The Men Reviews

Good social material for Zinneman, Brando is a great debutante, but too many narration by edition effect, when one expects the dramatic acting crisis...

Like many of Stanley Kramer’s film, The Men is a solidly built bit of moralizing, a “message movie” that marries dramatic form to topicality. Sometimes these films felt less like coherently constructed narrative films than long sermons, occasionally more than a little self-righteous (Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner is the worst for this liberal back-patting, and I’m a huge liberal). Kramer’s films have a distinct call-to-arms, many flaws, but they’re also really well made and typically feature actors giving great performances.

The same is mostly true for The Men. It places the focus a bit too hard on quietly noble suffering, treating some of the deeper intensity or fury of the men with child-ish gloves. The Men features Marlon Brando’s first feature film performance, and director Fred Zinnerman gets a typical daring, moving performance from him. One gets a sense that Zinnerman and Brando were trying to make a darker film, but smothered by Kramer’s relentless hopefulness.

Another major problem with The Men is how badly it treats its minimal female characters. Teresa Wright essays the long-suffering girlfriend, a character with no agency or interior life, existing only to inspire Brando to get his life back on track and aid his recovery. Much of the supporting cast exists in a similar manner. Arthur Jurado, an impossibly charismatic and handsome real-life paraplegic veteran, is an eternal optimist who exists to facilitate Brando’s change before exiting. And Everett Sloane’s Dr. Brock exists mainly to explain to the characters, but mostly the audience, what being a paraplegic is, the various conditions of the men, and a strange obsession with their bowel movements. Was this necessary? Maybe, but it’s tedious to get through, and Sloane indulges in his worst hammy eccentricities throughout. The rest of the men, aside from Jurado, don’t make much of an impression, but offer a variety of colorful characters and voices in the ward.

While The Men may deserve a better reputation than being a trivia question about its star, it’s not an impeachable classic. It’s a handsomely made film about this subject matter and well-acted, but too flawed to really stick out as something of deeper value. It’s good, not great, but worth a look if you can accept its flaws and meet it halfway. Brando’s run in the 50s really was something quite extraordinary, wasn’t it?

Very good. Very good indeed. Not the strongest of debuts for Marlon Brando but certainly a strong debut from him. He plays a paraplegic war veteran who, straight from his opening monologue, has completely given up on leading a normal life. It takes his wife, Teresa Wright, and doctor, Everett Sloane (who gives a teriffic performance) to literally try to get him back on his feet. There are some excellent, very well scripted scenes, notably the one where Sloane checks on the patients of the ward at the beginning of the film, backed by a superb supporting cast including Jack Webb, Richard Erdman and Arthur Jurado (which is criminally his only screen credit). But it's Brando's film through and through and he's brilliant, giving a naturalistic and, in the end, very touching performance. Worth a watch.

4/5