The film follows him through his time in the trial, and his path reaching basically to his verdict. It is rather interesting because most of the performances have the biggest moments inside the courtroom but Tracy is almost entirely reactive in the court room sequences. He really does very little sequences and mostly gives the same slightly tired expression throughout these moments. He has to also stop the trial here and there, reestablish order on occasion with raising his voice, but not all more than this up until his final verdict. In regards to being the judge at the trial Tracy is wholly functional but nothing more.
Most of Tracy's actual moments come from his time outside of the courtroom. He still though is very reactive even then. I would think, and maybe the films wants Dan Haywood to slowly change and finally bring himself to his conclusion in the court through moments outside of it, but Tracy shows little change in the character in any of these scenes. He walks around the destroyed city, and again keeps mostly his slightly tired expression. Now the only thing about showing change, is he also really does not give very much insight into who Haywood is exactly. Tracy nor the film really describe his feelings well before he gets there, or during the trial so much so when asked about it he says he doesn't know what to think.
Politically the character lacks proper change, or even definition, and this is basically true for his character's personality. All I learned from Tracy's performance, and even more so the script was that he was a nice enough old fellow, does not like anything too fancy, but believes in justice. Although even the justice part is only really gotten to in the final moments of the film.
So what does his character come to, well he comes to that the men are guilty of their horrible crimes. He says it in a verdict strongly depicted by Tracy, and then reassured once again by Tracy directly to the reptetant of the Judge Ernest Janning (Burt Lancaster). Tracy does have the right forcefulness in showing the character's belief in justice, but this really just is what occurs at the end, and it really is not lead to in any special fashion. Also it really does not make perfect sense as Haywood's plan the entire time, since he let the defense attorney for the Nazis Hans Rolfe (Maximilian Schell) almost free reign of the courtroom so much that he allowed victims of the Nazi's to persecuted all over again.
Overall his performance really is only really functional, and actually I do think that it really is mostly the fault of the film which severely underwrites Haywood as a character. His character should have had some sort of transformation and really should have been the moral center of the film, but Tracy and the film barely even realism the personality of the character. Tracy is never bad, and does have a charm but never adds anything to his already underwritten role.
