The Search

I first saw this film when it was released in 1948. I was a teenager. At that time, in my limited experience, it was the best film I had ever seen. These many decades later I have seen as many films as a devoted movie buff can see; even doing a stint as an usher! "The Search" remains the best film I have ever seen.

I first saw this film when I was 16. My country(Portugal)having escaped he horrors and devastation of WWII but not the ravages of long-enduring fascism, I immediately related to all the main characters in it - particularly the little boy in search of his mother. I think it is also one of the finest (and earliest) of Montgomery Clift's performances. A bit of an unknown gem nowadays. If you get the chance to watch it, catch it - some may think it too sentimental, but it's more than worth the effortlessness of seeing it. For the Pity of War alone...(Wilfred Owen dixit - WWI)

Montgomery Clift makes his film debut here, playing an American soldier in postwar Germany who takes in a young Czech boy apparently left orphaned in the wake of the Nazi takeover, unaware the youngster's mother is still alive and is combing all the Location Centers hoping to be reunited with her child. Yes, it's sentimental, but it isn't cloying; the film's tone is balanced with several hard-hitting emotional moments and beautifully eerie black-and-white cinematography (filmed on location in U.S. Occupied Germany). A bit pedantic and overwritten, especially near the climax, but it may be useful as a tentative introduction to young people of this turbulent time in history. Clift, gaunt and somewhat green, is indeed likable and shows fine timing in his scenes with Ivan Jandl, a natural who won a Golden Globe and a Special Oscar for Outstanding Juvenile Performance. The original story also copped a statue.

Outstanding movie that provided Montgomery Clift the first of several Oscar nominations. How appropriate this 1948 film was in dealing with displaced persons camp 3 years after World War 11. The sadness, the difficulties of administering such camps, and the ultimate heartbreak and redemption are thoughtfully portrayed in this wonderful motion picture. Montgomery Clift plays an American soldier who tries to help a young boy locate his mother. As the boy, Ivan Yandl is absolutely superb in the role. His mother, Jarmila Novotna, was also excellent and there is a terrific supporting performance by Aline MacMahon from the displaced person's unit. The ending has to be one of the most uplifting climaxes in motion pictures. A truly memorable event.

Enjoyed this film from beginning to the very end because of a great story about children who were separated from their parents by Nazi Germany and they were also placed in concentration camps and marked with a number like cattle. Montgomery Clift, (Steve Stevenson) plays the role as an Army personnel who finds a very young boy who is starving and gives him some of his lunch. This young boy is named Karel Malik, (Ivan Jandl) who learns to speak English from Steve and starts to forget some of his horrible experiences. However, Karel begins to want to find his mother who is Mrs. Hannah Malik and Hannah is searching all through the ruins of bombed out towns trying to find her son. There is great acting by Montgomery Clift and Wendell Corey and this is a horrible story about the effects Hitler had on young children, men and women who were treated like animals. Great Gem of a Film !.

After watching Roberto Rossellini's 1947 final part of his war trilogy "Germania anno zero", Fred Zinnemann's "The Search" is in direct contrast. While Rossellini approaches a similar subject with absorbing objectivity, "The Search" opts for sentimentality, although Zinnemann tried to add a documentary dimension to the story. It's the tale of a boy who is rescued by an American G.I. in Berlin, while the boy's mother is looking for him in refugee camps, after they were separated in Auschwitz during the war. Mother and child are pretty close but do not know it, so the story goes from scenes of the soldier educating the boy, to the mother's giving love to surrogate sons in a UN home for war orphans. Zinnemann's tact (or lack of passion, as some may say) nevertheless makes it work, as well as the performances by Montgomery Clift as the soldier and young Ivan Jandl as the kid, who won a special Oscar.