Watch The Young Lions For Free

You won't be disappointed!

People are voting emotionally.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

For a war film, perhaps the most compelling element of the picture has to do with the three protagonists remaining true to their personal codes of honor and integrity. That they were presented doing so with the backdrop of World War II was probably immaterial, though for Marlon Brando's character, the senselessness of war was repeatedly underscored by way of confrontations with his superiors and behavior on the battlefield. An anti-war sentiment resonates throughout but doesn't get in the way of patriotism. Perhaps to emphasize the futile nature of war on it's combatants, the picture occasionally meanders along disjointedly as well, scenes changing abruptly between the battlefields of Europe and North Africa with images and street scenes of New York and Brooklyn.You know, I often marvel at the way continuity in a movie is sometimes completely overlooked when the finished product is released. This one had a couple of examples that seemed glaring to me. When Noah (Montgomery Clift) meets Hope (Hope Lange) at Michael Whiteacre's (Dean Martin) party she's wearing a low cut evening gown, but when they step out for a walk along the river, she's wearing a dress with a collar. A similar scene occurs later on the first time Lt. Diestl (Marlon Brando) visits Gretchen Hardenberg (May Britt) at her Berlin apartment. Leaving her apartment for a prior engagement, Gretchen leaves wearing only her evening dress, but returns with a coat on. How is it no one caught those errors? Regarding the principal players, Marlon Brando stands out as the disaffected Nazi soldier, unable to reconcile his personal feelings about war with the mentality of the Nazi machine as personified by his commanding officer Hardenberg (Maximillian Schell). With no room for individualism, Diestl's loyalty to the Nazi cause erodes over the course of the War, and results in outright refusal to follow orders when he fails to shoot an opposing soldier upon Hardenberg's command. I thought more would come of that scene relative to his disobeying a commanding officer, so that left me a little puzzled.With Montgomery Clift's character, you had a Jewish retail clerk fighting bigotry both on the home front and among his fellow soldiers. The scene with Hope's father was done quite effectively to change the older man's feelings of prejudice, just as the overall tenor of the picture attempts to present every day Americans and Germans as people simply trying to make their way in life dissociated from the ideological extremes that make their countries war with each other.As for Dean Martin, this was the second movie I've seen him in within a short period of time in which he basically portrays himself; the other was 1960's "Ocean's Eleven". He comes across as a relatively happy-go-lucky kind of character, a singer and performer who likes to have a good time and with little regard for responsibility or authority. To his character's credit, he was a stand up guy for sticking by Noah against the barracks bullies who beat him to a pulp. One thing I hadn't seen before, Dino goes for a beefcake shot during the induction physical. I don't recall seeing him in anything similar in any other picture.The picture's finale offers contrasting scenarios - Brando's character comes to an untimely and inglorious end at the hands of Private Whiteacre, while the movie closes on Noah Ackerman's joyous return home to his wife and new baby. One wonders whether Mrs. Ackerman's name was written specifically for the intended effect of having a battle hardened soldier return to a new life filled with Hope.

Edward Dmytryk directs this film version of Irwin Shaw's novel and it's not particularly good. That's a shame because at nearly 3-hours long, one would expect something beyond a well polished soap opera. It's the story of WWII told from both the American & German perspective. On the American side, there's Broadway entertainer Dean Martin and lost soul Montgomery Clift. On the German side, there's Marlon Brando as a disillusioned army captain. The film follows their trials and tribulations as well as their love lives. Brando plays his part like an actor afraid to go all out. His German is made into an idealistic saint. Clift, however, is a complete disaster. He's woefully miscast and about 10 years too old for his part. He's also clearly infirm, this being some of his first acting following his near catastrophic car accident in 1957. Martin comes off best, as he's playing a less comic version of his own persona. Dmytryk does a dis-service to the entire proceedings by relying heavily on war-time stock footage. The supporting cast is large and includes Lee Van Cleef, Hope Lange, Barbara Rush, Dora Doll (as Simone), and French chanteuse Liliane Montevecchi as Brando's strong-willed love interest. Maximilian Schell gives a fine performance as Brando's commanding officer. Hugo Friedhofer contributes a rousing score, but it's largely lost on this snail-paced epic.

War films tend to be a snap shot of the time they were made as much as the time they are portraying. "The Young Lions" is no exception. A sprawling epic over 167 minutes includes a fine cast, a thoughtful script, and some messages which resonate as much with the time they were written, as with the time they portray.The plot centres around three main characters, a playboy actor/ singer, Michael Whiteacre, ( Dean Martin), a Jewish immigrant conscript, Noah Ackerman ( Mongomery Clift), and a German Officer, Christian Diestl, ( Marlon Brando). Filmed in 1958, the war was 13 years past, the Nuremburg Sentences had been either enacted or commuted or in many cases served, the Cold War was at its height, and McCarthyism was raging. The Second World War had moved on from being simply a story of good versus evil. Based on Irwin Shaw's novel of the same title, some of the plot differences explain some "clunky" bits of the screenplay.Whiteacre's role is the one most underwritten. He appears as a cowardly lounge lizard who meets Ackerman at the draft board .He introduces Ackerman to his future wife, befriends him while he battles anti-Semitic prejudice, uses his influence to avoid front line service, then sees the patriotic heroic light and joins the front line at the end. Yet in quite a long film, Whiteacre gets precious little screen time and appears in vignette. The book has him as a more thoughtful ands his distaste for war being more cerebral, rather than cowardly.Montgomery Clift has the most satisfying part. From mumbling virgin innocent with Hope Plowman, through battling Barrack Room bullying and prejudice, to heroism in battle and a safe return to wife, children and the American Dream. He acts the part superbly and his bloody defiant resistance to his tormentors viscerally unfolds. Sadly the comeuppance of the prejudiced junior officer who allows the bullying is awkward, sudden and unsatisfying, as if a moral point had to be made.Marlon Brando is quite superb as the doubting Nazi. He is the conscience of the film. At the pinnacle of his youthful good looks he convinces as he is confronted by a series of moral dilemmas throughout the story. He mainly plays opposite Maximilian Schell as Captain Hardenberg, his commanding officer who obeys orders but for whom the audience still has considerable sympathy. A stand-out scene (of many) is when Deistl is asked by his commanding officer to deliver a present to his wife in Berlin. He finds her, May Britt, in an alluring evening dress and in a beautifully constructed seduction and tease they succumb. In a savage coda, Deistl subsequently revisits her to discover that her rejection of her critically injured husband has resulted in his committing suicide, this time he rejects her amorous advances in disgust.The women in the film excel in both performance and beauty. Britt is gorgeous and convincing and it is surprising that she did not have a more successful subsequent career. Hope Plowman playing Ackerman's wife is the epitome of the wholesome all- American gal, Barbera Rush and Dora Doll glow. And in a supporting role Lee Van Cleef is rather good as a Barrack Room bully too.So why does it fall short of greatness? The stories are poorly interwoven and the 20 minute turnarounds on the respective stories feel awkward. A Concentration Camp scene towards the end feels forced and unconvincing, the nexus with Ackerman's character doesn't quite work. And crucially, Deistl's role is so symbolic that on several occasions, in real life, his CO would have had shot or at the very least Court Martialled.And where does it excel? It gives both Clift and Brando parts that they can really act in. Clift's marathon journey to take his future wife to be home on their first meeting is wonderful, and Brando's scene with his seriously injured CO when he asks for a bayonet to enable a fellow injured soldier to commit suicide, ostensibly, is poignant and moving. Dean Martin is of course in his element with a Bourbon in his hand, a piano in front of him and girls by his side. However with all of this going for him, I doubt that Director Edward Dmytryk will feel too disappointed with what didn't quite make the grade.

This film would be outstanding if only because it brought together three actors whose talent was unimpeachable -- Marlon Brando as the idealistic but ultimately disillusioned German lieutenant, Montgomery Clift as the wimpy but spunky Jewish GI, and Maximilian Schell as the ruthless, professional but not entirely unsympathetic German officer. Brando and Clift were both a bit past their prime, displaying mannerisms that would become habitual, and both were a bit old for their parts. Brando spends most of his time towards the end glowering. And Clift has the Make Up Department pin his ears outward, giving him and his already ruined face an outlandish prospect. But, man, can these boys act! Schell came into his own with superb performances in later, sometimes regrettable films like "Judgment at Nurenberg." But even in small roles, as in "The Freshman," he was a constant delight on the screen.The rest of the cast is up to professional standards. May Britt looks like some kind of Aryan predatory animal. (Yum.) Dean Martin established his acting career with this movie, after his split with Jerry Lewis. He could always be relied upon to play Dean Martin, though never memorably, his talents best suited to light comedy rather than dramatic parts. Here, he's a coward who, after a multitude of tergiversations, finally makes an existential decision prompted by Barbara Rush.There are, almost of necessity, romances involving the three principals -- Brando meets a French girl who despises Germans but comes to sympathize with his increasing despondency. I didn't find Francoise particularly appealing. She seemed to enjoy her exuberant attacks on Brando's character a little too much. And she's groomed a la gamin, petite, girlishly cruel voice, big black eyes with furry lashes, and short, curly black hair. Needs a good spanking if you ask me. Dean Martin does everything possible to avoid the Army and, after that fails, to avoid combat. Barbara Rush is his conscience as well as his main squeeze among what we take to be many.The love story involving Clift and Hope Lange is actually touching and even moving at times. It probably wouldn't be, except that Clift is SO homely, helpless, and needy, and Lange is SO bluntly candid and conventionally beautiful with her long blond hair and ski-slope nose. I felt deeply sympathetic for Clift's character when he accompanies Lange home to Brooklyn by means of a combination of bus, subway, and walking -- and then finds himself lost in the middle of the night. I had an almost identical experience, took her back to the hushed streets of Brooklyn after midnight. It was four hours before I reached my own home, less than 20 miles away in a Newark suburb. And if anyone had told me I'd be acting in two movies with Hope Lange years later, I'd have found it amusing.I wish there had been more combat scenes because the director, Dmytryk, handles them pretty well. I honestly don't think we need the dreary scenes at the concentration camp. They've become an unpleasant cliché. Even worse is when the German mayor of the nearby town objects to the Rabbi holding services for the now-liberated Jewish inmates and is thrown out by the Americans. It's insulting when writers treat the viewers like idiots.At that, though, I have to say the writers have made the characters a little more nuanced that they were in the novel, in which the Brando character was an unrepentant and cold-blooded stereotypical Nazi from beginning to end, as if Irwin Shaw were getting his revenge against the Aryans, right down to the character's name -- Christian.Finally, I don't know how anyone can watch Montgomery Clift in this film without noticing the similarities between his treatment by anti-Semites in basic training and the treatment of Clift's character in "From Here to Eternity."