Review - The Young Lions

February 4, 2022
 
The Young Lions – U.S., 1958
 

I’ve seen two versions of Edward Dmytryk’s The Young Lions in the last two days. Now, those of you who know the film may find yourself puzzled by the existence of a second version, and, in truth, I found myself pondering this same question. But then again, it also made perfect sense. After all, I had prepared myself for a film of epic length, but the end came after just 102 minutes. Perhaps more telling was the rather clumsy way in which the film had been edited. Scenes had concluded even though it seemed characters had more they were going to say, and on occasion characters referred to events that had supposedly happened earlier in the film, but which I was hearing about for the first time. And then there’s this: with the exception of a half-second view of the survivors of a Nazi Concentration Camp, there were no clearly distinguishable references to the Holocaust. Rather strange for a film that is partially about a German soldier becoming disillusioned with Hitler and his justifications for war. Had I reviewed the film immediately after seeing this version, it would likely have received a star and a half. Thank goodness for those extra sixty minutes.
 
The Young Lions tells the story of three men: Christian Diestl (Marlon Brando), a young man rather fed up with a social system that places limits on him simply because of the class he was born into; Noah Ackerman (Montgomery Clift), a shy young Jewish man who, like Christian, is poor and faces discrimination; and finally Michael Whiteacre (Dean Martin), a Broadway entertainer trying his best to avoid being anywhere remote close to the fighting in Europe. The film intersperses Christian’s and Noah’s stories, giving viewers a rather moving view of the changes that war can force upon individuals and, in the process, reminding us that wars can make and break people simultaneously.
 
The film is at its best when it focuses on the characters’ emotional journeys. In Christian, we get a picture of an idealistic young man clinging to principles during a war in which few people at the top had any. In an early scene, we see him take prisoners without once firing his gun, and when he tells a French mother whose teenage son has just been arrested that nothing bad will happen to him, we believe that he believes that. As for Noah, his path is not nearly as smooth. After a very awkward introduction, which depicts him as being unaware of the opposite sex and utterly aloof at a party, he proceeds to belittle New York (as a way of impressing a young lady), sit in almost complete silence on a subway, say the bare minimum to the woman he’s seeing home, and then confess his love for the young lady even though he just met her a few hours earlier. (Yes, it’s that odd.)
 
Thankfully, his storyline picks up after he and Michael start boot camp. There, we begin to see the characteristics that will serve Noah well – determination, diligence, and fearlessness, even when the odds are stacked against him. Later events only serve to strengthen his resolve to stand up against bullies. At the same time, Christian is learning some hard lessons of his own. Not everyone, it appears, is interested in fighting a war in a dignified fashion, and that includes his commanding officer, played with fire and fury by future Oscar-winner Maximilian Schnell.
 
Sadly, one of the main weaknesses of the script is the character of Michael, for what often happens when a film has too many characters is that the one that receives less screen time seems superfluous. And that is indeed what happens with Michael. The character is relegated to a few scenes in which he and his girlfriend argue over the war and Michael’s disinterest in fighting it. However, we never get a sense of where his hesitancy comes from or just how deeply it affects him. Of course, cinematic cowards don’t often stay that way, and this is understandable. Audiences want to cheer a character’s discovery of their courage. However, unlike Christian and Noah, Michael gets little time to convey his turnaround. He literally goes from saying, “I am a coward” to running toward gunfire, and to make matters even worse, we don’t even see Michael’s expression when he decides to risk it all. It cheapens what should be a pivotal moment in the film.
 
And then there’s the matter of age. Brando was 34 when he made the film, but his mature, yet youthful look makes his character’s naïve and optimistic view of Hitler and the Nazi Party believable. In an early scene, he relates his reasons for supporting the present government, and they are less about hatred and greed than economics and opportunity. Clift, on the other hand, was 38 and looked older, a fact that makes Noah’s strange comments and awkward mannerisms more off-putting than romantic. I found it hard to believe that his love interest, Hope Lang (well-played by Hope Plowman), would have given him a second date, much less married him in what seems like a month or two. Ms. Plowman’s age only adds to the discomfort - she was just 24 in 1958, and when she stands next to Clift, you can’t help thinking that one of their characters should have been played by someone closer to the other’s age. Then there’s Martin, a tremendously gifted performer and actor, but one who was 41 when the film was released. Truthfully, he looked a bit older, and I couldn’t help wondering if the army would really have drafted someone in his situation.
 
In the end, The Young Lions is only moderately successful. It has two terrific stories, yet saddles one of them with a terrible introduction, while containing a third that never feels complete. It also has too many instances of female characters whose sole purpose seems to be to put an idea into Christian’s head and then to wait around for him to return and resume a romance based on a single encounter. One of these characters is a French woman who confesses a concern about having her head shaved for cavorting with a German. Well, she cavorts, but all of her concerns – based on real incidents, by the way – are never mentioned again. And then there’s the ending, which involves a speech about how the future belongs to good, decent people, a shooting of a good, decent person, and a quick cut to one character returning home triumphantly. It all happens so suddenly that it is not clear whether we are supposed to cheer the safe return of the soldier or reflect that the world is worse off for the loss. (on DVD and Blu-ray)

3 stars