...that Brando was BAD in this movie? (besides- his accent- OY!)
Thanks to Clift his Role Diestle didn't die Christ-like! He was what? A Lieutenant, not a regular Soldier. And all the years he was unaware about was was going on? And Brando played him really naive and dull, don't you think?
sorry dont agree at all, brando was amazing in this fine movie, he was able to convey the anguish that his character felt on the NAZI way of life.
"Im just a bum sitting in a motor home on a film set, BRANDO said, and they come looking for ZEUS".
I agree with your disagreement. I think Brando was excellent. Of course, I think he was one of the greatest actors EVER. This was a great film and I highly recommend it for it's story, acting, authenticity and incredible photography.
shareI thought everybody was good in this film. Brando, Clift, Martin, ect.
shareno I don't and I don't believe women should be watching films in the first place! if you are watching a film then who is stirring the soup? oy vey! brando was the greatest! my favorite period of his was the 60's starting with one-eyed jacks. thanks,tim
shareAre you being sarcastic, or misogynistic?
shareHe has bad moments in the film, but I wouldn't say his performance is atrocious or anything like that; and occasionally the accent seemed to disappear mid-sentence. On the whole of Brando's career, this certainly shouldn't be one of the films that people remember him for. In most films, Brando outperforms everyone else by a long way, but in this one he's left in the dust by both Dean Martin and Max Schell. Clift's performance is nothing more than a revival of his performance in "From Here to Eternity", except of course the addition of his Jewish heritage.
The film has serious thematic flaws and Brando was miscast.
well again dont agree mate, it is an all time classic
"Im just a bum sitting in a motor home on a film set, BRANDO said, and they come looking for ZEUS".
Brando was miscast
I just did not think Brando was believable.
"Rules? In a knife fight? No rules."
I think that Brando did a fine job acting his roll. But the thing is, I believe his roll was all wrong. In the novel, Christian's character was a good man who was slowly corrupted by nazism, and, in the end, had actually turned into a what we would call a monster. In the film, I suppose the producers decided to do the opposite, and gradually show Christian's disillusionment with Nazi Germany, and in the end, he turned 'good'. I remember thinking that I didn't like the alteration, having read the novel first. But I guess it's Hollywood, and it was 1957. I think one of the points of the novel was to show how Nazi Germany transformed and 'changed' ordinary Germans. I could be wrong, though.
shareYou are partially wrong. It was Brando who changed, substantially, his character. This insistence on Brando's part led to a very unhappy Irwin Shaw (understandable), and an already tense relationship between the actor and the director got worse. Brando, essentially, directed himself after that. Brando took a lot of heat from just about everyone regarding his insistence on redefining Christian. A Nazi with a conscience? . . . I think Brando was right in this case. His character became, I think, more identifyable to more people . . . and brought a fascinating complexity to the character not found in Shaw's original.
Brando's alteration may have seemed more identifiable to more people, and it was quite a contrast from Shaw's novel, but it strikes me as 'taking the easy way out'. No one back then really wanted to see a true Nazi, who was slowly disillusioned and corrupted; they wanted to see a Nazi with a conscience. Exactly how you had put it. I think the novel showed a different side of the war that no one had really been exposed to before. Not many in Hollywood anyway. I think the change that Brando made was very 'Hollywood' for it's time. Make the bad guy (Nazi) turn good in the end. I understand Shaw was very displeased, and almost came to blows with Brando during some interview shortly after the film was released. It would have been an interesting fight, as both men had the physique of a prize fighter. ;)
shareYou're exactly right. I don't know if I agree with you, however, in your saying it was "... the easy way out". It seems to me just different. I think there were more people in Germany (I have no hard evidence for this) who were probably enthusiastic about the new regime in the beginning - before they became aware of its underbelly - than were actually transformed into monsters as it progressed.
The interview you reference was, indeed, quite heated and Brando made a seemingly stupid remark about the character being no character until he created it. Shaw responded that the character was his creation in the first place. Both true statements . . . when you think about it.
Probably a bad idea getting a head-strong writer in the same room with an equally egotistical actor; especially when the topic at hand is the script. Believe me, I've seen people fight to the death over this.
sharewell brando did rewrite a lot of the script for the film as he claims in auto biography, all in all, i repeat that brando was brilliant in this film and i sure would love to get my hands on that interview...
"Im just a bum sitting in a motor home on a film set, BRANDO said, and they come looking for ZEUS".
i thought brando was good in this film and enjoyed his characters story, it was the american stuff with clift and martin that i found hard to get interested in.
shareMarlon Brando has never given a bad performance. No exceptions.
Everytime he acts he dissapears and only his character is on the screen.
It's truly amazing and in my opinion, something no one has matched until this day.
Edie & Terry.
correction-when he's trying and not just doing it for the money
biggest culprit of him phoning it in- christopher columbus
Brando would have beat him to a fine red pulb.
share[deleted]
IMHO, I think Brando did a fine job as did most of the cast. I also think that Montgomery Clift was wonderful in a very understated role. The movie does a good job at following the themes of the book, which even when you know the story is well worth the read. There are three very distinct differences (and may lesser ones) in the story line. Firstly, Brando's character, Christian has a very different experience throughout the war. His character at first is quite similar, but throughout the hardships he slowly looses his sense of humanity and turns into a more unhumane and uncompassionate person. His ending in the film is also somewhat different and sadly ironic. He is in no way a "Christ" figure, but more likely a decent person who is destroyed by war and the awful world created by the Nazi's. This change in character was largely due to Brando who felt that it was important to show a more human side of the character. The author, Irwin Shaw, who collaborated on the screenplay, must have gone along with it to one extent or another as this was what was put in the story. Important to remember that the book came out shortly after WW2 ended and the movie was about 12 years after the war. No doubt adding to the willingness to soften the character of Christian.
The main character of the book is actually Michael Whitaker, the Dean Martin character. He is in essence more like an everyman in between the Nazi Christian and the American Jewish soldier Noah. Noah and Christian stories revolve more around Michael's than as was done in the film. No doubt this was in part due to the fact that the stars of the film were the main attraction and it was easier in terms of the film to focus on the drama of the other two characters. The original choice of Tony Randell was probably more accurate to the book. In the book he is a Briadway stage manager not a Broadway muscial star. Don't get me wrong Dean Martin did a very good job and held his own.
The other main difference is in the ending of the book and some of the characters. I won't say what as if you are ever going to read the book, it will come as a surprize.
The book is long, but well worth reading and most bittersweet. Irwin Shaw is an oft-forgotten playwright and writer.
Sheila Beers
I too believe Brando was excellent in this role, albeit a very different one for him. I also believe the film showed how a basically good person could be corrupted by Nazism and become a monster as many Germans were. Remember the kindly sort of person Christian was as Dana Wynter's ski instructor at the beginning of the film? So far no one has mentioned the infatuation between these two that happened before the Dana Wynter character returned to the U.S. and her American boy friend, portrayed by Dean Martin. It is uncanny when Dana's two love interests meet in the war, but fact often is stranger than fiction.
Sheila_Beers:
I also believe the film showed how a basically good person could be corrupted by Nazism and become a monster as many Germans were.
Dana Wynter was not in this film. The part of Margaret was played by the exceptional Barbara Rush. And indeed the unknowing triangle that gets fulfilled at the end of the film and book is uncanny (although the book and movie have very different endings). But I don't agree with your assessment of Brando's Christian changing into a monster at all and neither would Brando, Montgomery Clift, Author, Irwin Shaw and a bevy of film critics.
Brando intentionally changed the scenes and the character to portray Christian as a man caught up in a larger struggle who essentially retains his humanity which was in the face of the horrors he witnesses what leads to his death. With perhaps the one exception of sleeping with Hardenburg's wife, Brando's Christian tries to do the right thing as often as possible. This was quite the opposite in the book and caused no end of upset for Irwin Shaw and Montgomery Clift. Clift, threatened to walk off the set when in Brando's death scene when he falls down the hill after being shot--Brando at first suggested that he die with his arms outstretched as in a cross so that he'd be seen dying a martyr's death.
Sheila Beers
I agree with J broms that the novel and movie did show how ordinarily good people could be corrupted by an evil society. I especially remember Christian's telling the American girl the "sob story" about Germany not having a free university and how "unfair" it was for the bordering countries to have a free university. This observation "supposedly" justified Germany's spending money on armaments and a war when the German government could have spent the money and efforts on the free university and other, worthwhile ideals that would have helped the German people. The scene foreshadowed the destruction to be brought on by envy, greed, hatred, violence, pride, and all-around stupidity and ignorance, just to name a few bad qualities exemplified by Nazism.
i completely disagree ..i really liked Brando's performance
i think him and May Britt were the best performers of this movie ..
..
Brando was excellent in this picture. Martin was sorely miscast.
shareFor some reason IMO american actors are very hard to accept as europeans of any nationality as a rule.Brando loved to try playing people of other races and countries but was not believable as a german any more than he was as french,japanese or even an Englishman.Some actors are somewhat more succesful at that,but Brando was a strong personality star and his americanism was very evident in all his roles.In this movie its painfuly obvious especially when you compare him with a real german like maximilian schell.Other than that Brando is always interesting to watch but just dont ask me to accept him as a german.
shareCOMPLETELY disagree!! I think Brando was brilliant in the role, as was everyone else in a major role in the film. Great casting!
shareI thought Martin was by far the best, but he had the least to do and his character was most insignificant.
I thought Brando was actually good, better than I expected him to be, but his character was pretty much a caricature of being an okay guy stuck on the wrong team. It definitely limited him, his thread in the story line was really dealt with simplistically.
I thought Clift's performance was incredibly disappointing. And his character was given much too much weight in the story line. Watching this movie I came away thinking that it was the story of triumph for the Jewish people against adversaries on every side and I'm not sure that's what the movie was billed as. I was told that it was a unique story of the war from the points of view of three different men, from opposing sides and that's definitely not what I saw. I thought Clift was a horrible cartoon in this and that his part was so over-done I couldn't believe it. I expected so much more knowing that he was in this.
I fault Irwin Shaw, then the director and then Clift. I would call The Young Lions a failure.
Brando acted brilliantly !
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