Customer Reviews

The Search [VHS]

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4 star:		(5)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

The extraordinary talents of both Fred Zinnemann and Montgomery Clift combine to make this superb, and sadly neglected film a memorable experience. Filmed in the U.S. occupied zone of Berlin, it shows the devastated city in the aftermath of World War II, and the suffering of its lost and orphaned children.

The plot concerns a 9 year old boy, who has amnesia, and his relationship with an American soldier, and there is a secondary plot of his mother, who is looking for him. It is sentimental, but escapes being contrived or cloying, and I find myself repeatedly moved to tears with every viewing of it.

As with so many of Zinnemann's films, the black and white cinematography (by Emil Berna) has a simple, stark beauty. Both Zinnemann and Clift, whose incredibly sensitive portrayal of the soldier is riveting, were nominated for Oscars, but lost to John Huston (The Treasure of the Sierra Madre) and Laurence Olivier (Hamlet).
A special juvenile Oscar went to Ivan Jandl, who so convincingly plays the little boy, and it was to be the only film he would ever act in.

This was the first time movie audiences had a chance to see the handome Clift; even though he had already filmed Howard Hawks' Red River, this film was released first, and it is a must-see for fans of this graceful, fabulous actor. Also highly recommended is his first film with Elizabeth Taylor, A Place in the Sun.

I only recently became aware of this film, and managed to catch it on TCM. (This is a review of the film itself, not a DVD or VHS version of it.) I was struck by the candor and originality it conveyed in the drama of how displaced children were handled in post-war Europe. This particular drama focuses on a young Czech boy and his mother..seperated at Auschwitz, both presuming the other dead. A wonderful ensemble cast, headed by the sublime Montgomery Clift, conspire to reunite them...all amidst the heartbreaking backdrop of war ravaged locations and a gritty subplot of the true wartime atrocities.

Unique, heartbreaking and completely engrossing.

When the Second World War in Europe had ended, the struggle for survival did not end with the suicide of Hitler. For hundreds of thousands of civilians, the war had separated families, with parents and children in search of each other. In THE SEARCH, director Fred Zinnemann presents a stark and depressing montage of a war blasted Berlin full of helpless and hapless lost souls. Jamilla Novotna is Mrs. Malik, a Czechk woman who has lost her husband to the war and is determined not to lose her son, Karil (Ivan Jandl), even though she has not seen him for many months nor does she have a reasonable basis to assume that he still lives. She trudges through one whistle stop after another never giving up. Novotna's performance is stunning on several levels. At no time does she come off as a self-deluded figure who ignores the lack of evidence for her son's survival. There are times when she is overwhelmed with despair but her inner sense of grittiness pushes her on. She is a kind woman whom people, especially children, gravitate towards. Unknown to her, her son Karil lives in a nearby Displaced Person orphanage. He runs away only to be befriended by an American soldier (Montgomery Clift), who promptly provides the needed father image in the boy's life. The movie is really a character magnet, with the mother seeking the boy from a long distance and the American soldier having the attraction to the boy up close.

THE SEARCH is a sentimental look at a most unsentimental era in European history. It would have been too easy for director Zinnemann to be cloying in the mother-son's eventual reunion. Instead, the resolution is anticipated and eagerly sought for. As I watched the attempts of a group of kind hearted orphanage workers struggle incessantly to repair the ruins of a blighted Europe, I realized that the search for one's lost family often involve a search within one's own soul for the strength to continue that search. THE SEARCH is simply one of the best films of the post war era.

The Search is the most relevant, effective and truthful film made about Europe in the aftermath of World War II. Fred Zinneman was inspired to cast the great opera singer, Jarmila Novotna, as the mother of a Czech intellectual family ruined by Hitler's war. The film, based on a true story, shows the tragic story of holocaust for millions in Europe, regardless of race or religion, and depicts the desperation and trauma of the survivors who became 'displaced persons'. Her husband and daughter killed in the camps, Novotna sets out after liberation to find her surviving young son. The boy, traumatised, wanders through the ruins of Central Europe where he is befriended by Montgomery Clift's sympathetic GI, in his extraordinary film debut. The innocent American must cope with the horror and cynicism of post-war Europe while, unbeknowns to him, the mother clings to faith in his lost son's survival and continues her search. The delicacy and perceptiveness of the treatment is exceptional, increasing tension at a brilliantly judged pace until a cathartic conclusion is achieved. No one seeing this film will ever forget it. It deserves re-release in a new print.

Around this poignant subject, there have not been just a handful of memorable pictures, and this is one of them. The rest of this reduced number of items, would be conformed by Tarkovsky's Ivan's childhood, Rosellini's Germany year zero and Rene Clement' s Forbidden games.

Postwar Berlin, 1945. A sensitive American soldier - Montgomery Clift - cares about a concentration camp survivor, a nine years child, while the boy's mother desperately searches all displaced person camps for him.

One of the most fulminating films ever made around this delicate issue, that deserved to Ivan Jandl a special Award for his audacious and extraordinary performance. Zealously directed, magisterially told that counted with a fist-rate cast.

All these elements make of this move a must-see.

This is a great movie.
It's about europe's children after WW2 and how a little boy is found by American GI Ralph "Steve"
Stevenson (Montgomery Clift) while eating in his Jeep. He intices the boy with the food and takes him with him.
At first the boy is scarred but Steve earns his trust.
Steve calls the boy Jim (Ivan Jandl) and teaches him. He wants to take Jim back with him to America.
Little do they know that his mother is alive and looking for her Karel (his real name). To describe the whole movie
would take a while but it is a happy ending.
Too bad this isn't on DVD. Sweet movie. You may cry & laugh some.
This was based on a true story about europe's children.
A touching movie.

I'm a huge movie buff, and yet I have to admit I was never even aware of this film until a few weeks ago, when my brother loaned me a copy of it on video that he taped from TV. The movie begins just after the end of WWII with several surviving children who were separated from their families in the concentration camps, being unloaded from a train. Although the officers now in charge of them are not their enemy, the children are terrified of anyone in uniform after their horrible ordeal in the camps. A group of the children eventually escape from the back of a truck, and one of them, a little czech boy, becomes the focus of this great film. A compassionate American soldier (Montgomery Clift) finds him in the street and decides to take him in and care for him. We soon learn that the boy's Mother, who also survived the war, is desparately searching for him. The boy does not remember much about his Mother at first, but he slowly starts to remember her and realizes that he must search for her too. This movie is a real gem, with first class performances all around...but it is the young boy, played by Ivan Jandl, that steals this film...and your heart! I soon learned that Ivan was awarded a special Oscar for his performance and it made me want to stand up and cheer for him! He certainly deserved it! Clift was also nominated for best Oscar for his role as the compassionate soldier that cares for the boy. Anyone who loves movies should NOT miss this fabulous film! Unfortunately, it is not available on DVD at the moment, and I don't believe it was ever released on VHS either. A real shame because this wonderful film should not be overlooked! I hope it becomes available soon! My brother taped it a few years back on the Turner Classic Movies channel...hopefully, they are still playing it from time to time. This might be your only chance to see it until it is officially released.

This is one of the best movies I have seen. The little boy is played with such poetry by Ivan Jandl. I have never seen a more moving portrayal by a child actor. He won an honorary academy award for his role. It is extremely unfortunate that he never made another movie. Infact, his performance was so inspiring that the communist Chech government took him away from the university he was later studying in, and forced him to work in a quarry for many years. That ruined his health and wellbeing. He died in obscurity without realising his potential.

Other reviews echo my basic sentiments about the film and the surprisingly bad film transfer from the "Vault", so I'll touch upon the main performances.

This was Montgomery Clift's carefully chosen follow-up to his film debut "Red River", (though "The Search" was released first), and with help from his highly revered acting coach, Mira Rostova, delivered a realistic, and powerfully restrained performance, also ensuring that the inter-play between his character and Czech child actor Ivan Jandl's was believable, NEVER cute or cloying.

Clift also extensively rewrote the script himself, which won the "credited" screenwriters an Oscar for "Best Story", and helped win Jandl a special Oscar prize for "Outstanding Juvenile Performance"

Sadly, accepting the Oscar (though it was sent to him, as the Czech republic refused to allow him to go to the US to receive it) cost Jandl dearly, as he was later blacklisted from Czech acting school as a young adult for doing so, since the country was under Communist rule at the time;He could only find work in radio for a while, and tragically died in his apartment at age 50 from complications from diabetes in 1987.


Poignantly playing the Mother was famed Czech Soprano Jarmila Novotna (who had a long tenure at the Met throughout the 40's and 50's), surprisingly in her first, Non-Singing role.

This was one of the few, MGM productions that was wisely shot "Documentary-Style" on location, using Post-War German city ruins throughout Ingolstadt, Wurzburg, and Nuremberg.

"The Search" (released in 1948) stars a very young Montgomery Clift and is not to be confused with the much more famous "The Searchers," a 1958 John Wayne/John Ford western.

"The Search" was filmed in black-and-white on location in a still-war-devastated Europe. The director was Fred Zinnemann, one of the greatest (and most versatile) directors in movie history. Zinnemann's credits include "High Noon," "A Man for All Seasons" and "From Here to Eternity," as well as the musical "Oklahoma!" and the fantastic 1970's thriller "Day of the Jackal." (I told you he was versatile.)

The story of "The Search" is a simple one. Clift is a likable American GI still in Europe after WWII. He encounters an Eastern European boy (a displaced person or DP) who's assumed to be an orphan. Clift befriends the boy and wants to adopt him and take him back to the USA. But, at the same time, we (the audience) know that the boy's mother is alive and searching for him. The story is told in a straightforward, realistic and unsentimental way. As a result, the emotional impact is heightened, not diminished. Clift is wonderful; along with "Red River," this movie made him a star.

I once read a review of this movie that says it all: "You're made of stone if this one doesn't move you."