...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?
Brando did an excellent job in the film, no question
shareClift was pretty dull. Brando's never been dull in any role.
shareYes I agree I found this a strange film with some good things and some bad and Brando was one of the bad. Sometimes he's great like in 'On The Waterfront' and sometimes he's really not. This is one where his kind of supposedly naturalistic acting just doesn't work. The scene on the motorbike with Maximillian Schell was one of the unintentionally funniest I've ever seen.
shareI am not a huge Brando fan to begin with but I agree. He annoyed the hell out of me in this. I was very surprised to learn the critics at the time didn't appreciate Clift in this, I thought it was one of his best. Martin was also really good especially considering it was his first serious acting gig.
shareClift had been hurt in a car accident before starring in Young Lions and the sad irony here is just four years after his iconic role in From Here To Eternity, he's basically replaying his Pruitt character as Ackerman.
The difference here is that Monty looks tired and hurt in this role. It's obvious that the effects of the accident, for which he had reconstructive facial surgery, hurt his performance in this film. Nonetheless, he's very good.
Brando may have done better if he played Christian like in the book, and a real German actor, like Hardy Kruger, would have been much more convincing and realistic. Brando was trying to make a political statement by softening the character, and it's a reason why The Young Lions never achieved true classic status as a war movie, like The Dirty Dozen and Patton did.
In 1958, most Americans didn't want to see sympathetic Nazi soldiers at the movies. WWII was still fresh in the minds of moviegoers and veterans alike.
Even so, Young Lions was a big hit, and it kinda holds up.
This is the first hollywood movie that shows the death camps. I don't remember any war movies before this one that showed anything having to do with the holocaust.
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The movie was not that bad thanks to Brando, montgomery clift here was post accident so things were really heading south for him here. considering Brando was playing the villain and clift (the hero) wasnt himself really, i would say the overall result was ok.
share"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."
I really don't agree with this statement. Prewitt is a strong, somewhat arrogant guy. Ackerman is weak in everything but spirit and is very much an innocent. Prewitt is stoic, Ackerman wears his heart on his sleeve and tries not to show it.
Clift has many great moments in The Young Lions, but at times he seems (and surely was) drunk if not more. He was guzzling his post-accident tonic of vodka, grapefruit juice and demerol throughout the shoot. I think I once read that Noah's last speech, which ends with him warning Michael (Dean Martin) about the military eventually ruling the world, was supposed to be longer, but Clift was so plowed by the time they shot it they just did a quick edit to Brando walking nearby so his inebriation would be less obvious. It doesn't really work.
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I read Shaw's novel soon after it came out, and I saw and liked the movie. I was a big Brando fan after On the Waterfront, which I must have seen over twenty times by now and which I still think is one of the greatest movies ever made.
I'm not so gullible anymore. The problem that I have with Brando in this movie is not with his performance but his character. Christian Diestl is a Nazi in the book, and the film makers decided to idealize his character to achieve greater popularity for the movie. (And, irony of ironies, Edward Dmytryk, the director, was blacklisted as a communist sympathizer. Like Elia Kazan, Dmytryk named names when testifying before the HUAC.) So Brando's character has gone from unsympathetic Nazi to sympathetic idealist caught in a monstrous situation. It's no wonder that he became disgusted with Hollywood.
If you read up on that you will realize that the change was made to accommodate Brando. He was not interested in playing a Nazi villain. Clift was surprised to see the changes that had been made to the script and complained to Dmytrik, who admitted that Brando only agreed to do the film if he could essentially rewrite his character.
Christian in the novel and Christian in the film are two completely different people. He is utterly selfish in the novel and grows more hostile and contemptuous of others in the face of the Nazi defeat. In the film he grows philosophical as he wearies of the war. It is an intriguing and well-played characterization, but it throws the story off-balance. Shaw's complaints about the film are certainly understandable.
I would imagine that the chief change to the end of the story, involving Noah not being killed, had been made before the film went into production. This made it easier for Brando to whitewash Christian.
Brando was a specialist in roles of man embittered.....
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