The Search ***** (1948, Montgomery Clift, Ivan Jandl, Aline MacMahon, Wendell Corey, Jarmila Novotna) – Classic Movie Review 2428

Director Fred Zinnemann’s remarkable 1948 drama stars Montgomery Clift as Ralph ‘Steve’ Stevenson, a kind-hearted American army engineer who looks after a lost nine-year-old Czech boy called Karel (Ivan Jandl) in post-war Berlin. The boy was lucky enough to survive the horrors of the Auschwitz concentration camp, managing to survive by scavenging for food with other homeless children. 

Steve starts teaching the boy English. Because Karel cannot recall his name, Steve calls him Jim. Jarmila Novotna plays his mother who is desperately searching for him. Steve helps the boy to find her.

Aline MacMahon plays Mrs Murray, a United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration worker, who looks after displaced persons and tries to reunite homeless children with their families.

Excellent performances and a poignant script combine with Zinnemann’s powerful direction to deliver the most gripping drama. It’s also a huge asset that many of the scenes were shot in the ruins of the post-war German cities of Ingolstadt, Nuremberg and Wurzburg.

The movie won the Oscar for Best Original Story for Richard Schweizer and David Wechsler, who also wrote the finely tuned screenplay with Paul Jarrico (additional dialogue). Jandl received a Special Juvenile Academy Award ‘for the outstanding juvenile performance of 1948′. He couldn’t attend the ceremony, so the Oscar was brought to him in Prague by some members of the Academy.

Also in the cast are Wendell Corey, Mary Patton, Ewart G Morrison, William Rogers, Claude Gambier and Leopold Borowski.

Jandl received many offers of films, but the Czech Government decided that he was to be ‘preserved to be used by the Czech film industry’ though he went on to make only three more films. In 1985, Jandl met Jarmila Novotna, the famed opera singer who portrays his mother in The Search, for the first time since 1948. In 1987, Jandl died at 50 of diabetic complications in his Prague apartment.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2428

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