General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

The Young Lions

The Young Lions is a 1958 American World War II drama directed by Edward Dmytryk, adapted by Edward Anhalt from Irwin Shaw's 1948 best-selling novel, and starring Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, and Dean Martin as three soldiers, one German and two American, whose wartime paths converge at the end of the war.¹^•² It was produced by Al Lichtman for Twentieth Century-Fox, runs 167 minutes, and was photographed in black-and-white CinemaScope.¹ The film was nominated for three Academy Awards and remains the only feature film to star both Brando and Clift.³^•⁴

Key fact	Detail
Source	Best-selling 1948 novel by Irwin Shaw, published three years after the war ended²
Director / writer	Edward Dmytryk; screenplay by Edward Anhalt¹
Lead cast	Marlon Brando (Christian Diestl), Montgomery Clift (Noah Ackerman), Dean Martin (Michael Whiteacre)¹
Studio / format	Twentieth Century-Fox; 167 minutes; black-and-white CinemaScope, 17 reels¹
Release	New York opening 2 April 1958; German premiere 17 March 1958⁵^•¹
Recognition	Three Academy Award nominations³
Distinction	The only feature film to star both Marlon Brando and Montgomery Clift⁴

Spoilers

Story

The film follows three men through World War II in parallel narratives until they meet in a final confrontation.⁶ Christian Diestl (Brando) is a Bavarian shoemaker and part-time ski instructor who, in the film's opening scene on New Year's Eve 1938, tells an American woman, Margaret Freemantle (Barbara Rush), that he is not political but believes the Nazis stand for something hopeful in Germany, and that Hitler has promised to fix a university system that forced him to abandon his medical studies.¹ He joins up enthusiastically, serves in Paris and North Africa, is badly wounded, and gradually comes to hate the war while remaining torn between conscience and duty as a German.³

Noah Ackerman (Clift) is a shy Jewish shop assistant from New York who is drafted, endures bullying and anti-Semitism from his fellow soldiers and his commanding officer, and becomes a hero in battle.³^•⁷ Michael Whiteacre (Martin) is a Broadway show-business personality who uses his connections to land a safe job in England, feels guilty about it, and volunteers for front-line infantry duty.³ Near the end of the war, all three cross paths at a concentration camp.⁸

From novel to screen

Getting the novel to the screen took nearly a decade.² A New York Times news item of 3 March 1952 reported that director Fred Zinnemann was about to option the film rights, intending to produce and direct independently, and had made overtures to Brando and Clift for two of the leading roles.¹ In January 1954 the Times announced that producers Jacques Braunstein and Robert Lord had purchased the rights for a sum in excess of $100,000.¹

The project eventually reached the screen under Dmytryk, who wanted a success after the relative failure of his previous film, Raintree County (1957), which had drawn decent box office but tepid to bad reviews.² Shaw, an experienced screenwriter himself, did not write the adaptation; the screenplay was by Edward Anhalt.⁴ A September 1957 Hollywood Reporter item noted that Joanne Woodward was initially cast as Hope Plowman but left the production to appear in The Long Hot Summer; Hope Lange took the role.¹

Production

Principal photography ran from 17 June to late October 1957.¹^•⁵ Filming took place in Berlin, at the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp site in France, in Paris, in New York and Santa Monica, and at Mount Wilson and Borrego Springs in California.¹^•⁵ Joe MacDonald was the cinematographer, Dorothy Spencer the editor, Lyle R. Wheeler and Addison Hehr the production designers, and Hugo Friedhofer composed the score.¹^•⁹

The production carried notable tensions between its two Method-trained stars. According to a Time Out account, Clift accused Brando of turning Diestl into a "Nazi pacifist" and blocked Brando's plan to have the character die with his arms outstretched as if on the Cross; director Dmytryk in turn dissuaded Brando from delivering an improvised speech about the plight of American blacks.¹⁰

Cast and performances

The supporting cast included Hope Lange as Hope Plowman, Barbara Rush as Margaret Freemantle, May Britt as Gretchen Hardenburg, Maximilian Schell as Captain Hardenburg, Dora Doll as Simone, Lee Van Cleef as Sergeant Rickett, and Liliane Montevecchi as Françoise.¹

Critics singled out the three leads in different ways. The British Film Institute's notes describe Clift's pared-down approach, adopted after a car accident limited his facial mobility, as highly effective: he inhabits the role through concentration, contrasting favorably with what the notes call a preening, superficial Brando as a caring German officer out of sync with his Nazi comrades.⁷ Critic Michael Sragow, writing in 2015, called the film a fascinating showcase for Clift, Martin, and Brando respectively as a somber American Jew, a cynical Broadway pro, and a decent German, while judging Dmytryk's movie a truncated, sanitized version of Shaw's "Nazi-era War and Peace."¹¹ Preston Wilder, also writing in MUBI, defended Brando's performance as unusually grave and diffident, noting that in the pre-war argument scene it is the American girl who comes off looking shrill.¹¹

For Dean Martin, coming on the heels of his split with longtime partner Jerry Lewis, the film helped launch his solo career and established him as a more versatile actor than a straight man for the manic Lewis.³

Reception

Contemporary reviews divided over the film's softening of Shaw's German protagonist. John McCarten's New Yorker review (April 1958) complained that in Shaw's novel the ski instructor became a fanatical brute obsessed with Hitlerism, whereas the movie presents him as a poor, mixed-up skier who longs for amity among nations, and found Brando's portrayal lacking emotional depth.¹² TIME, by contrast, judged that the film strikes deeper into human substance than the novel and praised the performances of Brando and Clift as being of unusually deep draft, along with Dmytryk's handling of light intensities from scene to scene.¹³

On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes the film holds a 75% Tomatometer from 8 critics and a 76% Popcornmeter score from more than 2,500 audience ratings.⁸ Later assessments have been mixed in emphasis: Penelope Houston in Sight & Sound described a battle-canvas moving with leaden efficiency between characters and countries with no central point of focus,⁸ while a South China Morning Post retrospective called it a somewhat bloated adaptation that nonetheless has what a war movie should have, including a Jew who becomes the victim of anti-Semitism in the US Army.¹⁴

Release and afterlife

The film premiered in Germany on 17 March 1958 as Die jungen Löwen, opened in New York on 2 April 1958, and reached Japanese theaters on 28 June 1958.⁵^•¹^•⁹ It was copyrighted by Twentieth Century-Fox on 18 March 1958 and ran 15,074 feet across 17 reels.¹ The film has remained available on home video and digital platforms; as of recent listings it can be rented or purchased on Amazon Video, Apple TV, and Fandango at Home.¹⁵

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › War and historical films (individual works) › War action and adventure › War action films released through 1999 › Released 1934 to 1962

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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