Pope had just forgiven the Jews for Christ's killing and should be held absolved of any such crimes. Charlie puts up with a lot of Goldman's ramblings, which often seem to verge on paranoid schizophrenia. Goldman sees people in the street that are not there and imagines that a Mercedes is following his every move. He sees his father in the street pushing a pretzel cart (even though his father had been killed in a Nazi concentration camp in 1943 at the age of 70). Through his top-floor telescope, Goldman also sees, men in Nazi uniforms which sends him into a fit—"Why do I live," he says. However, when Goldman receives a phone call from a wrong number, he goes into action as if he were in danger and needed to prepare for it. He prepares for it as if his own passion play were about to begin. He burns the under surface of his left arm with a candle of his menorah and prepares for the abduction he knows is to come, but why does he do that? His abduction does come when several men--Israeli secret agents (Mossad)--break into his apartment. They search him from head to toe and even throughout his body cavities. Then they take him to Israel for trial on charges of being a Nazi war criminal—Col Dorff. During the trial, he demands the right to argue in his own defense and wear his German uniform. He is placed in a bulletproof glass booth so that no one can harm him during the trial. During the trial, he takes on the personality and arguments as if he were Dorff. He asks probing questions of his accusers as they present experiences of their time in the concentration camp of Dorff. But, what gives them the right to judge him guilty anymore than Christ was judged guilty by a system without any clear-cut legal authority? Where did THEY get their authority? In the end, how can they even prove that he is Dorff? Note: There are many interpretations of this play. If you don't believe me, read the user reviews. I have my theory. What's yours?

LWoodson Long unavailable, it is now obtainable in DVD and holds up rivitingly well 30 years later. My wife and I first saw it in the theatre when a few of the American Film Theatre movies were produced and released--and were absolutely blown away. The movie IS Maximilian Schell. The range, nuance, and dramatic mood shifts he brings to this part, which demands polar opposite emotions, are astonishing. How he was not nominated for an Academy Award (to my knowledge) is unbelievable. His performance is what animates this complicated set of twists and turns and brings enrichment of plot turns to a well crafted story with authentic psychological resonance at the climaxe of the film. Well worth your time! It is fascinating, by the way, to pair this movie with a viewing of "Judgment at Nuremburg" in which Schell plays the defense attorney of Nazi war criminals.

michael h siegel I have viewed this movie many times in a poor quality VHS and now finally on DVD. It's difficult to explain the impact this movie can have and one viewing will not do it. It takes several viewings to really get the plot line. Millionaire Jewish entrepreneur Arthur Goldman rules his financial empire from a penthouse apartment overlooking Manhattan. Seemingly at the edge of sanity, Goldman holds forth on everyting from Papal edicts to ex-wives, from baseball to his family's massacre in a Nazi concentration camp. When Goldman remarks on a blue Mercedes continuously parked outside his building, Goldman's captive audience of assistant and chauffeur dismiss their boss' anxiety as encroaching paranoia. But each of Goldman's passionate, seemingly capricious ravings are transformed into a shocking, inadvertent deposition when Israeli agents capture Goldman and put him on trial as Adolph Dorf, the commandant of the concentration camp where Goldman's family was supposedly exterminated. In a trial scene of unrelenting intensity, crafts what the Detroit Free Press called "a white-hot lead performance," mutating from eccentric Goldman to sociopath Dorf and beyond. The riddle of Dorf's true identity becomes wrapped in an enigma of cunning self-treachery and single-minded obsession.

thepetshopboy Saw this for the first time recently at a International Jewish Film Festival screening at which both the director (the oft overrated and stylistically lacking Arthur Hiller...the Roger Donaldson of his generation) and star (Maximillian Schell) attended and spoke at. My expectations were high, but the film was quite a letdown. Hiller's direction was dull and generic and had the look and feel of a bad 70's television episode, while Schell brings new meaning to the term overacting (his Oscar nomination makes more sense in light of Al Pacino's Oscar win for his incessant mugging in "Scent of Woman").The producer of the film mentioned that writer Robert Shaw (from which the source material came and a famous actor in his own right) asked to have his name taken off the film upon reading the screenplay (and then apparently asked to have it put back on later). Not having read his play, I found much of the dialogue awkward and stilted, although many of the statements and speeches in the film give an introspective view of not just the tragedy of the Holocaust, but also the logical if deluded mindset of those Germans that perpetrated such atrocities. Given the intriguing premise, it would have been interesting to see what the film would have been like in the hands of a better director and with the lead character played a bit more understated and nuanced (a great example would be Ian McKellan's brilliant performance in the otherwise flawed "Apt Pupil"). To be fair, the predominantly older Jewish audience I saw it with enjoyed it, although I would guess more out of obligation to the subject matter then to it's artistic merit. All in all, a fairly mediocre film for its' time with a over-the-top performance by Schell, neither of which have aged well. 5/10