The Men (1950)

Ken (Marlon Brando) gets shot in the back during the war leaving him paralyzed. It's been a year and he is still struggling to accept it. The blunt Dr. Brock (Everett Sloane) leads the doctors in the hospital. Ken's spirit is slowly lifted by his fellow patients. Ellen (Teresa Wright) is Ken's faithful fiancée.The subject is admirable and timely for the era. It's also Brando's first theatrical performance. The thing is that he's already a great actor. He's able to project emotions even when he's lying flat on the bed. His capabilities are there for all to see. This is a basic melodrama. It's very solid. I would like fewer patients so the characters have room to spread their wings. The mass of people can be hard to distinguish lacking greater depths to their characters. It also sucks up a lot of time and tension for expositions. Overall, this is a must-see even if it's simply for Brando.

A fantastic film, and a very important one, based on the story of Carl Foreman (who's screenplay was nominated for an Oscar). Actors and and real veterans portray men/soldiers, who were injured during war. Everyone especially Marlon Brando, who plays Ken and is paralyzed below the waist, gave a superb performance.I could quote the whole film, there are just so many good moments! They know they will never walk again, but that doesn't hold them from living their lives. They joke around with the doctors, with the nursers and make fun of each other. Of course there are also the sad and depressing moments, i.e. when they realize they will never have children, or their wives want to get divorced, they stop loving themselves and hate the fact they need help from others. I'd say "The Men" is a classic everyone can watch, even if it's just to see Marlon Brando (who allegedly lay in a bed in a veterans' hospital for a month to to prepare for his role as paraplegic) at the beginning of his wonderful career.

The Men (1950)Well, you do have to see a movie like this partly to see Marlon Brando before his stellar rise to fame (ultra-fame) in "On the Waterfront" (1954) and "Streetcar Named Desire" (the next year, 1951). This is his first role, and he's already the famous, complex, simultaneously macho and tender Brando. He plays Ken, and he is bedridden because he can't walk.Around him are a host of actors, amateur and professional, who are all unable to walk, probably permanently, from war injuries. This is a story of adjusting to being in a wheelchair, getting others to accept you like this, and ultimately getting to accept it yourself. It's an emotional more than a physical battle, and a powerful one.The doctor in charge is in some ways the main character, or the most present, throughout, and he's strong if somewhat uncomplicated in his portrayal of a devoted, tireless medical worker. He's played by Everett Sloan, who has just come off a bizarre but terrific role as a rich lawyer with difficulty walking in "Lady from Shanghai" (a Welles movie--and Welles gave Sloan his entrance into Hollywood in "Citizen Kane").The woman who is both lovingly sympathetic and also scared in her uncertainty as Ken's girlfriend and wife. She's kind of perfect, turning into that somewhat disconnected 1950s housewife before our eyes (influenced surely by her officious if kindly parents, a kind of 1930s Republican do good but also look out for yourself first attitude). It's a perfect fit, set up by the screenwriter and worked by with surprising believability by the young director, Fred Zinnemann ("From Here to Eternity") with Stanley Kramer producing. These two men were among the most socially conscious in a post-war Hollywood that had many directors trying to make a difference in their films (Kazan and Lumet would be two others). And "The Men" is certainly about showing a problem with realism and optimism at the same time. It's a kind of parallel to the film noir films which made dramatic fictions out of many returning servicemen. This was closer to the reality for many.Is it a great film? For some small reasons, no, as much as Brando is convincing in his role. For one thing, it's just too clear what the motivation of the director and producer is, so the movie movies forward without clear dramatic tension (even though you don't quite know the outcome). For another, the acting is generally very good without being wrenching (and the subject is frankly wrenching). It feels a little like we're being given a lesson, a good lesson, but still a bit like schoolwork made vivid on the screen. This will be apparently right from the first scene where a room full of wives and girlfriends ask questions (frank and important questions) of the doctor, who wisely and frankly answers them.Good stuff, great stuff, and as a film experience, incomplete stuff.

Marlon Brando's first film role is a WW II veteran, who is seriously injured in combat, and the struggles he faces as he attempts to re-enter society. The normally competent filmmaker Fred Zinnemann's helming of Stanley Kramer expects that it is realistic because it depicts, in an upfront, unhopeful approach, with a subject simply denied at the time by the relative artifice of Hollywood. We are strongly informed near the beginning that there will be no phenomenon treatment for these paraplegics. We will thus be left without any sweetened anesthetic ending, any compromise being impermanent and burdened.This could have been a good film. But on top of being a horribly edited film, distracting with its conspicuous gaps in single shots among other disastrous flaws, it is a condescending attempt at a message movie. Depicting the post-combat lives of these paralyzed vets isn't enough, it seems, as the filmmakers stock so many characters full of philosophical spiels that are too generally observable to be portrayed as profound.