The Young Lions

Its interesting going back to older films and seeing how things were perceived and received very differently from how they would be in a new era. While what was shown in media during the eve of the 20^th century could be seen as actively offensive or hurtful to today’s current audience, a lot of material shown today would be a lot more ‘daring’ to people back in those, even in regard to movies of certain subject matter. War was such a heavy factor in cinema during the early 1900s, from its profiting off of the global issue as a means of pushing film to become more story-based, to using it for propaganda to hype up one side and demonize the other, it was strangely intertwined. There were also a lot of films about the World Wars in question, but not that many tackled that bad side of them, especially when it was still going on. While this was mainly an issue during WWI, World War Two was a time when it wasn’t a secret how unclean the situation was and despite fears of the retort of the Nazi party, they did have plenty of anti-Nazi films in the era. Even years after the end of the War, something like The Young Lions was considered very daring for what it portrayed. Set during the rise of Hitler’s reign, Christian Diestl (played by Marlon Brando) is unsure of what this Nazi regime will bring to Germany but is at least blindly hopeful for the results. The ensuring war quickly sullies that belief as despite becoming an official lieutenant in the German army, he soon discovers the horrors his country is inflicting on the world and sees how it’s a situation he can’t even get out of in fear of his psychotic Captain Hardenberg (played by Maximilian Schell). On the other side of the world, show performer Michael Whiteacre (played by Dean Martin) and Jewish soon-to-be-father Noah Ackerman (played by Montgomery Clift) are drafted into the war and set out to do their duty, also facing their own form of struggles during their time in the barracks. Released in 1958 and based on a novel with the same name written ten years prior by Irwin Shawn, the film is a perfectly serviceable portrayal of the follies of World War Two without trying to be offensive to either side and therefore leaving very little depth.

The overall story for the movie, as well as the book, came from Shaw’s real experience in Europe during the war, and the novel was a successful book that showed both sides of the war and how it could shape people for the better or worse. The movie version was one that Shaw was not a fan of for its lesser portrayals of its lead characters and how it became a ‘prettier’ portrayal of what he originally wrote. This can be felt when watching the film, as despite taking up almost three hours in length to showing a story about soldiers on both sides of World War II, it feels like its presented as a conflict to a romantic story as opposed to a real war film. It carries the issues a lot of war movies suffer from either not being true enough to the realistic event or being too shockingly accurate that no-one wants to watch it, but after a decade apart from the conclusion of the war, it should have been able to tackle the issues in a mature and thoughtful manner, and it didn’t really deliver on that department. While it does talk about some of the issues on both sides and it was pretty forward to have a movie from the perspective of a ‘not so evil’ Nazi, the balance beam this movie was clearly treading between not wanting to offend those who fought the Nazis by portraying one as actively wanting to stop, and not wanting to offend Germany who held a lot of power over the box office for most movies at the time was going to be hard to walk around. It results in a script for this film written by Edward Anhalt feeling like it almost has a complex story, yet doesn’t do much with its idea (although this could have been seen as something new for the time). Honestly, the tragic thing is that the time spent from the Nazi’s perspective is the far more interesting and even fleshed out part of the film. While it doesn’t do much developing and the end result is pretty expected, the American perspective is about as generic, underdeveloped and ‘of the times’ as it could be for this type of film. Its not challenging, repetitive, unfeeling, and strangely melodramatic, it honestly takes up the part of the movie that’s the most dull and uninteresting, whereas the parts from the German perspective have some nuance thoughts and ideas behind it and the directing from Edward Dmytryk does feel more purposeful and interesting whenever the film focuses on that section of the story against the American perspective, which is more slow-moving and dull.

On a basic acting level, everybody is mostly good and does a decent job with what they have, but its hard to say they are incredibly well written or presented. In terms of the characters, they match with how their storylines play out; the stuff involving Marlon Brando’s character is some of the better stuff, whereas the plot revolving around Montgomery Clift and Dean Martin is really boring, uninteresting, and even a little weird. It is bizarre to see a film that would normally be so for the allied side of the war, yet it doesn’t say or do anything dramatically different from what would be expected of a movie of its type. There are pieces of ideas from the novel including the antisemitism faced by Clift’s character and the flaws of the American army during the war, but they aren’t gone into strongly enough to leave an impact. Montgomery Clift and Dean Martin are very unlikeable in this film; with bland characters with little to no unique motivation, character flaws that are either completely glossed over or sometimes being deemed as ‘charming’ (apparently following your date home, abruptly kissing her then banging on her window after she tells you to go away is perfect husband material) and their basic story-line doesn’t result in any dissection of the American way at the time, at least not what it felt like the other side was doing. Marlon Brando’s character at least has some form of a unique crux that people can latch onto and while this form of character change isn’t anything dramatic (if anything by the end, it feels unresolved), it was pretty daring to see a film where a majority of it was focusing on a Nazi turning good. Some of the conversations had during these segments at least feel like they’re trying to dissect what it was like for Germany’s mindset during that era and how any person (good or bad) could or even would have joined the army because it was expected, or worse demanded. Brando’s accent is a little ridiculous (as are most of the other ‘German’ people), but it is well acted, and his supporting cast like May Britt, Maximillian Schell, and Dora Doll, feel much more fleshed out than anyone on the opposing side.

The black and white in the film makes it blend better with the (most likely) real-life footage shown off in the film as a means of connecting it to the real-life events, and in terms of how it looks thanks to being filmed on CinemaScope (which was meant for shooting widescreen films), it does look pretty nice and gets some cool shots from cinematographer Joseph MacDonald that show off the landscape and environment nicely enough. It’s a movie that thankfully doesn’t spend too much time in the trenches or on the battlefield as a lot of those locations aren’t very visually interesting to film, but it thankfully never feels like a set or staged location, and it feels pretty authentic when they are out in these wide-open areas or in recognizable cities. There’s going to be a feeling of repetitiveness when watching a war flick, but to this film’s credit, it knows that its focus is on the consequences felt by the people, not so much on the battles (which most of the best war films agree on). Its not a war film that banks on its battle scenes to draw people in, rather the conflicts that come before and after, so it isn’t a production that feels empty without these elements, but it does struggle a bit when some of the dialogue moments aren’t engaging enough to distract away from how little action is featured.

For a movie of that era, The Young Lions probably did more than what a war movie probably could have gotten away with at the time (especially given the circumstances of wanting to appease both sides), but it doesn’t mean that it stands out very strong in modern day. While it definitely hasn’t aged the worse as it is thankfully lacking in any harmful tropes or old-fashioned cliches (at least hurtful ones), it’s a tragic situation that a lot more movies nowadays have tackled some of the concepts in a stronger manner, and this one isn’t distinct enough to warrant searching it out. But as a time-capsule to a different period when the defeat of Nazi Germany was only a decade old, it’s perfectly serviceable. The Marlon Brando stuff is the better half of the movie, and it honestly would have been better to just cut out the other scenes involving the allied side and flesh his section out more, but considering his allegiance in the beginning, that would have been a hard pill to swallow.