The old lions

A movie that had been sitting around on my DVR for quite some time that I finally got around to watching is The Young Lions.

The movie opens up on New Year's Eve in 1938, with American tourist Margaret Freemantle (Barbara Rush) visiting Germany. She's met an army officer, Lt. Christian Diestl (Marlon Brando), and the two discuss the political situation in Germany, as this would have been a few months after the Munich Conference and several months before Europe would be officially plunged into war. Lt. Diestl is apparently a career officer, since he's not the biggest fan of the Nazis although he can't really say that very directly lest he be overheard by Germans who would happily turn him in to the Nazis.

Some time passes, as it's now early 1942. The Americans are now in World War II, and among the guys who get drafted is Michael Whiteacre (Dean Martin). He's a successful stage actor and singer, who had just signed on to do a new play on Broadway. Sorry, but his understudy is going to have to take over for him. Perhaps he can get one of his friends in Washington to give him a cushier job in the Army doing goodwill tours to entertain the regular schlubs.

The other American is Noah Ackerman (Montgomery Clift), a Jew who doesn't have much family left and doesn't have much of a life, having come back east from California and only getting a job as a department store clerk. But he doesn't particularly want to be drafted earlier, so when Michael meets Noah, Michael immeidately befriends him and invites him to a party at his swanky apartment.

There, we find that Michael's girlfriend is one Margaret Freemantle. She's not particularly happy about Michael trying to avoid his duty by using his influence to get a desk job. Michael introduces Noah to another guest at the party, Hope Plowman (Hope Lange). She seems like one of those young women you'd meet in 1930s or early 1940s films who came to New York from a small middle America or New England city. They immediately fall in love and get married and even get Hope pregnant lickety split, if you try to calculate dates based on the way the plot goes.

The rest of the story cuts back and forth between the various characters' development during the war, mostly Noah and Lt. Diestl. Diestl ends up first in Paris, and then in Africa, with his commanding officer, Capt. Hardenberg (Maximilian Schell); Hardenberg grows increasingly suspicious of Diestl since Diestl seems as though he'd rather sit this war out if he could find a way that wouldn't kill him. Noah gets bullied by everybody in boot camp except Michael for no good reason, but eventually goes over to Europe and fights with some distinction. Michael leaves boot camp when his transfer to a cushy job goes through, but pangs of guilt eventually overwhelm him and send him to the regular troops. You know he's going to meet up with Noah again.

The big problem I had with The Young Lions is that it really feels as though it should be two separate films, one focusing on Diestl and one focusing on the two Americans. As things stand, it goes on for 167 minutes and doesn't really give enough character development to either Diestl or Michael. It also feels at times as though it has some plot points it wants to tick off, and does so in a rather perfunctory way. We just have to have the big reveal of a concentration camp liberation, don't we? And Diestl returning to a bombed-out building.

All three of the male leads do their best, and Martin shows that he was capable of taking on dramatic roles, something he did relatively rarely in his career. But ultimately, all three are done no justice by the script. Still, other people may be more able to overlook the script problems thanks to the good performances.