Ronald Bergan’s account of the actor and defender of minority rights Marsha Hunt noted her role in the American film None Shall Escape (1944), calling it “one of the first US films to deal with the Nazi threat”. Perhaps so. But None Shall Escape’s real claim to fame is that it was the first film to argue that Nazi war criminals could and should be put on trial.
It was being shown in British cinemas while Winston Churchill, the prime minister, was arguing that all major Nazi leaders must be shot within hours of capture, the Russians wanted their own style of trials and the French were more concerned with their Nazi collaborators. Washington was pushing its radical plans that led directly to the Nuremberg Tribunal hearings and sentences.
Hunt gave a great performance in an influential film that helped prepare British audiences for Nuremberg and for other war crimes trials.
