Customer Reviews

The Andersonville Trial (Broadway Theatre Archive)

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The most important thing to remember about this Peabody Award winning production of Saul Levitt's play "The Andersonville Trial" is that it was produced in 1970, during the Vietnam War. However, the play was originally produced on Broadway in 1959, which is rather surprising because this particular version has a reputation for being a historic allegory in the grand tradition of "The Crucible." In 1959 the historic parallel would have been to the Nuremberg Trials where Nazi leaders were tried as war criminals. But in the wake of the My Lai massacre the court-martial of Capt. Henry Wirz (Richard Basehart), commandant of the infamous Andersonville prison during the Civil War it would be impossible for an audience to view this drama as anything else that a discussion of the war in Vietnam.

Henry Wirz was the only Confederate soldier to be convicted and executed for war crimes during the Civil War. Wirz remains a controversial figure whose name is associated with some of the worst atrocities of the war by many while considered a martyr to the Glorious Cause by others. As Union forces pushed into the South the Confederacy was ending up with more and more Union prisoners and the Andersonville Camp was created to relieve the situation in Richmond and elsewhere. However, in June of 1864 the Union discontinued the policy of prisoner exchanges and without that avenue of release or the construction of another facility, the prisoner population of Andersonville swelled to 26,000 prisoners crammed into a little more than 26 acres. Add to this the impoverishment of the Confederacy in the final year of the war when the 33,000 prisoners in Andersonville made it the fifth largest "city" in the Confederacy, and it is hardly surprising that hundreds of men were dying each day. Of the 45,000 prisoners sent to Andersonville, 13,000 died.

Levitt used the official record of the trial of Henry Wirz as his basic source material. While sticking to the facts, Levitt was obviously more interested in the personalities involved in the proceedings. So while "The Andersonville Trial" is accurate with regards to the time and place of the trial, names of the participants, and some of the dialogue, it is still much more of a drama than a documentary. Furthermore, as a televised stage play it is necessarily restricted to the primary set of the courtroom and the scope of its interest is pretty much restricted to that venue as well.

The pivotal character of the drama is Lt. Colonel N.P. Chipman (William Shatner in the role Scott played in the original Broadway production), the officer prosecuting Wirz (Richard Basehart), who responds to the charges against him with the defense that he was obeying orders and doing what he could under the circumstances. This leads Chipman to the conclusion what Wirz should have done was disobey orders that would lead to the deaths of thousands of prisoners. However, this is not an argument that an officer in the military can make lightly, and this sets up a conflict with the presiding judge, General Lew Wallace (Cameron Mitchell), who would achieve fame as the author of "Be-Hur: A Tale of the Christ." But Chipman feels compelled to come up with a response to the argument that following such orders is a legitimate defense.

Shatner's performance is superb, and those who remember playing Spencer Tracy's aide in "Judgment at Nuremberg" can appreciate the irony of his having a larger role in this related drama. The biggest compliment I can give Shatner's work is that I cannot imagine George C. Scott having played this role. One of the strengths of this production is how Scott takes a collection of "television stars" like Shatner, Basehart, Jack Cassidy, Buddy Ebsen, Martin Sheen, John Anderson and Whit Bissell, along with veteran character actors like Mitchell and Albert Salmi, to create a stellar ensemble cast. Just as impressive is how he has actors like Alan Hale, Jr. and Kenneth Tobey sitting as members of the Court-martial board. For Shatner, Basehart, Cassidy, Mitchell and Salmi you will be hard pressed to find anything better on their acting resumes.

"The Andersonville Trial" is one of the most powerful courtroom dramas you will ever see. It has something of an advantage over the likes of "The Caine Mutiny" and "A Few Good Men" in that the play is almost entirely the trial, which makes it more like "Breaker Morant" and, most obviously," Judgment at Nuremberg." The drama comes down to Chipman's cross-examination of Wirz and the prosecutor's futile effort to get the prisoner in the dock to explain why he did not do the "right" thing and disobey his orders. I think the net effect is to make Wirz more of a tragic figure than a monster, locked into a system of rules and beliefs that would not let him see a way out of the disaster happening before him.

"Andersonville Trial" is special in more ways than one.

First and foremost, it is a damn fine production, and a very powerful stage play captured on video. Second, the play has many famous names among the cast, some of whom appear in early roles (Martin Sheen, for one). William Shatner, of course, is oddly Kirk-like, but does very well as Lt. Colonel Chipman. Richard Basehart? Wonderful, and the ultimate professional, as always. Buddy Ebsen plays a doctor. Even Alan Hale Sr., who blazed a trail of adventure in many of Errol Flynn's films, is on hand (though in a non-speaking role). None other than George C. Scott directed the enterprise, and introduces the feature in a short segment.

Another thing that makes this production unique is that it harkens back to the best of PBS, before they started worrying about ratings, hype, and marketing. Shows like "I, Claudius" and "Masterpiece Theater", among others, made their way to the network about the same time, and "Sesame Street" had yet to become the moneygrubbing exercise it is now (Elmo, this means YOU!). This was back when PBS really lived up to the ideals of being a Public Broadcaster, and shows like "Andersonville Trial" were an offshoot of those ideals. Like other PBS shows, it was the BEST the arts offered at the time; a famous cast in a dramatic play, coming right into our living rooms.

On the tape, we even get to see the old PBS logo, with "PBS" spelled out in that funky 60's-70's type they used to use (with the orange letter "P"). That alone is worth the purchase price.

Hopefully a DVD will someday be released. Until then, if you can latch on to a copy of the tape, you should by all means do so. It is a dramatic telling of a famous war crimes trial, with superb acting and a moral message about war that will stay with you for some time to come.

Just after the Civil War and only weeks after the assassination of then President Lincoln, a war crimes trial was held to prosecute the Captain in charge of Andersonville Prison wherein nearly 14,000 soldiers died in terrible and inhumane conditions in Georgia. This Television drama, directed by George C. Scott (Patton) was one of the best ever to appear on the tube. The country was going through Vietnam and all of the implications that the war had influenced on the American psyche, and this play hits home on war issues even though it concerns the American Civil War. Cameron Mitchell is great and we get a performance from Jack Cassidy (one of the two guests ever to appear on Columbo 3 times)that was nominated for outstanding single performance by an actor in a leading role in this play as the Defense Lawyer. Richard Basehart as the defendant is also very impressive and the whole play is full of interesting testimony. Fans will remember the early appearance of Martin Sheen in a small role and the legendary Captain Kirk, William Shatner,doing his Kirkus-Maximus in the lead role of the prosecution. It is a long play and perhaps should be viewed over two evenings so that you don't fall asleep and miss something important. It is highly intellectual and takes a certain type of person to really appreciate all of the subtle inferences in this play but reflects what was once expected of television drama in 70's America. Well recommended for Civil war buffs and people who love Broadway Dramas.

I was a teenager when this program originally aired on television, and I thought that William Shatner was merely playing the same old wildly emoting Captain Kirk that has made him the butt of so many jokes. After a recent second screening, I see that I was probably wrong. Shatner's prosecutor is a little over the top, but it's because his justifiable moral outrage at the defendant has caught him in a terrible trap, and forces him to ask questions that were almost unthinkable in 1865; namely, is it ever justifiable for an officer to refuse to follow orders which he judges are immoral?
The defendant, Wirz, as excellently played by Richard Basehart, is an immigrant from the European school of miltary theory, and he is by turns hateful, confused at the sudden shift in the meaning of his duty, and pathetic (Wirz is still considered something of a hero in the local area outside the present-day National Cemetery near Andersonville). Jack Cassidy, as the defending attorney, is fully aware of the prosecutor's dilemma, and seems to be taking great pleasure in pointing up the US Army's hypocracy in trying a man for following malicious orders, yet refusing to allow that he would have been militarily justified in refusing them. Cameron Mitchell is the presiding officer, Gen. Lew Wallace (of "Ben-Hur" fame), and portrays a man who is about to lose control of the proceedings through the unsettling forays of the Army's own prosecutor. I gave the film four stars because it is a little too long and drags a bit in some places. However, the depth of the story, and the exploration of the ethical problems dealt with in the courtroom, make it superior to a very similar movie, "Judgment at Nuremburg."

Basehart, like many other television stars, was unfortunate to be associated with a long-running program (four years on "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea"). A prolific and skilled actor, Basehart is a sympathetic figure as the commandant of the infamous Georgia prison. He is allowed to show depth that the 60's Irwin Allen show of which he is associated never allowed him.

The production also features two other actors playing against type in pivotal and revealing roles, Buddy Ebsen and the late Jack Cassidy. The two match Basehart in the acting department and do justice to the George C. Scott-directed presentation.

"The Andersonville Trial" ranks as one of the best productions ever shown on PBS.

This is actually a videotaping of a stage play "The Andersonville Trial" which takes place on a single set - a courtroom shortly after the end of the Civil War. It was directed by George C. Scott and features an absolutely excellent cast (including Martin Sheen in a very small, early part). William Shatner and Jack Cassidy play, respectively, the prosecutor and defense counsels at the trial of Henry Wirtz, the commandant of the infamous Confederate prison camp, Andersonville. Wirtz was the only Souutherner put on trial for "war crimes", and this play examines a number of moral issues on that point. This play was produced in 1970, but Shatner and Cassidy never did finer work than this. Rather long but worth sticking with to the end. Powerful!

Directed by George C. Scott, and starring Richard Basehart, Cameron Mitchell, Jack Cassidy, William Shatner, Martin Sheen, and Buddy Ebsen in some of their best roles ever, this stunning 1970 production was a shoo-in to win three Emmys and the Peabody Award, with Cassidy also nominated for an Emmy as Best Actor. Filled with the kind of drama that only a real war crimes trial can generate, the play by Saul Levitt focuses on the trial of a German-born Confederate captain who was in charge of the Andersonville Prison in Georgia, where Union soldiers died at the rate of over a hundred men a day during their incarceration in 1864. Living in overcrowded conditions without shelter, shade, clean water, or adequate food, the men became desperate, preferring to risk being shot during escape attempts to living in the squalid and unsanitary conditions of the prison.

Captain Wirz (Richard Basehart in one of his all-time best dramatic roles), was in charge of the prison and is now on trial. His counsel, southern lawyer Otis Baker (Jack Cassidy), is highly skilled at twisting words, and brilliant at forcing the court to consider the rules of wartime engagement and the necessity of following orders. The courtroom battles between Baker and the Union prosecutor, Col. N. P. Chipman (William Shatner, when he was young and hungry for great acting jobs), are memorable for the philosophical complexities of their arguments and the emotions with which they argue their positions. Gen. Lew Wallace (Cameron Mitchell) is hard pressed to keep the two sides in order and arguing relevant legal issues.

Buddy Ebsen, a fine actor who does not deserve to be remembered primarily for "Beverly Hillbillies," is the doctor who worked at the prison for eight months, a man who shows how his compassion gradually became dulled by the horrors of the conditions, until he became inured to the hundreds of deaths he had to certify every day. Michael Burns as James Davidson, a nineteen-year-old Vermont soldier who was incarcerated at Andersonville, shows the traumatic effects of his experiences as he testifies, his role becoming one of the most sympathetic in the entire play.

George C. Scott, as director, gets the finest performances possible from these actors and wrings the play of every moment of drama. The tension is so great that viewers will easily sit through the two-and-a-half hour performance, breathless with anticipation, their emotions soaring with the legal points made by the prosecution and soaring equally with the human feelings engendered by the defense. As Chipman says, "I'd like to believe that I am more of a man than Wirz was to save those men, but am I?" One of the finest productions ever done by Broadway Theatre Archive, this is a performance not to be missed by lovers of theatre and anyone interested in Civil War history. Mary Whipple

I remembered watching this broadcast as a kid on television and when I saw the title from Amazon.com, I wondered if it was as good today as I remembered from then... Wow! what a relief to find the program itself has held up over thirty plus years since the original air-date in the early 1970's... plus, the quality of the DVD transfer is so great! If you have an interest in first-rate live theatre, and want to enjoy it in you home theatre, this is a great DVD for an evening's entertainment. The acting is superlative, the writing smart and the directing well-paced. The tale of America's "first war crimes trial" is a little known tale that should be seen by all those interested in contemporary concerns about morality and "civilized" behavior in times of war.

Watching this fine, engrossing production (why don't they make films like this any more?) left me strangely depressed. First I will state why I think it was so good....several well-known television actors put in outstanding performances: (1) William Shatner as the prosecutor, Col. Chipman. Shatner is an uneven performer, and he indeed starts out a little shakey in this one, but towards the end, when Chipman decides to risk his own career, after being warned by Chief Judge Gen. Wallace, he decides to throw caution to the wind and directly address the defendent's (Capt. Wirz) moral culpability in carrying out immoral orders without question, Shatner comes out full force with an outstanding performance.
(2) Richard Basehart, as Capt. Wirz who at first seems to be a victim of "victor's justice", loses control of himself and emotionally destroys himself in front of the court as he hysterically describes his futile attempts to prevent the starving, abused Union prisoners from trying to burrow out of the camp "like rats". (3) Jack Cassidy as defense attorney Otis Baker. Cassidy was a truly outstanding actor, and he plays the part beautifully, knowing when to badger a weak witness, but gently probing uncertainties in the testimony of a badly traumatized young survivor of Andersonville, without abusing him. (4) Cameron Mitchell, as Chief Judge General Wallace, who initially resists any attempt to call Wirz to account for his failure to disobey orders in the name of humanity, but is painfully forced to admit that the Wirz's moral universe must be explored, even at the expense of questioning military discipline.

Director George C Scott, in a filmed introduction, alludes to "current events" in the 1970 production, which is the War in Vietnam, and more specifically, the My Lai atrocities carried out by American soldiers who were confronting an enemy who hid among the civilian population. Frankly, I don't know exactly how good the comparison between William Calley, who was charged with committing the atrocity, and Wirz was, because Wirz was in charge of enemy prisoners were were basically helpless, whereas in Vietnam, the American soldiers were confronting
an active enemy who was deliberately dragging a civilian population into the conflict.

In any event, as I stated above, I felt depressed at the end, because hearing of the horrors at Andersonville and Wirz's ultimate indifference
to the suffering he oversaw, reminded me of much more recent horrors, from the Holocaust, Stalin's Gulag, Pol Pot and Mao Tse-tung's mass terror and concentration camps, not to mention numerous others.
I kept reminding myself, that THIS WAS AMERICANS DOING THESE HORRIBLE THINGS TO EACH OTHER...people who had been part of the same nation, spoke the same language and had the same religions. How much easier was it for the Germans to dehumanize the Jews and commit unspeakable crimes against them, or for Stalin to turn on "the Kulaks" or "counterrevolutionaries" or "Trotskyites" or whatever. What hope is their for mankind if it is so easy to take a normal person and in a short period of time turn him into an either passive or active, unfeeling killing machine? Food for thought.

This fascinating drama, which has a timeless relevance for today's audiences in terms of the questions it poses, can only be seen, as others have pointed out, in the context of the times in which it was written (1959) and here produced (1970). Of course the play on which the TV production is based invites direct parallels with the Nueremberg Trials, which is what the author intended. However, with the My Lai massacre having engendered front page paroxysms of outrage in artistic-intellectual circles, George C. Scott took some risks with this work, which clearly presents Wirz as the same kind of "scapegoat" he obviously felt Calley represented.

That having been said, however, with everything we now know about the personal role Wirz really played in the horrific atrocities exemplified in Andersonville (mirrored at northern Civil War prison camps later in the war), it's difficult to watch this production without seeing it as a highly dated period piece. Andersonville and its northern counterparts, Elmira, etc., are now known to have been little more than death camps. One crucial piece of evidence brought against Wirz at trial is that he explicitly blocked an effort on the part of the local civilian population to bring food, medicine and other supplies to ease the soldiers' suffering. Although there are differing theories as to the reasons why prisoner exchanges stopped after a certain point in the war, one thing is for certain: Today it would be impossible to portray Wirz as anything other than the monster he was. This was not a man who was prosecuted for his foreign accent, as he originally tried to assert.
Also in the spirit of the times is the fact that it was Cassidy, not Shatner, who won the major awards for the production--back in the days when defense attorneys were our cultural heroes. The real artistry in the casting here was not with the leads, but with the supporting cast: The actors who play a shell-shocked young survivor of the camp, a local resident of Andersonville, and a tough, cynical professional soldier deliver flawless performances that make this piece stand out as a work of dramatic art. Watching this production, one sees how television drama has changed in the last forty years. Although "The Andersonville Trial" never takes the viewer more than a few feet from the courtroom, it still manages to convey a lingering sense of horror without a single flashback scene. This is what audiences miss today.