Entertaining, rewarding big WW2 epic starring Marlon Brando as a somewhat sympathetic Nazi. Before the war Christian Diestl (Brando) was a lower class young German who believed that Hitler's party would dissolve Germany's rigid class system. We follow Diestl throughout the war, where he begins to question everything he may have believed in. The German soldiers are juxtaposed with the American, represented by Dean Martin, the self-confessed coward who does not want to fight, and Montgomery Clift, the poor Jewish boy who is forced to fight against prejudice from his own side. I really liked this film- it challenged me and Dymtryk handles the drama well. Brando is fascinating as always as Diestl, but Clift is slightly off as Noah Ackerman (and he really does look in physical pain in some scenes, a result from his accident). Unfortunately Dean Martin didn't seem to get a strong enough story arc for his character. Maximillian Schell and the women, Barbara Rush and Hope Lange, are excellent. I was disappointed that Brando did not meet again with Rush (who he shares the first scene with) later in the picture. It's adapted from a novel, so it clearly wasn't written that way, but it would have been excellent if they could have, I felt that was going somewhere.
Review of The Young Lions
