The Young Lions

Marlon Brando and Montgomery Clift in the same film?! It almost sounds too good to be true. But it's not. Too bad they don't have any scenes together. Brando plays a platinum blonde Nazi, but not the murderous psychopathic kind that we're accustomed to seeing in films. He's a misguided idealist who believes it will ultimately be to the world's advantage to have Europe united under one flag, but balks at the idea of unnecessary killing, which gets him in trouble with his superiors. Fortunately, however, he's also a good soldier and strategist. It's not one of his most remembered performances, but he plays the conscience-stricken Nazi with the same gusto and believeablilty as in the finest of his performances. Clift, on the other hand, is a painfully shy American Jew who is drafted into the army along with his friend played by Dean Martin. During the boot camp scenes, his character seems to be strikingly similary to his Robert E. Lee Prewitt in From Here to Eternity. Clift really is a remarkable actor. Every time the scene would shift to something else, he always left me wanting it to go back to his scenes. The films was directed by Edward Dmytryk -- a solid, though lesser-known director of primarily genre films, and at nearly three hours in length, he never lets it get too dull. But then again, with Brando and Clift, how could it?