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Storyline
A silent nine-year-old Czech boy, a survivor of Auschwitz, flees a refugee center in postwar Germany and is found by an American G.I. At the same time, the boy's mother, the sole surviving member of his family, searches refugee centers for her son. Time, distance, and the massive numbers of refugee children are factors hampering the reunion of mother and son. Written by
Martin H. Booda <booda@datasync.com>
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Did You Know?
Trivia
"Theater Guild on the Air" broadcast a 60 minute radio adaptation of the movie on March 9, 1952 with
Montgomery Clift reprising his film role.
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Goofs
Steve (
Montgomery Clift) leaves Karel a sandwich by the side of the road, and drives off in his Army Jeep. As he drives off, a cameraman's or director's hand can be seen reflected in the windshield, motioning Karel to move forward and retrieve the food that Steve just left him. Sure enough, right on cue, we see Karel move forward to pick up the sandwich.
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Quotes
[
Steve is teaching a young boy, whose name he does not know but has coined Jim, to speak English]
Ralph 'Steve' Stevenson:
[
to Jim]
You have no idea how useful it's going to be for you to know English. You can go where ever you like. Everybody knows what 'OK' means. You can use English all over the world. Not, not just America: Canada, Africa, Australia, India. Even in England, they understand English... well, sort of.
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Connections
Referenced in
Montgomery Clift (1983)
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Soundtracks
"'S Wonderful"
(1927) (uncredited)
Music by
George Gershwin
Played on a radio
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After watching Roberto Rossellini's 1947 final part of his war trilogy "Germania anno zero", Fred Zinnemann's "The Search" is in direct contrast. While Rossellini approaches a similar subject with absorbing objectivity, "The Search" opts for sentimentality, although Zinnemann tried to add a documentary dimension to the story. It's the tale of a boy who is rescued by an American G.I. in Berlin, while the boy's mother is looking for him in refugee camps, after they were separated in Auschwitz during the war. Mother and child are pretty close but do not know it, so the story goes from scenes of the soldier educating the boy, to the mother's giving love to surrogate sons in a UN home for war orphans. Zinnemann's tact (or lack of passion, as some may say) nevertheless makes it work, as well as the performances by Montgomery Clift as the soldier and young Ivan Jandl as the kid, who won a special Oscar.