|
|
|
|
The Young Lions
|
| |
|
| |
The Young Lions is a novel by Irwin Shaw and a 1958 film based upon the book starring Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, and Dean Martin.
he Young Lions is about the destiny of three young soldiers involved in WWII. The German officer, Lt. Christian Diestl (Marlon Brando), approves less and less of the war, while the American-Jewish GI, Noah Ackerman (Montgomery Clift), tries to survive the very bigoted military and Michael Whiteacre (Dean Martin), who starts out as a coward who tries to avoid the war, but becomes more and more blood thirsty as the war progresses.
Christian is caught in the middle of this war because he fancies two women who are American and French.
Discussion
Ask a question about 'The Young Lions' Start a new discussion about 'The Young Lions' Answer questions from other users |
Encyclopedia
The Young Lions is a novel by Irwin Shaw and a 1958 film based upon the book starring Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, and Dean Martin.
Plot introduction
The Young Lions is about the destiny of three young soldiers involved in WWII. The German officer, Lt. Christian Diestl (Marlon Brando), approves less and less of the war, while the American-Jewish GI, Noah Ackerman (Montgomery Clift), tries to survive the very bigoted military and Michael Whiteacre (Dean Martin), who starts out as a coward who tries to avoid the war, but becomes more and more blood thirsty as the war progresses.
Christian is caught in the middle of this war because he fancies two women who are American and French. He does his duty in the German Army but realizes at the end that the war, and just about everything else except his French girlfriend, is lost. Ackerman is befriended by a fellow draftee, the reluctant soldier Michael Whiteacre (Dean Martin), and falls in love with a New England woman named Hope (Hope Lange) whose father is anti-Jewish.
Plot summary
German ski instructor Christian is hopeful that Hitler will bring new prosperity to Germany and when war breaks out he joins as a lieutenant. Dissatisfied with police duty in Paris, he requests to be transferred and is assigned to the front in North Africa. He sees what the war has done to his captain (Maximilian Schell) and the captain's wife (May Britt), and he is sickened by their behavior. The film also follows the stories of actor-cum-cynic Michael and nice guy Noah when they befriend each other during their draft physical and are stationed together in boot camp. They are then stationed in London. Michael has dated socialite Margaret (Barbara Rush) for a long time, who coincidently in 1938 dated Christian in the Bavarian Alps when she went on a skiing vacation. But she was upset by his Nazi beliefs and deserted him on New Year's Eve to return to Michael. Just prior to the U.S. entry into the war, she enlisted to do clerical work in the army. Noah is Jewish and works as a lowly department store clerk, attends a party Michael throws, where he meets Hope. She falls in love with him and introduces her fiancé to her provincial father, who doesn't like Jews because he never met one. But after a chat with Noah, dad approves of the marriage. Once in the service the boot-camp commanding officer and some of the tough guys in his company try to bully Noah. But Noah gains the respect of the enlisted men by fighting back in a series of fist fights, even though he's much smaller.
The film tells in great detail how each of these soldiers comes to view the war, as it makes its appeal as an anti-war film. Christian turns into a conflicted Nazi, who hates the war and what it has done to his fellow Germans but can't escape from it. He despises what his fellow soldiers have done in the name of the Fatherland but fulfills his duty to the end. Michael spends most of the war in a comfy job nowhere near any fighting, thanks to his Broadway name. He finally decides to join the fight after Margaret shames him into it. By pulling strings, he rejoins his old outfit on the front in the war's final days, almost too late to matter. Noah simply does his duty to the best of his ability, hoping to live through all the horror and get home to his wife and their new baby. He has a heroic moment where he risks his own life to save a fellow soldier, one who was especially prejudiced against him in boot camp. He then helps liberate a concentration camp full of Jews and comes face-to-face with the German result of virulent anti-Semitism.
By the film's end the three main parties cross paths and prove the film's premise: the futility of war.
The Dean Martin casting conflict
The film, a smashing box-office success, was the key to Martin's huge comeback in the wake of his split with partner Jerry Lewis. Tony Randall originally had Martin's role but talent agency MCA insisted that Martin replace Randall so they'd have "a quadruple threat" (an audience from four sectors): night clubs, recordings, television, and movies.
The agency understood that whoever played Randall's role of Michael Whiteacre opposite Brando and Clift, the 1950s' two most intriguing movie actors, would be in a completely different position from that time forward, and they were right.
This was the only movie that Brando and Clift made together. It was produced by Al Lichtman and was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Film in 1959.
Cast
Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, Dean Martin, Barbara Rush, May Britt, Maximilian Schell, Hope Lange, Dara Doll, Lee Van Cleef, Liliane Montevecchi, Parley Baer, Arthur Franz, Hal Baylor, Richard Gardner, Herbert Rudley
External links
|
| |
|
|
