Review of The Men (1950) by Grant S — 26 Nov 2015
Brando's first (cinema) movie, and it's a good one.
An army officer, played by Marlon Brando, is shot in WW2 and left paralyzed from the waist down. He ends up in a Veterans Hospital for rehabilitation but he is incredibly bitter and does his best to isolate himself from the other patients.
Quite original in that it covers a part of war hardly anyone ever writes about or thinks about - what becomes of the soldiers whose bodies have been irrevocably shattered by the war. Shows well the trauma and bitterness they face, and how the injuries affect them mentally. Also shows how it affects their relationships and other aspects of their personal lives.
Brando is great in the lead role - you would not know that it was his cinematic debut. No Oscar nomination but he more than made up up for it with four of his next five movies, getting Best Actor nominations for A Streetcar Named Desire, Viva Zapata! and Julius Caesar and then winning the Best Actor Oscar for On the Waterfront. (Even the one of the five that he didn't get nominated for was great - a certain little film called The Wild One...).
Teresa Wright (of Mrs Minever and The Best Years of Our Lives fame) is great as Ellen.
Solid supporting cast.
Not just worth watching because it's Brando's first movie, worth watching because it's a great, original, sensitively told and well-made movie.
This review of The Men (1950) was written by Grant S on 26 Nov 2015.
The Men has generally received positive reviews.
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