Special Features: Isolated Score Track / Audio Commentary with Film Historians Lem Dobbs, Julie Kirgo, and Nick Redman / Original Theatrical Trailer
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Marlon Brando In A Controversial Role...
Academy Award®-winning actor Marlon Brando captures the extraordinary contradictions and complexity of a decent man who winds up as a Nazi officer. The Young Lions tells the story of World War II from both sides. The American, represented by Montgomery Clift and Dean Martin. And the German, made tragically vivid by Brando. Based on the novel by Irwin Shaw. The Young Lions is a provocative, insightful movie. It is also one of Brando's all-time best.
The Young Lions (1958) June 9, 2015, Limited Edition of 3000 from Twilight Time
The Young Lions (1958) is coming June 9, 2015 as a limited edition Blu-ray release of 3000 copies from Twilight Time
Directed by Edward Dymytrk, who also directed Raintree County, The Caine Mutiny, The Mountain, The Left Hand of God, Crossfire, a pair of great westerns Warlock and Broken Lance, and one of my favorite film noirs Murder, My Sweet.
If that doesn't grab you, then try this: starring Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, Dean Martin, Hope Lange, Barbara Rush, Maximilian Schell, and Lee Van Cleef.
The thread is on the second page already, so that's why you probably thought that nobody has created one.
I did a thread search and it didn't show up.
lol ...for once, I thought I was going to get to start a movie thread for one of my favorite films. Should have known you would have already created one.
Some backstory: Clift (my favorite actor) went into a self-imposed retirement after the debilitating car accident he suffered while filming Raintree County. Despite successful surgery, half of his face was immobilized and his matinee idol looks were gone.
As he was sulking in his home hopped up on painkillers and drowning himself in alcohol, a car pulled up outside. Marlon Brando emerged scowling, and strode defiantly to Clift's front door. His assistant let him in and the two method luminosities sequestered themselves in a room for a considerable time to talk.
A while later Brando left, and a teary-eyed Clift reported that Brando came to essentially rescue him from the depths of his destruction, telling him that Clift was the only actor he measured himself against and the only way he could be 'Brando' was to have more Clift out there to compete against.
The two joined forces on The Young Lions shortly thereafter but sadly, rarely communicated. Brando made it his prerogative to watch every single one of Clift's scenes while the latter couldn't be bothered to watch Marlon. When they threatened to tamper the ending so that Brando would die arms outstretched in a Christ-like repose, Clift threatened to walk off and not complete the movie. Brando's character is radically changed from his book counterpart; in the novel, he becomes an uncaring, efficient automaton for the Nazis while here he's a naive "good German" who becomes aware of the atrocities around him only when it's too late. Clift for his part threw himself into the role and was convinced that he would finally be his Oscar.
The Young Lions is certainly not bad and is a novelty for being the only movie to feature the two best talents of their generation. However, it was a colossal missed opportunity not allowing these acting giants to share the screen. Beyond that, Martin, who jumped at the chance to prove himself a capable dramatic thespian by working with the two, acquits himself well enough. The movie is one of the few made during that period that actually tries to say something about war while not demonizing Germans.
But it's not the sum of its parts and it is certainly not worth $30. But for those who don't own it and have the money to spare, this is probably the best way to go.
I haven't read the book, but I did read that Brando changed his character so much that he resembled Mother Teresa in a German uniform. Ha, that's stars for you. It a good movie, but I don't like it enough to pay premium price for it. The reason I'd buy it would be for the Hugo Friedhofer music score on the isolated track, I'd think it would be in stereo.
Just starting watching this last night for the first time. Had to stop it at the hour mark as it was getting late. So far so good, and a pretty fine performance by Brando. Montgomery Clift is almost unrecognizable after his reconstruction surgery, and seems so frail here. It's almost like a completely different person and kinda takes you out of the movie because you feel like he's physically going through a lot. Maximilian Schell is also so young here. I'm used to seeing him look much older. Either way, so far I'm liking it, but mainly due to Brando.
It's a slightly unusual war film. Saw it a number of years ago but haven't watched it since. Think it's worth a second viewing though, like the same director's Crossfire, Warlock, and Shalako.
I had wanted to see this for a couple of years and as it's a Fox title, I set about looking for a decent price on this out-of-print Twilight Time Blu-ray from a third-party seller. I thought the film was very interesting and worthwhile, even if it's not altogether successful. Apparently, Brando's character is softened quite a bit from the Irwin Shaw novel (written in 1948), which the author disliked, but which I (watching 70 or 80 years later, depending on where you measure from) thought was a very good idea. Iffy "German" accent aside perhaps, Brando gives the best performance in the film by far and I actually could have spent even more time with him and Maximillan Schell* versus Montgomery Clift and Dean Martin, but this is post-war Hollywood, so them's the breaks, I suppose.
*A side note: IMDb says Schell did not speak English at this point:
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Originally Posted by IMDb
At the time the film was made, Maximilian Schell (Captain Hardenberg) could not speak English and had to learn his lines phonetically from Marlon Brando (Lt. Christian Diestl).
That seems odd to me as he sounds very fluent and much like his later English-language roles. He also has quite a lot of dialogue to camera and all or virtually all of it is in English. I wonder how much he may have looped his dialogue after filming had completed, but if that was done, it was done pretty well and I really didn't know he couldn't speak English, although I could buy that he wasn't as fluent as he would become. Maybe I should watch again more closely next time.
Anyway, unfortunately for Montgomery Clift, this was his first film after his serious car accident and between the facial scarring and the toll it must have taken on him, he looks very old, tired and frankly, somewhat emaciated. But Dean Martin was three years older than Clift and looks even older than that! Neither man is really believable as a newly-drafted army recruit, even if men their age were drafted or able to volunteer after Pearl Harbor. The Blu-ray cover is pretty airbrushed and makes these two seem considerably younger than they look in the film. Hope Lange was good as...Hope, but most of the women had pretty thankless roles, possibly because the film just elides through a good few years of the war and only shows us so much in each of the men's lives during that time.
The black-and-white CinemaScope picture is nice, but it does look a little too "clean" to me, possibly as a result of blending in the stock footage used in some sequences. This was a 2015 release from a 4K scan and the DVD is from 2001, so it wouldn't have been the same master for both discs and presumably the Blu-ray is much superior. This was the only Blu-ray release anywhere in the world and sadly, unless someone at Criterion is a massive fan of the film, this is probably the best version we will ever get.
Even though the DVD apparently has a Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo track, the Twilight Time Blu-ray has a multi-channel mix that is in a 5.1 container, though I didn't notice my subwoofer activate at all, so I'm guessing it could be 4.0, like a lot of Fox's bigger films from this period. The track gets the job done with dialogue that's nice and clear and some occasional directional placement, which is nice.
I also checked out the English SDH subtitles and as usual, they're excellent, in a large white font, positional and translate some (though not all) of the French and (mostly sung) German dialogue, which is left untranslated in the film.
Also included is the 8-page booklet with liner notes by Julie Kirgo—remember when booklets came with every Blu-ray copy? And a nice little surprise, the booklet has original poster artwork on the back of it. It's been a while since I looked at a Twilight Time release, so I can't remember if this was / is a usual thing for them. But regardless, this is a nice little release and the film definitely deserved it, the DVDs worldwide apparently never had anything but the theatrical trailer.
I hope to watch with the audio commentary next time and sample the score, too.
I really miss getting classic Fox titles on a regular basis.
BDInfo scan
The 24-bit 2.0 track is the isolated score by Hugo Friedhofer, while the 16-bit track is the audio commentary.
The credits in the booklet list Ambient Digital Media (out of Marina del Rey, California) for the Blu-ray authoring.
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Total Video
Title Codec Length Movie Size Disc Size Bitrate Bitrate Main Audio Track Secondary Audio Track
----- ------ ------- -------------- -------------- ------- ------- ------------------ ---------------------
00002.MPLS AVC 2:47:21 45,555,216,384 45,765,199,285 36.29 27.98 DTS-HD Master 5.1 3189Kbps (48kHz/24-bit) DTS-HD Master 2.0 1797Kbps (48kHz/24-bit)
I'm so glad I bought the TT blu when I did. It's a personal favourite and the BD doesn't disappoint. Terrific A/V quality and the audio commentary is great fun.
I'm surprised this has yet to be picked up by another label for an even more comprehensive release.
I'm so glad I bought the TT blu when I did. It's a personal favourite and the BD doesn't disappoint. Terrific A/V quality and the audio commentary is great fun.
I'm surprised this has yet to be picked up by another label for an even more comprehensive release.
It hasn't gotten a rerelease because it's now owned by Disney. They're not very interested in releasing their pre-1960 Fox movies on to Blu-ray.
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The Young Lions (1958) - Twilight Time - June 9, 2015
The Young Lions (1958) June 9, 2015, Limited Edition of 3000 from Twilight Time
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