How Long Is “Julia”?

Oscar-winning drama about the friendship between two women and their involvement in anti-Nazi politics just before World War II. Julia, a disaffected American aristocrat, becomes active in the Resistance and - before she is murdered by the Nazis - persuades her writer friend Lillian to smuggle money to Berlin. Based on autobiographical writings of playwright Lillian Hellman, (1977) Fred Zinnemann's sensitive and compelling dramatisation tells of the awakening in the 1930s of playwright Lillian Hellman (Jane Fonda) to the growing threat of Nazism through the persecution and execution of her childhood friend Julia (Oscar-winner Vanessa Redgrave). Although the narrative is slight, director Zinnemann endows the film with suspense, sensitivity, elegance and, above all, a beautifully realised and complex relationship between the two women. The film earned nine Academy Award nominations, including another winner in Jason Robards as Dashiel Hammett. Edited for violence.