The Glass Wall is a 1953 American drama film noir directed by Maxwell Shane and starring Vittorio Gassman and Gloria Grahame.

[1] Peter Kuban is a Hungarian displaced person and survivor of World War II Nazi concentration camps.

When the ship arrives in New York, he claims that he qualifies for entry under an exception for those who helped Allied soldiers during the war, but all he knows about the paratrooper he hid from the enemy is that his name is Tom, that he plays the clarinet in a jazz band in Times Square and that before they parted company in Europe, he gave him his military wristwatch which Peter now wears on his wrist.

The immigration authorities, led by Inspector Bailey, say that without better documentation he must be sent back to communist Hungary on the same ship, which departs the next morning.

After that, by law, Peter will be guilty of a felony for jumping ship, deported, and forever ineligible to be admitted to the United States.

Her immigrant mother approves, but her criminal brother fears police becoming involved, saying that Peter's plight is the responsibility of the United Nations.

Unable to find anyone to help him, he delivers a soliloquy to an empty meeting room of the U.N. Human Rights Commission, with places marked for representatives of the U.N.'s member states.

The film was shot on location in New York City, including at the United Nations building (the "glass wall" of the title) on First Avenue at 42nd Street in Manhattan.

In 2011, film critic Dennis Schwartz wrote "Columbia's off-beat postwar noir project, whose title is taken from the U.N.'s glass wall, turned out rather well ..."[2] The Glass Wall shared the Golden Leopard, the top prize of the Locarno International Film Festival in 1953 with Julius Caesar and The Composer Glinka (Kompozitor Glinka).