THE CHINA MAIL, WEDNESDAY, MAY 21, 1958.
THE YOUNG LIONS
THE STORY BEHIND FILM STORM CENTRE NO. 1... MARLON BRANDO'S INTERPRETATION OF A VERY HOT PART
℗ ON ■ dust-dry day in 1945 three men come face
to face in a Bavarian forest. Two are American / soldiers; the third a battle shattered young German officer. For one of these men this is bis last day alive. The machine that produced this meeting was the machine of war. How these three men became part of that machine and how it changed the lives of each one of them is told in this story, one of the most perceptive stories to come from the war.
The just-premiered film version of "The Young Lione,"
by Irwin Shaw, from which this version is adapted,
is being hotly debated because of the highly individual Interpretation by Marion Brando of the part of the young Nazi officer.
The story is retold by LEONARD MOSLEY
OKAN MARTIN
AS MICHAEL WHITEACRE
MONTGOMERY CLIFT
AS NOAN ACKERMAN-A JEW
IS name is Christian Diestl. He is blond, he is arrogant and he is Ger- H'S
man. I think it is important to make the point that I am not writing about him with hatred or distaste or resentment. Only with an attempt at understanding.
In the period with which I am dealing, Christian Diest was one of the young gods who believed he was going to conquer the world. Those of you who are middle-aged
will remember the time -between 1938 and the end of the Second World War.
Adolf Hitler proclaimed that he was creating a Nu- tional Socialist State which would not only uplift the German people bat bring lasting benefits to the lesser
rests as well.
Hy lesser
breeds,
I mez
people like me, an Englishman,
I Amerleu
Russians and
there little people in the smaller
countries of Europe.
The Trio
CHRISTIAN DIESTL.
eatly
convinced
was
that renex action of hatred-and
Nation Socialism and the disgust nor for the Broadway smooth role of a Nazi jockboot playboy who egged him un
on our necks would be good
for us.
He learned better at the Kun wrong end of a machine fred in his direction by narrow-shouldered, highly com- un- extremely plicated, and Happy American Jew.
This is the story of Christian Die the good German with The bag ideas.
On the other hand you can & ad the twists try to follow turns of their wartime lives which took them through bar FODMA as well as battlefields. from boudoirs tu sit trenches, ralds to back from bombing bedrooms, to the moment that pht them all the shattering truth about war.
tam dealing only with these But it is also the story of two three characters. The Second whom he World War is their background, ollar mcn, with tangled. One wis the Jew 1 but their own personal private
lives are my main concern. have mentioned. His name is Noah Ackerman. The other is Michael
So let me get each one of
etched
a Broud them trmly Whiteucre, way showman who pulled every mind. inuential string upon which
he could lay his hands in order
to keep out of the muck, swept,
and blood of war-but ended up with a gun in his hand and an
nemy on the other side or the C
altch.
It is
t story
of The confllet Christian Diest) an played by Brando ABOVE: the man LEFT: of war: with French girl Françoise, and the Lorment of divided loyalty. love or
litler t
complalerni. He is shattered when the Young Woman duced for his first night on the .lown proves to be less easy than he imagined.
rafle in the world have no attraction for a French girl when she sees a swastika baad on your cap. .."I don't
understand," ho
thys to the French girl who spit in his face. "I don't hate you. Why should you wasto your time hating me?"
Hatred in the United Stator, Noah Ackerman Ja learning
that hatred is not confined to.. the frontlers of Germany.
He has fallen in love with a Gentile gbl with the appro- priate one of Hope. It looks like being an idylle and fal- ho alling relationship, until mects her father, à tradesman in Vermont,
Prejudice
pro- VERMONT is not liko Now York. In this hide-bount Jaw 1s New England State a somewhat
net a neighbour but a curiosity, and rather a foreign one at that.
tie still believes that as an officer of the German Army he is in France is a bonefactor. He cxpoets a little gratitude for his civilising mission.
#
"I've never really met a Jew before," Hopes's father says to Heat, and the tone of s volee indicatos that he never really wanted to,
What he gets insleod is tirade from the French girl he He in comforted and To- has Imagined is just another assured by the devation of pleasant trollop. Her husband his blonde young wife and the has been killed in the retreat
Intense happiness they feel in from Belgium, and she is in no
each other. When he is with her he is not afraid."
the Boche.
down the mountains on his skis. everything came smoothly and mood to bandy small-talk with and the Belgien heiresses, the without struzzle. Swiss dowagers Rad the pay young American students lay in walt for him in the hopes that he would spray a little snow in their direction.
He found the conquest of women as cagy as Hiller hoped he would achieve the conquest of the world
Mental
Rack
ECOND, Noah Ackerman. He had-tho-kind of looks that smaller squatter, plumper...nen...)
His hair was the colour of are apt to resent or seerelly envy.
Ackerman was born an under- straw. His chin was held high like the proud prow of a square privileged Jew though an rigged sailing shin.
He looked like a flying Greek god when he came hurtling the i amo way because he can American citizen-and will dir
acver throw off the terrible feeling that be is different from the other people around' him.
Pain in the heart? -There's no need to be too worried
A
Whoo he emerged from Draft. board headquarters, where he had, saturally, pleaded
辟
Eul
comes
the awakening when he turns up at army Ko, turracks--and it is na bitter as up bile in the mouth.
"I only came for the expert. enco," she says, "Now I for A Now I have seen ply
deforment and fabled to get it closa."
couple of well-built girls passed hun by and gave him a
mile.
..
Spit Upon
He has joined the army to night o tyrant who wants to wipe the Jews from the face of the earth.
He discovers that
at
all
He turned to Ackerman, who hadn't ever noticed them, and
several said: "Sometimes think I give off a scent-musk or some T is Diest's first experience members of his Infantry com-
of the hatred that occupation, pany wouldn't mind thing that rouses the female."
and conquest induces, and It They pounce upon jus strange- Neah, mates a mark in 'hus German 59, his Jewishness, to make "Execuse me?" asked
mind, but he still does not his life intolerable. They steal not understanding.
understand why he should-be so bla money They beat him up. resented Then the facts of in hopeless fights and officers "Those girls
bim on back-breaking, war-end of Hitleris-begin put "What girls?" asked Acker to impinge themselves upon hils. fatiguca.
personal conscience.
"What is this war all about," he asks, if the menace I am Whiteocre atopped
He is put on police duty in fighting in Germany is just 62. "Now wait a minita. Do you Parly and spends his nights rabid here at home?"
dead.
золя und
When the Americans began mean to tell me you didn't see arresting husbands,
the tracks, the trail markings young daughters for under- calling their young men into the
Your range-finder is turned oft grund activities. They spit in drust Noah obeyed the call with
them off a freting that though the war You don't mind going into the his face as he takes
Now you don't notice to the S.6. torture rooms, 50 would be rough at least he army,
the Temale talent that sweeps for he
has no hatred against would be Bghting shoulder by. Boy, you're sick! Now let's the system for which he is shoulder with men of 11k
to working. He simply loathes be minds,
ing so closely in contact with the nasty side of it.
GVOT-IDAD
talk
things
mouse."
away
the
was not going to prove so simple.
He quieldy discovered that, for a Jew with a feeling of in- like his, his struggle Ieriority
Conqueror
Ha discovered thūi his Amels foun
his
SUDDEN pain, even though it may melt quicker than a pickpocket, is invariably worrying. in your Especially if that pain is in the chest. For then patient becomes as conscious of the heart as Cupid.
"Don't tell me everybody who worries about heart is neurotic," Mr Wilson said.
Greek God
IRISTIAN DIESTI.
Mr Wilson could
efford to say that. He
the
get
by
ALL IN A DOCTOR'S DAY CEDRIC CARNE
If you had met him before suffered from anginu the brutishness of Nazi conquestpeetoris-a puin which
on when doesn't
cones
without any began to confuse and worry him heroes. You Can't very well you would have understood why heart
of a German make hero out
he always looked so canident enough blood.
His symptoms were like Christian Diesti who had and superior, and particularly
Anginal pain comes on after of revelation only why women so easily succumbed typical: Usually pain began be- his moment in the last few seconds before to m
hind the upper part of the excrelse. Though not generally breast bone, and would fan out after a sprint say, for a bus, but someone fred a bullet into his
to his shoulders and to the base rather after sustained long belly.
of his neck. Occasionally he walls. even felt the pain along his arms and hands.
He was a six hustructor In a village in Bavaria in Southern You can't create glamour for Germany when Hitter unleashed the Jew who shot him, in a the fury, and the war began.
Punished without mercy!
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true,"
with
And back in occupied France Christian Diest la asking him-. self: "Is Adolf Hitler really right in saying that this war : good for the world. when all I got from the people I am liberaing are livid looks and insults?"
The only Integrated charac- His superior officer, Captain 11, in fact is smooth-talking Hardenburg, tries to put him Michael Whiteacre. He is mak in the plcture, "What's wrong lug the best
the workt of comrades had hates and pre-
into the army against you?" he asks. "We Drafted
in France, hia will, he is looking around judices too, and that his war THREE very different men. A
have an easy time would not only have to be dedicatexi superman. A des- why are you
30-squeamish? for a safe · job and oti easy fought against the Jew-balting perately unhappy Jew,, A dip- Don't you realise you are ful- zida, Germeur, but against the dark man of the world. All thrown alling the duty of a minded men sleeping beade him into war together. To fight and affeer.. and that is to obay
they orders without question?"
in the bunks in his US Army kill and survive barracks.
Easy Rider
Whiteacer.
can....
DS
German
For Christian Diesti the war At this stage in his wartime came vary at first as it did for education, Christalan Dlesti is, in fact, thinking mostly about most Germans,
women-about how much caster He swept into France at the it was to meet women, to love HIRD Michael
Whiteacre is what you might head of the conquering Nazi women, to enjoy women, when really belleved it he wore ski clothes and be- call an easy-ridor. As a Bread- troops and
Brandt, told fore he donned the uniform to way producer he was used to when his friend,
in Paris learn that even the blondest Mraving everything go his way. him that the girls
adulation
would bo gay, friendly, and hair and the, most Girls, money,
"That's perfectly
often have Wilson agreed. "I
short bursts of quite trenuous effort during a day's
Yet I experience no "It's as if someone is squeez- work. in a concertina," Mr Wilson effect."
Mr Wilson had soon learned cx;laired
went away after at his pain
ing a few minutes. "Argia is simply due to the getting a sumelent heart not dow of blog to its muscle," 1
Vier-like" is the description often given.
the Nothing like "stabbing palas" so many people on occasion complain of. In fact, when a pallent of mine com- plains of a "pricking" or "stab explained. "For ordinary pur- bing" in his chest I'm usually poses
the blood supply
right in thinking. "Well, that's adequate. It's only when you do got nothing to do with his heart too much sustained exercise that
the heart protests," anyway."
It is as common us grass for so-called heart pain to turn out to be nothing more than a tom musele abre between the ribs or so-called "brosits." People
with associate "brositis" back and neck region.-They are wrong. This condition
wherever Decur
the
Yez, peolpe can be optimistic about angina, Indeed li is not uncommon for atteçks to alde in severity and completely disappear for long periods.
NORMAL LIVES
con
are there
"For most people all that is muscles. And that's everywhere. needed is a sight adjustment of activities. And most Scores of non-heart conditions their
the chest. patients continue to lead Rheumaile arthritic pain. gall hormal lite as you do," I sald stones, and slight abnormalities to Mr Wilson.
can cause pain in
09
Some
of the diaphrogm, are just three Exercise, then, should not be
avoided altogether cxamples.
Even more to the point, for people wrongly believe. On the exercise should be every one angina patient there contrary, tolll be 50 vihers complaining of encouraged provided it is Umit. anning-like pains who have ed to a level below that' which nothing significantly wrong. causes pain. Of course, they "You mean nerves," Mr shouldn't rush around like frisky lunatics after meals. But that "Yes, but the uáln enn be just applies to all adulta ekcopt as real though their hearts are frisky lunatics.
Wilson salt
quite healthy," I said,
"What about alcohol?" Mr Wilson naked.
As Mr Wilson knew, even if the symptoms are proved to bo "Carry on as usual," I replied. due to angina, there is no need A moderate amount of alcohol to be alarmed Mr Wilson was does good in such cases, hardly affected by it at all. I "Clood," Mr Wilson iraló, remember how at first he used "ihen come across to the local to become frightened when he and have a pint with me; experienced the pain.
doctor."
ตวงรัตน
FRENIN AMBASSAD BY
striking
TOMORROW:
Ambush In
The Desert
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MOSZOM
·BRITISH AMBASSADOR
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