Marlon Brando, Jack Webb, and Richard Erdman play three paraplegic war veterans in a VA hospital, where they are mired in cynicism and self-pity. Brando marries Teresa Wright with agonizing results.
The emotions in this drama are all really strong -- rage, frustration, anguish. The ending is a hopeful one, but the characters and the viewer have to undergo some torment to get there.
Brando must have been a revelation in 1950. He's explosive. Only his crippled legs keep him confined to his chair. Jack Webb -- Sgt. Joe Friday -- is far, far better than one would expect. (Actually, he did quite a good job with his small part in "Sunset Boulevard" too, before he was forever typecast.) Everett Sloane -- memorable in "Citizen Kane", "Lady From Shanghai", "The Enforcer" -- is their doctor who has to be cruel to be kind. The cast is filled out by "the men of the Birmingham VA hospital".
Stanley Kramer liked to produce "message" dramas. He tended to overdo it late in his career, but this is still early on. Fred Zinnemann directed a script by Carl Foreman, and these two would team up again on "High Noon". Foreman was then blacklisted by HUAC, getting no screen credit for his screenplay for "The Bridge on the River Kwai".
Not for the faint-hearted, but a fine film which deserves to be better known.
The emotions in this drama are all really strong -- rage, frustration, anguish. The ending is a hopeful one, but the characters and the viewer have to undergo some torment to get there.
Brando must have been a revelation in 1950. He's explosive. Only his crippled legs keep him confined to his chair. Jack Webb -- Sgt. Joe Friday -- is far, far better than one would expect. (Actually, he did quite a good job with his small part in "Sunset Boulevard" too, before he was forever typecast.) Everett Sloane -- memorable in "Citizen Kane", "Lady From Shanghai", "The Enforcer" -- is their doctor who has to be cruel to be kind. The cast is filled out by "the men of the Birmingham VA hospital".
Stanley Kramer liked to produce "message" dramas. He tended to overdo it late in his career, but this is still early on. Fred Zinnemann directed a script by Carl Foreman, and these two would team up again on "High Noon". Foreman was then blacklisted by HUAC, getting no screen credit for his screenplay for "The Bridge on the River Kwai".
Not for the faint-hearted, but a fine film which deserves to be better known.