`The Young Lions' is the Second War II presented through the participation of three soldiers. Christian Diestl (Marlon Brando) is an idealistic German, son of a shoemaker. He joins the Army believing that life could improve in Germany under the administration of the Nazis. However, being a soldier, he cannot accept `acting like a police' in an occupied Paris and requests transference to the front, where he has another disappointment with the cruelty of the war. Noah Ackerman (Montgomery Clift) is a shy American Jew, a very simple man, just married with Hope Plowman (Hope Lange) and very discriminated in his platoon for being Jew. He goes to the war and leaves his family. Michael Whiteacre (Dean Martin) is a successful actor who became friend of Noah while in New York and is also obliged to join the army and go to London. There, he decides to leave the office activity and join his platoon in the front. This movie is excellent. It shows common people being used by government in a senseless war. All the main characters are peaceful common persons: Christian is a very simple person, wishing to climb socially in life in a Germany without opportunities and is misguided by the speech of Hitler and pretty soon he becomes aware how stupid war is. Noah is also a very simple person, a salesman from a department store, who indeed wishes to be with his family and join the Army just for obligation. And Michael is a selfish actor and bon vivant, without any sense of patriotism and who is not interest in anything but to have his life back. These characters are put together in a stupid war, having to kill persons to save their lives and to obey orders, which they do not agree. This movie is an excellent perspective of the stupidity of a war. My vote is eight.

Lt. Christian Diestl (Marlon Brando) is a dutiful German who finds the war more and more troubling. Meanwhile back in the US, Jewish Noah Ackerman (Montgomery Clift) finds love, and entertainer Michael Whiteacre (Dean Martin) try to avoid the war.

This movie is split in three. I find the Marlon Brando part very intriguing right from the start. A straight movie with just his character would be very interesting. Brando sets a serious compelling tone. Clift and Martin's movie starts slowly. Quite frankly, it starts as an old fashion melodramatic romance with puppy dog Montgomery Clift. Martin has even less to do as he debates whether to join the fight or not. The movie crawls along at times, and would probably be better served to just keep Brando. Although Clift has some minor drama. At 167 minutes, this is like 2 movies jammed into one. The connection between the stories is tenuous at best until the very end. It seems it took forever to get there. Once there, the point of the movie is made crystal clear, but it seems that it could have been done with a much tighter story.

This is a very good war film. However, at almost three hours in length, it still feels way too short--way too rushed. In many ways, the story seems a lot like "The Winds of War"--and that was a 20+ hour mini-series. That's because the film starts just before WWII and ends in the waning days of the Nazi regime--a much longer time period than you'd find in a normal war film.

"The Young Lions" is the parallel story of three soldiers. One is a German (Marlon Brando) and two are Americans (Montgomery Clift and Dean Martin) who are friends. Their stories really don't intersect until the final scene and there aren't that many parallels between them. This is very unusual in style but works well enough. The film could have just centered on Brando or Martin and Clift and worked just fine.

The German portion of the story is interesting because it presents Brando as just a loyal soldier--not a Nazi. In fact, this is a conflict in the story--between an honorable soldier a dishonorable regime.

As for the Americans, the most interesting portion of the story is Clift--who is scapegoated in boot-camp and he is literally fighting mad. As for Martin, his is a struggle with taking the easy way out of the war or working hard to prove something to his girlfriend and ultimately to himself.

Overall, a very good film--mostly due to the acting. While I am not a particular fan of Brando (I think he's overrated--at least in his later films), here he seemed very good as the German. Native Germans might blanch at his accent--I don't know. But, he seemed quite good. As for Martin, in his first dramatic role, he was very good and Clift put in a typical performance. As for Clift's character, he was very good because unlike in "From Here to Eternity", Clift's tiny frame was realized and was part of the script--him begin THAT tough in the "From Here to Eternity" always seemed a bit silly and was a HUGE stretch.

Parley Baer as a Nazi How good does the German accent sound to Germans? grainy stock footage could have been a lot longer--like WOW FYI--the evil Mayor (John Banner) was actually Jewish