I've mentioned the American Film Theater in conjunction with a couple of films before; it was an ambitious plan in the mid-1970s to take relatively modern stage plays and adapt them into films that kept almost all the dialog while opening them up where cinema allowed for it. Another of the films from that series was on my DVR and I finally got around to watching it: The Man in the Glass Booth.
People with a good knowledge of history should know what the title comes from, although the play is not a historical drama in that the characters are not taken from real people. Maximilian Schell stars as Arthur Goldman, a Jew who survived one of the Nazi extermination camps, emigrated after the war, and became a wealthy property developer in New York City. At least, that's his story; Goldman is a bit of an odd bird. He lives in a penthouse apartment with serious security in the form of right-hand man Charlie Cohn (Lawrence Pressman), has a couple million in cash squirreled away, and has rather odd views of Jews and Judiasm. He also has some sort of vision where he keeps thinking he sees people on the sidewalk below coming for him; sometimes they're Nazis and sometimes they're, well, something else. He's also trying to burn off recognition of something on his skin, but it's not on the forearm where the tattooed concentration camp ID numbrer would be.
If you remember that the original "man in the glass booth" was Adolf Eichmann, who was kidnapped from Argentina and brought to Israel to stand trial for crimes against humanity, being put in a glass booth in a specially constructed courtroom for the trial, then you'll know where the movie is going. Mossad agents are able to get into the apartment and do a physical evaluation of Goldman that comports with medical records they have of him. This is not Arthur Goldman, who was killed in the concentration camp, but one of the camp commandants who was actively killing the Jews. So they drug him and Cohn so that Cohn can't fight back either, and then take Goldman to Israel where they intend to put him on trial.
Goldman freely admits to being a Nazi, but also says that he's not going to stand trial unless his captors give into certain demands, which they ultimately do because the demands are more delusional than a security risk. Goldman intends to defend himself, and also asks that he be called by his Nazi rank. The court, including prosecutor Rosen (Lois Nettleton) and the judge (Luther Adler) do. Goldman doesn't seem to be putting up much of a defense, instead acting increasinly delusional, until something happens that may just change the course of the trial....
As with the other movies from the American Film Theater that I've seen, I think you have to give producer Ely Landau credit for the idea, while at the same time admitting that again this is a movie with some serious flaws. For me, the first big problem is that the first half of the movie, set in New York before the trial, is incredibly slow. Some people may almost want to give up on the movie before it gets to Israel, which is a problem with the screenplay and/or the play itself. Something that again may be a problem with the screenplay is that Goldman as a character almost requires whoever is playing it to overact badly, since the character is delusional. Schell does that, although it's also a compelling performance -- one doesn't really care about the other characters in the story who are just there in service of the Goldman character. Schell received an Oscar nomination, losing to Jack Nicholson for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
From what I've read, the one truly good movie from the American Film Theater is The Iceman Cometh which I have not yet seen. The Man in the Glass Booth is interesting, but ultimately rather a mess.
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