The Men

Overview

In his film debut, Marlon Brando plays Ken, a WWII vet paralyzed in combat. The tragedy leaves him embittered and despondent, and from his hospital bed he lashes out at the world, even turning away his girlfriend Ellen. Slowly, his doctor begins to penetrate the soldier's psyche.

Product Details

Release Date:	04/30/2013
UPC:	0887090061704
Original Release:	1950
Rating:	NR
Source:	Olive
Region Code:	1
Presentation:	[B&W]
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Mono]
Language:	English
Time:	1:27:00
Sales rank:	22,826

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Marlon Brando	Ken
Teresa Wright	Ellen Wilozek
Everett Sloane	Dr. Brock
Jack Webb	Norm
Richard Erdman	Leo
Arthur Jurado	Angel
Virginia Farmer	Nurse Robbins
Dorothy Tree	Ellen's Mother
Howard St. John	Ellen's Father
Nita Hunter	Dolores
Patricia Joiner	Laverne
John Miller	Mr. Doolin,Mr. Doolin
Cliff Clark	Dr. Kameran
Ray Teal	Man at Bar
Margarita Martin	Angel's Mother
John Hamilton	Justice of the peace
Obie Parker	the Lookout
DeForest Kelley	Actor
Ray Mitchell	Thompson
Pete Simon	Mullin
Paul Peltz	Hopkins
Tom Gillick	Fine
Randall Updyke III	Baker
Marshall Ball	Romano
Carlo Lewis	Gunderson
William Lea Jr.	Walter

Technical Credits

Carl Foreman

Stanley Kramer	Producer
Fred Zinnemann	Director
Carl Foreman	Screenwriter

Editorial Reviews

This was the movie audience's first opportunity to see the actor whose legendary performance as Stanley Kowalski had galvanized Broadway in A Streetcar Named Desire a few years before, revolutionizing the art of acting in the process, and he doesn't disappoint. Like many films of the period, it adopts a semi-documentary approach to the problems of the wounded vets, dwelling at length on the exact nature of the obstacles faced by the patients, as well as detailing the kind of clinical treatment, both physical and psychological, that will make them as functional as they can be. While the focus of the script is on the brooding Brando, nearly all of the characters are well-developed, and Foreman sensitively underlines the barely restrained awareness of their stigmatization in the gallows humor which nearly all affect. Jack Webb, light years from his Dragnet persona, is surprisingly deft and witty as the house intellectual, and Everett Sloane is stingingly effective as the doctor who vents his frustration over the stagnation of his patients. But the main attraction is Brando, who brings to the film the same kind of naturalness and spontaneity which had electrified Broadway. American audiences had never seen an actor of such range and power on film, nor one so willing to court their rejection in mining the darkest regions of his psyche for the sake of his craft.