The Silver Screen Oasis

Since I was up early this morning, I decided to watch The Search for about the 3rd or 4th time. Although the main points occurred to me upon my first viewing, such as so many families split apart and trying to find each other after the war, and the large amount of orphans left behind. Today I wondered how many U.S. g.i.'s found themselves in the spot that Monty did, that of getting involved with some of these kids and then having to leave them when their time was up.

Although Bing Crosby included this subject in one of his movies with Jane Wyman, it was actually a sub-theme and literally dropped at the end of the film as well as the movie being a comedy. The Search, however, is a serious drama and Monty played a very cool 'regular' guy. I also really like Wendell Corey in this, usually he acts like he has a stick up his you know what, but in this he was also pretty cool. The little boy may have gone on to become a big star somewhere, but I don't believe I ever saw him again. One thing though was all the scenes of the ruins. Kind of makes me wish my present National Guard was here in the confines of the U.S. boundaries instead of 10,000 miles away. But that's neither here, nor there. Did anyone else get up early enough to see this little gem?

Anne

I recorded it. Though it's not in the same league as Rossellini's Paisan (1946) or Germania Anna Zero (1947), it clearly comes from the same place. Clift is great as always and it's a nice little film.

I agree Mr Arkadin. The Search is nice thanks to Monty Clift's performance (his very first film). Actually, if the film has this mild tone, it's due to the production who insisted that the script be completely rewritten. Peter Viertel asked for his name to be removed from the credits as he was appalled by what they did. The children were supposed to be Jewish survivors instead of Czech refugees. All mentions of the genocide was removed as well. Monty Clift was so appalled by the ridiculous dialogue that he apparently rewrote a good part of it and improvised some scenes with the young boy.
MGM didn't distribute the film in Germany until 1961 ?!?