The Men

I just finished watching Fred Zinnemann's 1950 film "The Men." The movie is most famous for being Marlon Brando's first starring role.

The movie begins, very briefly, with Ken (Brando) sustaining a gunshot wound in the back in World War II combat. From there, the setting shifts to a veteran's hospital filled with paraplegic veterans trying to rehabilitate, where we are introduced to the brutally blunt and honest Dr. Brock (Everett Sloane) who tries to prepare these men for the reality of their lives without use of their legs while also trying to give them hope for living rich, fulfilling lives. Over the course of the movie, we get to know the men in the ward and what motivates them as well as their personal scars and ghosts. Ken is motivated to strengthen his boy as he attempts to re-kindle his relationship with Ellen (Teresa Wright) - his fiance from before the war. Eventually, the two get married, but his emotional instability flares up as they move into their new apartment and he leaves her. Ken goes on a binge and nearly kills himself in a car accident, which leads to him being kicked out of the rehabilitation ward. As Ken leaves, Dr. Brock gives him a little pep talk and convinces Ken to give marriage another shot. The movie ends with Ken visiting Ellen and asking her to give him another chance.

For his first film performance, Brando acts like a seasoned veteran. Apparently, he took his method acting so seriously, that he actually spent a month in a veteran's hospital to prepare for this part. Sloane was also masterful at coming off as crass and mean at first, so that, as a viewer, you come to hate him and the way he treats his patients. Yet, by the end, he has shown that he was doing it all so that his patients could live full lives after leaving his care without kidding themselves as to the reality of their condition.

Although artfully done, the movie comes off as a bit hallow. The background characters are too far in the background, and their personal demons seem a bit forced - such as the clownish gambler whose father is obviously a boozing gambler. Although we realize that Ellen deeply loves Ken, we never really get the chance to find out why or what she sees in him (or why she insists on trying to make it work even after it is painfully obvious that he would rather wallow in his injury). Even the most dynamic character of Dr. Brock remains shrouded in a haze and we learn nothing of him except what we see.

From a contemporary perspective, it raises a few interesting issues which we rarely encounter these days - such as the long-term effects of a major war on a country. Yes, there are many wounded soldiers returning from Afghanistan and Iraq, but these numbers are nowhere near the scale that was seen during the World Wars. After Germany and Japan surrendered in 1945, thousands of wounded soldiers returned to find their lives broken, shattered, and merely a shadow of what they had expected before the war. This movie somewhat effectively demonstrates this problem which impacted our country at the time, but is mostly swept under the rug and not discussed today.