ferbs54
In the 1972 megahit "The Godfather," Marlon Brando, playing Don Vito Corleone, uttered one of the most quotable movie lines of that decade: "We'll make him an offer he can't refuse." But 22 years earlier, Brando was presented with an unrefuseable offer himself, after being given a chance to read Carl Foreman's script for the upcoming film "The Men." In 1950, the 26-year-old Brando had not yet appeared on screen, but since 1944 had been something of a sensation on Broadway, especially after portraying Stanley Kowalski in "A Streetcar Named Desire" in '47. An early member of the Actors Studio as well as being an early practitioner of "The Method," Brando could not pass up the chance to appear in producer Stanley Kramer's film concerning the plight of paraplegic servicemen and their rehabilitation process in a veterans' hospital. The actor apparently dove into his first screen role, spending weeks observing the inmates at the Birmingham Veterans Administration Hospital (in Van Nuys, California; not Alabama, as I initially assumed), where much of the film was later shot; 45 patients of the hospital also appear in the finished film. And, as might be expected, Brando is simply terrific, giving an emotionally complex performance, eliciting the viewer's affection, and clearly demonstrating to the world that a new screen star had arrived.When we first see Brando's Ken, he is an armed infantryman, a lieutenant prowling the deserted streets of an unnamed European town with his squad. A sniper's bullet catches Ken in the lower back, immediately paralyzing him from the waist down. A full year later, the ex-G.I. lies in a vets' hospital, sullen, withdrawn, angry, and completely antisocial. "I was afraid I was gonna die...now I'm afraid I'm gonna live," he thinks to himself. Fortunately for Ken, his doctor, Brock (a hugely ingratiating performance here from Everett Sloane), moves him from his private room to a ward with other men, in the hopes that a little social interaction might do him some good. Though initially surly to his three immediate neighbors--Norm (a goateed Jack Webb, here in one of his earliest roles at age 30, and right before appearing in "Sunset Blvd.," which was released just two weeks after "The Men"), Angel (a muscular Hispanic dude, the nicest guy on the floor, and well played by Arthur Jurado) and wheeler-dealer Leo (Richard Erdman)--Ken soon comes out of his shell, makes friends, and enters into the rehab process in earnest. The reason: his ex-girlfriend, Ellen, who, despite Ken's constant rebuffs, seems eager to enter into matrimony with him. Ellen is played by Teresa Wright, by the way, who, eight years earlier, in "Pride of the Yankees," portraying Lou Gehrig's wife, Eleanor, had similarly cared for a severely disabled man....During the course of "The Men," we get to know many of the inmates of the Birmingham facility and see, in some detail, the rigorous physical rehab regimen that Ken undergoes. The film also spotlights some of the problems that disabled men and their spouses experience, although, given the era, does tend to shy away when the subject of sexual intimacy arises; Brock simply tells Ellen that some paraplegic men are able to have families and some are not. Brock, I might add here, is the kind of doctor we all wish we had--one who is at once deeply caring, patient, understanding, and tough when necessary--and Sloane is just perfect in the part. Besides the fine players already named, "The Men" features an uncredited De Forest Kelley as a doctor, a good 16 years pre-Dr. "Bones" McCoy, whose only line in the film (concerning Ken) is "He's got a lot of pain," as well as John "Perry White" Hamilton as Ken and Ellen's wedlock priest, here just a few years before "The Adventures of Superman." The picture sports any number of wonderful scenes, among them: the men's and staff's reaction when Angel suffers a very serious reversal (a truly upsetting sequence); Ellen discussing her marriage plans with her disapproving parents; Ken and Ellen entering a nightclub and being at the receiving end of multiple stares; Brock revealing something of his own past to Ken, in the hopes that the young man will learn to embrace his future life; and, most especially, Ken and Ellen returning home after their wedding, with the reality of her future hitting Ellen forcefully, with unfortunate results. Throughout, director Fred Zinnemann's work is sensitive and involving (what a decade Zinnemann would have, with such films as "High Noon," "From Here to Eternity" and "The Nun's Story"!), and Dimitri Tiomkin's score perfectly matches both the darker moments (particularly in the film's earlier scenes, when Ken lies in his shadowy private room) as well as the more upbeat. But towering above all--despite the fact that he naturally remains either supine or sitting in a wheelchair for the bulk of the picture--is Brando, who easily steals his first film (hardly the only time he would do so, of course!). Running the gamut from grief and hopeless withdrawal, to hope and determination, back to grief and anger, and ultimately on to a tentative acceptance and happiness, it is a marvelous performance for the first-timer...and yes, he even gets to give us the first of his many on-screen temper tantrums, destroying several windows after his disastrous wedding night. Just watch how wonderful Brando is, as Ellen seriously discusses marriage plans; we can see the dawning realization that he just MIGHT have a stab at happiness clearly written on his face. Plainly exhibiting the three H's that can guarantee an actor's success (handsome, hunky, and a helluva performer), it is no wonder that Brando's star was immediately on the rise. His initial, early screen promise here was soon to be fully realized in the following year's screen adaptation of "Streetcar," in which Brando surely gave a performance for the ages, but those viewers who are curious to see where it all began should be more than impressed with Marlon's tyro work in "The Men"....
