The Andersonville Trial

Directed by George C. Scott, who first starred in the play when it opened on Broadway a decade before, this 1970 PBS-aired adaptation of Saul Levitt's The Andersonville Trial (part of the Broadway Theatre Archive series) is set in a courtroom, where a military tribunal--convened a few months after the close of the Civil War--tries to determine the innocence or guilt of Captain Henry Wirz (Richard Basehart), the German-born commander of the notorious Confederate prisoner of war camp in Andersonville, Georgia, a living hell in which thousands of Union soldiers died of abuse, neglect, and starvation. William Shatner and Jack Cassidy square off as prosecutor and defender of Wirz, respectively, while Cameron Mitchell, Buddy Ebsen, and a very young Martin Sheen fill out other important roles. Wirz's German accent naturally reminds the viewer of the later war crimes trial at Nuremberg, and in 1970 the Vietnam War's My Lai massacre must have been fresh in the minds of viewers. Unfortunately Basehart, usually a fine actor, doesn't effectively capture the dual nature of an ordinary man capable of doing terrible things, and the play has a bad habit of spelling out its points rather than dramatizing them. This DVD release offers acceptable sound and picture quality for a three-decade-old production. While not in the same league as other Broadway Theatre Archive selections, such as Death of a Salesman (with Lee J. Cobb, reviewed in VL-9/02) or The Glass Menagerie (with Katharine Hepburn, reviewed in VL-5/03), this is still a strong optional purchase for its timely inquiry into our ethical responsibilities as human beings during times of war. (S. Rees)