The Young Lions

The Young Lions follows three soldiers during the Second World War: Christian Diestl, a German lieutenant whose faith in his country and its cause erodes as he witnesses the reality of the conflict, and two Americans, Noah Ackerman and Michael Whiteacre, whose paths through army life differ sharply. Noah, a shy Jewish clerk, endures hostility from his own comrades, while Michael arrives from a career as a Broadway singer. Their stories unfold on separate fronts and in training camps before converging.

Edward Dmytryk directed the film, the thirteenth of the eighteen features listed in his career, coming between Raintree County and Warlock. Edward Anhalt wrote the screenplay, adapted from Irwin Shaw's novel, and Al Lichtman produced it for 20th Century Fox on a budget of about 3 million dollars. Marlon Brando plays Diestl, Montgomery Clift plays Ackerman and Dean Martin plays Whiteacre, with Hope Lange, Barbara Rush and May Britt among the credited cast of seventy-five. Running 167 minutes, the film received a critics' rating of 7.6 out of 10 from eight reviews, while audiences give it 7.1 on IMDb from roughly 9,600 votes and 6.7 on TMDB from a much smaller sample.