User Reviews

I love the old WWII movies and how they portray what life was like for the men and women who served - and what it was like for the families etc. But of all the ones I've seen, I don't think I've seen a single one that highlighted the plight of the children. I'm glad this one chose to bring this sad effect of war to the public in this film.

The movie starts more like a documentary with a female narrator telling part of the story. At times the narration is a little annoying. But most of the rest of the film unfolds naturally without the narration. The film is a heartbreaking tale of the orphaned children of the war. They have nowhere to go and are shuttled from orphanages to resettlement centers. I was so shocked when I first saw the children - they looked so emaciated and dirty. They all seemed to have shell-shocked expressions on their faces. I think the director (Fred Zinneman)did a great job of casting and going for a realistic portrayal and not trying to gloss over the true realities. Being of Austrian Jewish heritage, the story no doubt hit close to home for him.

The actual location shooting in bombed out cities of Germany was also quite stark and realistic. I'm glad they chose not to try to replicate the devastation in a studio. Being filmed in 1948, 3 years after the end of the war - I was shocked to see how much destruction was still evident, with huge piles of rubble laying around. The cities looked deserted.

This was one of Montgomery Clift's first films. He doesn't appear until 36 minutes into film. He delivers a fine performance given his inexperience (although he was experienced on the stage). He is still in possession of his youthful good looks which deteriorated later. Too bad he lived such a young, tragic life as he was quite a natural talent. The young boy is quite a good actor for his age and manages to express his desperation through his body language and action since he doesn't speak for almost 2/3's of the film.

There are many memorable and shocking scenes: the drowning of one of the children, the young boy searching through a crowd of women for his mom, several scenes of his wild and desperate attempts to escape at all costs, and the hordes of children exiting from the train as they arrive at the settlement center. Many of these scenes are some I will never forget.

I'm shocked so few people have seen this (given only 37 comments and 1000+votes on IMDb at this time). I highly recommend this film if you are interested in movies about the sad effects of war.

This film marked the feature film screen debut of Montgomery Clift. It was not meant to be that way. Red River was made first, but held up in release due to a threatened lawsuit. So The Search ended up being the movie going public's first glimpse of Montgomery Clift.

They didn't get to see him until the film was only just about half way finished. The only character who is continuously on screen through out the film is little Ivan Jandl. What a performance too. The worst thing that could have happened to this film is to have some name Hollywood kid actor play that role. Young Ivan comes across as a real kid who went through horrors unimaginable in first world countries today.

Ivan is Czech and his family are singled out by the Nazis and put in Auschwitz. Father and sister are killed, mother and son are separated. The film is their search for each other.

Ivan after V-E Day is in another kind of camp, a refugee camp run by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Agency. He's almost comatose from the shock of four years of horror. To him the men in uniforms are still to be feared even though it's not Nazi uniforms. He makes a break for it and GI Montgomery Clift picks him up and takes him back to his dwelling.

Ivan and Monty kind of grow on each other, but at the same time Ivan's mother played by Czech opera star Jarmila Novotna is pursuing her quest for her little boy. She comes to the UNRRA camp which is headed by Aline McMahon. This may very well be her best screen moment. McMahon also narrates large chunks of the film, describing the enormous task the UNRRA had in reuniting families all over Europe in addition to a whole lot of other things like food, clothing, and shelter.

Clift and Ivan have great chemistry. And no one ever portrayed sensitivity better than Montgomery Clift on the screen. You know how much empathizes with Ivan's plight with every look, every nuance, every gesture. Fred Zinneman got a great performance out of him and later on Zinneman directed Clift in his greatest film role in From Here to Eternity.

The film was shot in postwar Germany and the landscape itself and the looks of the people tell what they've been through. I wouldn't be surprised but that Clift's performance in The Search later on led him to being cast in The Big Lift, another film set in post World War II Germany.

Probably it was just as well Clift got his first exposure in this film. It guaranteed him co-star status with John Wayne when Red River finally did come out.

The Search 56 years later is a moving movie experience.

THE SEARCH (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1948), directed by Fred Zinnemann, as mentioned after the opening credits, was produced in Switzerland and in the United States occupied zone of Germany through the permission of the United States Army and through the cooperation of the I.R.O. It was the first postwar movie to be filmed in an occupied zone. Looking at the background of destroyed buildings and broken streets, it's just a crucial reminder of the suffering amongst those European families and how horrible a war can be. Currently shown on Turner Classic Movies and once available on video, it's become one of the most requested from viewers, and rightfully so. Running at 105 minutes, there isn't a single frame wasted in the story, no scenes are unnecessary.

The plot in brief: Set in post World War II, a war orphan (Ivan Jandl, in his only movie role) is sheltered by an American G.I. (Montgomery Clift), while all that time, his mother (Jarmila Novotna), who has survived the hardship of the concentration camp, searches for him, knowing in her heart, that he is very much alive. And when the G.I. decides he wants to take the boy he calls "Jim" back with him to America, suspense builds for the viewers knowing that the mother is not that far away, and how they nearly miss each other in a couple of scenes. Aside from this being Clift's first movie to be released and his second film role, and that Ivan Jandl as Karel will steal one's heart, especially with his sad face, Aline MacMahon (1899-1991), as Deborah H. Murray, superintendent of the orphanage for war orphans, as well as the off screen narrator, gives possibly the best dramatic performance of her career, so sincere and natural, especially her devotion to those other children, one forgets that she's just an actress playing a role. Even her somewhat sad face adds to her personality and character. I only wished she had won, or at least been nominated, for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for this performance. She deserved it. Clift, whose gun chewing soldier character comes about 45 minutes into the movie, also gives a sincere performance, and was nominated for Best Actor. Wendall Corey appears in support as Clift's Army buddy, Jerry Fisher.

I rank THE SEARCH one of director Zimmermann's most admired films, and one I never get tired of seeing whenever it's shown. Thank goodness TCM avoids showing the colorized version of THE SEARCH. Be sure to have your tissue box handy. (****)

Aside from some dated music and ponderous narration, this is a nearly perfect film. It's surprising, then, that people rarely talk about this being among Montgoery Clift's best work. I, for one, prefer this over From Here to Eternity, Raintree County or even The Heiress. This is because I rarely have encountered a movie that has so pulled me in emotionally to the story. I'm a guy and I don't just start bawling at everything, but I defy ANY person to watch this film with a dry eye! It just doesn't seem possible.

The story is less about G.I. Clift than about a sad but adorable little boy he encounters wandering around in post-war Germany. At first, the boy is wild and doesn't trust anyone, as he and his family had been through the holocaust. Somehow in the concentration camp, he and his mother had become separated and at the end of the war, he had run away from the allied resettlement program because he had a natural fear of ALL soldiers. Despite these tragedies, the boy did not give up hope of one day finding his mother, though Clift plans on taking him back to the States because he knows it is hopeless to go on searching.

You've GOT to see this film! You've GOT to show it to your kids! Although the Diary of Ann Frank and Shindler's List have received a lot of attention, this little film is every bit as poignant and important for understanding the real impact of World War II.

MONTGOMERY CLIFT is the nominal star of THE SEARCH but it's little Ivan Jandl that audiences were likely to remember after watching this spellbinding story of his plight as a victim of war amid separation from his mother. Clift is firmly in command of his role as a compassionate soldier who takes the boy under his wing and teaches him to communicate in English. Wendell Corey is excellent as a soldier friend of Clift and opera singer Jarmila Novotna is totally convincing as the boy's mother intent on being reunited with her son.

Another pivotal role is filled brilliantly by ALINE MacMAHON in a part that surely deserved an award nomination. At any rate, Clift deserved his nomination as Best Actor and Ivan Jandl fully deserved his special Oscar as the juvenile lead. His facial expression and eyes tell the whole story without a single bit of dialogue. The only other child actor I can compare him with (at that time) is Claude Jarman, Jr. who showed a natural skill for performing at a tender age.

The impact of the devastation of war on ruined buildings is caught by the camera vividly in on location footage shot in Germany under Fred Zinnemann's expert direction. But it's the impact of war on the very young children that is the focus of this film and to that end it succeeds brilliantly in capturing the grief and loneliness of all those victims of war in a way that is sure to stir your emotions.

Summing up: gritty post-war film, honest emotionally and powerful in its presentation. Highly recommended.

After watching Roberto Rossellini's 1947 final part of his war trilogy "Germania anno zero", Fred Zinnemann's "The Search" is in direct contrast. While Rossellini approaches a similar subject with absorbing objectivity, "The Search" opts for sentimentality, although Zinnemann tried to add a documentary dimension to the story. It's the tale of a boy who is rescued by an American G.I. in Berlin, while the boy's mother is looking for him in refugee camps, after they were separated in Auschwitz during the war. Mother and child are pretty close but do not know it, so the story goes from scenes of the soldier educating the boy, to the mother's giving love to surrogate sons in a UN home for war orphans. Zinnemann's tact (or lack of passion, as some may say) nevertheless makes it work, as well as the performances by Montgomery Clift as the soldier and young Ivan Jandl as the kid, who won a special Oscar.

The Search (1948)

This is a critical film in director Fred Zinnemann's career. After years of doing shorts and B features, and after WWII had ravaged the world, he turned to a subject that must have ripped him up every day he was shooting. The story of orphaned kids, most of the Jewish, in the rubble of post-War Germany.

You see, both his parents were killed by the Nazis in the war. And here he was, a man with roots in documentary film in the 1930s, making real one of the remaining problems recovering from Nazi mess, these displaced children. The black and white filming is gritty and polished at the same time, and much of it is shot on location in the real ruins of Germany in the American sector (in Nuremberg). For that alone it's worth seeing.

By the way, the interior work was done in a Swiss garage—the crew for the whole film consisted of a total of ten Swiss technicians and a truck. Though the movie was an American release, the main producer was Swiss, too. All of these are reasons why it feels different than what Hollywood might have attempted on studios lots, and probably failed at least in authenticity.

Throw in that Montgomery Clift is starring in the lead role and you have another reason to watch. He's really wonderful, already feeling like the mature, charming, disarming young man he is famous for on screen. Be warned however—he doesn't show up until nearly halfway through. The first half of the movie is touching but makes for disappointing drama, forming a quasi-documentary overview of the horrid situation but with a voice-over that means well but makes it almost sentimental instead of tragic. Be sure to stick it out until the real plot kicks in with Clift sitting in a Jeep.

There are other actors here—the mother looking for her child is an opera singer in real life and is more pathetic than persuasive, and the chief nurse, played by Aline MacMahon, is terrific. Still, the movie, and the screen time in the second half, is Clift's, thankfully, and the boy's. This child was discovered while scouting for the movie, apparently, and is a Czech kid names Ivan Jandl. Amazingly, he knew no English when the movie started, and was coached by Clift as they went, very much like happens in the movie. This obviously makes it more convincing top to bottom.

And makes you love Clift even more. He took the role quite seriously, studying (according to a TCM article worth googling) American soldier engineers by living with them, especially trying to get the way they walked. Fascinating details for a movie that depends on its verisimilitude above all.

If there is an inevitable arc to the events, you'll have to live with it. And if some of the acting is average, and some of the plot requiring patience, you'll have to live with that, too. It's not a gem taken whole. But the best of it is remarkable. An absolute must-watch if you like this period, the director, or even this kind of shooting, which has an echo of "Rome Open City" and other European productions shot in the actual remains of Old Europe.

I have been haunted by THE SEARCH since I first saw it when it first came out in 1948. I have since been on my own search to be able to see it again. Finally I saw it again at the July 2005 San Francisco Jewish Film Festival where they said they had to obtain a copy of the film from England. It would be interesting to know the circumstances around this film and why it is so rarely available to USAmerican audiences. I suspect that a key element in that obscurity is that its chief writer, Richard Schweizer, was one of the Hollywood Jewish screenwriters blacklisted by the House Unamerican Activities Committee so that the film suffered the same fate. I am very heartened by reading the comments of others on this site. I am not alone in holding this film in a kind of reverence. I hope it will become more generally available to USAmericans. Its neglect is such an injustice for Montgomery Clift who gave such a great naturalistic performance--doing it as well or better than James Dean who followed later. And none of director Fred Zinneman's works should be allowed to disappear.

Enjoyed this film from beginning to the very end because of a great story about children who were separated from their parents by Nazi Germany and they were also placed in concentration camps and marked with a number like cattle. Montgomery Clift, (Steve Stevenson) plays the role as an Army personnel who finds a very young boy who is starving and gives him some of his lunch. This young boy is named Karel Malik, (Ivan Jandl) who learns to speak English from Steve and starts to forget some of his horrible experiences. However, Karel begins to want to find his mother who is Mrs. Hannah Malik and Hannah is searching all through the ruins of bombed out towns trying to find her son. There is great acting by Montgomery Clift and Wendell Corey and this is a horrible story about the effects Hitler had on young children, men and women who were treated like animals. Great Gem of a Film !.

Montgomery Clift makes his film debut here, playing an American soldier in postwar Germany who takes in a young Czech boy apparently left orphaned in the wake of the Nazi takeover, unaware the youngster's mother is still alive and is combing all the Location Centers hoping to be reunited with her child. Yes, it's sentimental, but it isn't cloying; the film's tone is balanced with several hard-hitting emotional moments and beautifully eerie black-and-white cinematography (filmed on location in U.S. Occupied Germany). A bit pedantic and overwritten, especially near the climax, but it may be useful as a tentative introduction to young people of this turbulent time in history. Clift, gaunt and somewhat green, is indeed likable and shows fine timing in his scenes with Ivan Jandl, a natural who won a Golden Globe and a Special Oscar for Outstanding Juvenile Performance. The original story also copped a statue.

Having fled a refugee centre in post-World War II Germany, a traumatised boy with selective mutism is taken in by a kindly soldier while his mother desperately searches for him in this war drama starring Montgomery Clift as the soldier. 'The Search' was Clift's first big screen performance and he is great every step of the way, radiating genuine excitement when teaching the boy how to speak and the bond that develops between them is undeniable. Jarmila Novotna is also fine as the boy's mother, never once lapsing into melodrama in a nicely down-to-earth turn, and Ivan Jandl as the boy in question won a special Oscar for his performance. The film takes quite a while to warm up with Clift not making an appearance until over 30 minutes in. The beginning portion of the film also features a lot of sentimental voice-over narration that spells out the obvious (the kids are described as "children who had a right to better things"). There are, however, also several fantastic moments early on. The bumpy, silent ambulance ride in which tension and anxiety within the kids gradually swells up rates as one of the finest sequences that director Fred Zinnemann ever filmed - and the subsequent near-silent chase scene is equally as intense. Whatever the case, the final hour or so of the film (in which the narration practically disappears) is excellent stuff. Clift's altruism is especially resonating as the film looks at the ability of humanity to triumph in the face of the inhumanities of war, and the use of actual desolate postwar German locations injects a chilling sense of authenticity into the air.

The 8/10 and 10/10 scores and rave reviews for this film are an entire mystery to me. They seem to have been reviewing a far better film, or had their eyes and ears sealed with beeswax during the film, while the film's distributors and salesmen whispered "it's great... trust us." Beeswax over your eyes and filling your ears may, in fact, be the only way to survive watching this fumbled, amateurish film.

True, it's fascinating to see the real devastation of Germany in the background of this story. There're also interesting historical points in the background, such as the separation of Catholic and Jewish children, and the exportation of the homeless Jewish children to Palestine.

It's also an interesting segue (segway) between the stiff, harsh acting & photography style of the earliest films and today's naturalistic, realistic approach.

We should also note that this Montgomery Clift's first film appearance, and he does well, though he is clearly the only pro worth his pay in this amateurish production.

It's easy to see why his career took off: His acting is naturalistic and very believable-- a compliment which cannot be extended to any other member of the cast. The remainder of the cast, including narrator, come across as the worst sort of self-conscious, wooden amateurs frozen in horror at how the filmmakers have wrapped this golden gem of a concept inside an odiously predictable, sappy script.

The poor acting extends, of course, to the child actors in general and the main star in particular. Suffice it to say that child actors are generally horrifically bad-- Haley Joel Osmet is the exception that proves the rule. If you recall the wooden, artificial acting of the kids in "The Sound of Music", then you will understand the depths of the poor acting in this film. When the child cries, he's clearly fakin' it, badly. When he's learning English, his phenomenal progress is schlock movie-magic. When he reacts to the other actors, his reactions seem all too choreographed.

Likewise, the plot points are predictable yet (with the exception of the broad strokes of the historical context) unbelievable in the extreme, as are the characters' reactions to the events in their lives except in the broadest sense. Imagine a flat, lifeless war-effort documentary newsreel, a "Li'l Rascals" episode, and a "Sergeant Preston of the Yukon" episode, and you'll understand the poverty of intelligence exhibited by the scriptwriters. Without exception, you will be able to guess the function and result of every event, the moment it occurs.

Like bubblegum left on the bedpost overnight and chewed for several months, this predigested, predictable script is utterly bland. Every aspect of the film-making, with the exception of Clift's acting, does severe injustice to the subject material. If ever a film cried out to be remade , THIS IS IT. I curse the name of filmmakers who remake classics like "Psycho" or "It's a Wonderful Life", or simply reissue their old films, like Star Wars, E.T., and Cinderella, while ignoring such fumbling efforts as this one, which beg bitterly to be remade in better hands.

The storyline is sickeningly saccharine. It is of course moving subject material-- pure gold for a storyteller or historian, but handled in such a way that the pure gold becomes fools' gold-- a silk purse becomes a sow's ear. The subject matter is recovery in the aftermath of WWII and the holocaust, the costs of war on civilian life and children in particular, and so on. It's a little sad that, given this golden opportunity, the movie makers flubbed, stumbled, and stiffly moved from concept to amateurish finished film. If these filmmakers were alchemists, they'd be turning pure gold into dull, grey, heavy, worthless lead.

Most telling of all, this film seems destined to plug away at "we are good, they were bad, OUR military and churches would NEVER be bad... support American churches and armies. Our army builds bridges and gives homes to the homeless, we never shoot or bomb anybody! We're HEROES." In short, watch this film for Montgomery Clift and a look at a completely devastated, bombed-out city, but do NOT expect to feel emotionally moved nor embroiled in the film's universe-- it's too saccharine, predictable, and amateurishly acted to pull you into the story.

"I dream of giving birth to a child who will ask, "Mother, what was war?" (Eve Merriam).

When seeing this wonderful post-war production, one could almost swear that it is a product of Italian Neorealism. Opening at the UNRRA camp with the sad image of war orphans, it powerfully addresses viewers' hearts. Are there any other creatures on earth more harmed by the terrifying reality of war than innocent children? Those who want to live at the dawns of their lives? Those whose simplicity of happiness lies in smiling faces? Those who 'have the right to better things' in this corrupted world? Yes, the story places us on solid ground of this tragic reality not making anything look sweeter, nicer but simply the very dramatic way it is. We are among those who did nothing wrong to anybody and, yet, are suffering so intensely as 'nameless human beings.' The search...we soon realize that it is not merely a search of a stolen thing which affects employment but a search of a human being and a human perception - a human whose dignity has been terribly robbed.

Many of the extras, scenes shot in actual ruins of post war Wuerzburg, Nuremberg, Ingolstadt along with the languages used by the children, including Czech and Polish, supply the movie with an almost documented material, something Bosley Crowther (New York Times, March 1948) accurately referred to as "an illusion of absolute naturalness." From the moment we pay attention to one of the kids, a 10-year old Czech boy Karel Malik who does not know nor remember anything after he was separated from his family, from his mother (we know him from a touching flashback), we follow his story and empathize with him. Though there is a fence in his mind, his pursuit of freedom and happiness does not close him within the walls of the camp. Together with another boy, he escapes the ambulance and, ironically, amids the ruins of destruction, he meets a true friend who shows him that people may talk instead of yell, people can build instead of destroy, people can give instead of take. Yet, his longing written deep in his heart, a longing for a mother reveals the story's humane power. For its authentic depiction, great credit is given to director Fred Zinnemann, scriptwriter Richard Schweizer and his collaborator, a Swiss producer Lazar Wechsler.

Much could be said about various performances but the one that truly deserves a very special note is Ivan Jandl's. A talented boy found by Mr Zinnemann in a school group in Prague evokes extraordinary feelings in viewers to this very day. His achievement certainly belongs to the very best child performances ever seen on the screen. Let me again refer to Bosley Crowther who notes that young Ivan "has such tragic expression in his slight frame, such poetry in his eyes and face and such melting appeal in his thin voice that he is the ultimate embodiment of the sorrow-inflicted child." Unforgettable from the moment at the UNRRA when his only answer is "Ich Weiss Nicht (I don't know)" to the vibrant scenes with Steve played brilliantly by Montgomery Clift (Ivan did not know English but learned his lines phonetically). He shows us a great ability to display feelings of trust yet, a state of mind still affected by trauma. Consider his moment with one American boy Tommy. Winning a very special Oscar, the Juvenile Award, as a Czechoslovakian inhabitant, Ivan Jandl was forbidden to travel to the USA in order to receive the awards. Despite his great performance, the drama of his role somehow influenced his real life from that moment on. Pity Ivan Jandl had not lived in the USA...

Americans, indeed, had more breathing space and, naturally, greater possibilities for a career. Along with RED RIVER (1948), THE SEARCH may be considered a movie that made Montgomery Clift a star. He handles his role nicely as the one who 'tames' a nameless boy first but the one who soon becomes a friend of the boy whom he calls 'Jim'. Note that he first fulfills Karel/Jim's basic need of food (seemingly simple but so meaningful in the depiction of reality) and then, he renews hope in 'Jim,' gives him some possibilities for 'normality' and teaches 'Jim' English. Indeed, the scenes of 'natural English lessons' belong to the best ones that these two young talented actors have. The unforgettable moment of the two, however, is the moment at the birches and their conversation about the mother who is alive. After this film, Clift's talent was recognized and he made some of the greatest movies in his short but fruitful career in Hollywood.

Among the cast, a person whose career influenced more music than film is Jarmila Novotna, an opera singer who gave her performances at MET as well as at the Vienna State Opera and Opera Berlin. She subtly plays Ms Malik, Karel's mother. She is one of the most humane characters that Hollywood ever depicted, one of the most sympathetic characters who fills her search, her longing, her waiting with helping others. By helping others, she helps herself not out of some religious duty but out of heart's call. From the supporting cast, Aline MacMahon deserves attention as Ms Murray, a compassionate UNRRA worker.

Much suffering had to be endured and much burden within the patience of the search so that both grown ups and children could be amazed by the wonder of "Schalom" (Peace). This masterpiece is a must for everyone who is able to accept some thought provoking aspects. Are you ready to empathize with these characters? Are you ready to notice the very special treasure you are looking for? Are you ready to be engrossed by the wondrous idea hidden in the film's morale? Without its core search of human perception within yourself, the movie is a mere product of its time - the past. Yet, there is something more to be conveyed. 10/10

I first saw this film when I was 16. My country(Portugal)having escaped he horrors and devastation of WWII but not the ravages of long-enduring fascism, I immediately related to all the main characters in it - particularly the little boy in search of his mother. I think it is also one of the finest (and earliest) of Montgomery Clift's performances. A bit of an unknown gem nowadays. If you get the chance to watch it, catch it - some may think it too sentimental, but it's more than worth the effortlessness of seeing it. For the Pity of War alone...(Wilfred Owen dixit - WWI)

One striking thing about "The Search" is a cast that includes European refugees as actors who play exceptional roles. Another is the filming on site that shows the lasting devastation two years beyond the end of WW II. This is a moving story of broken families, orphaned children and "lost" parents at war's end. Jamila Novotna as Mrs. Malik, and young Ivan Jandl as Karel Malik (aka, Jimmy) win our hearts in their roles. Montgomery Clift did very well in one of his first leading roles in films, playing Ralph Stevenson. Wendell Corey was quite good as Jerry Fisher, and Aline MacMahon was excellent as Mrs. Murray.

A number of good reviews discuss the plot, actors and characters. So, I'll just give a little more detail from my later experience and some research on the post-war recovery and displaced persons (DPs) efforts.

WWII claimed about 85 million lives, with 45 million in the European Theater. Of those, nearly two-thirds were civilians. Many of these – including six million Jews killed in the Holocaust, and millions of P.O.W.s, died in concentration camps. Most European families lost someone in the war. Up to 20 million people were displaced at war's end. Most came from Nazi concentration camps and forced labor camps. They mostly were from eastern and central Europe. But, many German children were displaced also, having lost their parents in the war.

The war had left a continent numb. The first efforts of refugees were to find lost loved ones. The work forces were decimated by the war. Cities and towns were leveled across much of Europe. Few plants were left to produce the materials, supplies and equipment needed to rebuild. The Allies helped with all of this, but they had much rebuilding to do on their own. It would take a long time for Europe to recover.

I served in the U.S. Army in Germany – then West Germany, during the Cold War. When I arrived at Mainz in April 1962, there were still vestiges of the war. The new bridge across the Rhine River had just been opened. Until then, the crossing was on a fortified pontoon bridge built in 1945 by engineers of Gen. George Patton's Third Army. It was still there in 1962. Seventeen years after my dad had served on the battlefields of Europe, the land still showed scars from the war.

On a trip to Berlin in 1964, an Army friend and I toured East Berlin. We saw the facade of Friedrichstrasse that the East Germans had built. Behind the pretty fronts of buildings on that street, we saw the remains of blocks of bombed out buildings. During the first decades of the Cold War, the communist government of East Germany had done very little to rebuild much of East Berlin that the Soviets occupied.

This film gives us a good look at the relief effort that took place at the end of the war. The Allies created the United Nations in 1945. The Marshall Plan for U.S. aid to Europe would be in place in April, 1948. The first task of the U.N. was to set up the U.N. Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA). This film shows the early work of that group. On Oct. 1, 1945, UNRRA took over all the operations of DPs in Europe. The Army continued to help with transportation, supplies, security and other aid. The earliest staff people of UNRRA and the other U.N. recovery efforts came from the ranks of the Allies. American servicemen volunteered to stay and help start the recovery. They and new troops were transferred to the U.N. forces. They kept their respective uniforms but with new insignia and patches to identify them. Thus, we see the people in this film running the DP camps and programs, including the interpreters. There are no ranks shown or used by the Americans in this film. And, they are all wearing Army dress uniforms – not combat fatigues.

So the reviewer who referred to Clift's role as an Army private got it wrong. Privates wouldn't have jeeps to drive around in, and two enlisted men would not have a nice house to share. Nor would the Army send an enlisted man's family over to Germany to live with him during that time. No, Ralph and Jerry are a couple of former GIs who have transferred into the U.N. relief forces. They are now more like civilians in uniform. Ralph has what looks very much like a Combat Infantryman Badge on his uniform – which says that he had fought in the war. Otherwise, the only recognizable marking on their uniforms is a circular shoulder patch that resembles the U.N. symbol. So, these two Americans were probably officers or NCOs during the war, and they volunteered to stay on to help start the recovery effort. They may have been engineers. In one scene, we see a good sized model of a bridge. Ralph tells Jimmy that he built that bridge. It was probably a model of one he had actually helped design or build.

This is a wonderful film and a must for any library of World War II. It is a great account of the tragedy of human loss from war. And it shows us the plight of DPs, the early efforts to help them – especially the children, and the first people among the Allies who served and helped in the clean-up and rebuilding of war-ravaged Europe.

I am often blown away by the amazing performances of child actors and I suppose that it should come easy for a child to act because children "pretend" to put themselves into any situation every day when they play. That is what a kid does. In this film Ivan Jandl actually becomes his character "Karel" so well that it seems like we are watching a documentary of a real war orphan instead of a movie. This is one of the most heartbreaking and yet uplifting films I have seen in my 60 years. I don't know how I missed this film for so many years and I thank Turner Classic Movies for the chance to finally see it. The expressions and emotions displayed by Ivan are so "real" that, several times, I wanted to pull the kid out of the film and just hold him for a while. Someone commented that Karel did not produce any "tears" when he cried, but in reality we must remember that these children were "walking zombies" living in horrible conditions completely against the nature of childhood. I could believe that the tears had probably dried up long ago, and would only come if he saw his mother again. Montgomery Clift portrays a realistic role in that, like most men of that era, he cannot make himself pick up the kid and just comfort him and that very fact makes the pain and suffering of the little boy all the more agonizing for the viewer to watch. I was very pleased to learn that Ivan received a special Oscar and a Golden Globe for his work in this film. I hope that throughout his short 50 years of life, this recognition gave him great personal joy, in spite of the political persecution brought against him in the past for having a part in the film.

This splendid tale filmed on location in the American occupied zone of Berlin is set after the 2nd World War . It deals about a nine-year-old amnesiac young boy (Ivan) who escapes from a military orphanage of displaced children led by a good woman (Aline MacMahon). Then he lives in the destructed Germany and has to do all kinds of tricks in getting food and barely survive. The unsettling kid wanders through the destructed city trying to find work or some food to reduce the starvation . One day he meets an American soldier named Steve (Montgomey Clift) . He gets support from him, and the ideas of this man lead the homeless boy in a clearer and safer way of living . Although Steve wants to adopt the child there are many obstacles for it. Meantime his mummy who has been searching the Displaced Persons Camps attempts to find his son, and the young boy convince Steve to find his mother until a touching finale.

The picture is a moving drama seen through the eyes of a disturbed boy who eventually meets a good friend. At the beginning ¨The search¨ tells that portions of this film were produced in the United States occupied zone of Germany through the kind permission of the United States Army and the cooperation of I.R.O. The first part of the movie is set on a destroyed Berlin and is proceeded in similar style to classic titled ¨Germany , year zero¨ or ¨Deutschland in Sahre Null (1947)¨by Roberto Rosselini. Good performance from Montgomey Clift as upright American soldier stationed in post-WWII Berlin who befriends the unfortunate boy, this was his first screen appearance , although ¨The search¨ was really shot after his debut in ¨Red River¨ by Howard Hawks, however it was released first. This was also Ivan Jandl's first and only role , winning deservedly a special Juvenile Academy Award . Sensible musical score and average cinematography, as the film requires an urgent remastering. Intelligent dialog and story won an Oscar (1948) by Paul Jarrico and Golden Globe (1949) to best screenplay. This acclaimed motion picture is well realized by the classic Fred Zinnemann who appears uncredited as an interpreter. Rating : Better than average, worthwhile watching .

I got to this movie randomly in the night program and found it was rather undeservedly relegated to past 11pm duties on TV. For Germans, it may be hard to chew the past concentration camp experiences of Children survivors in English and American orphanages and the highlighted search of a mother for her young boy, from whom she has been separated during the war. Sentimental : Yes Heart Gripping : Yes Wonderful to watch to the (happy ???) ending ? Yes all over. Great performances by the young boy, Ivan Jandl, the mother and the orphanage manager and very convincing performances of Montgomery Clift and Wendell Corey as teachers and father stand ins. I do know the ending, but it grips me nevertheless, even on replay. And if you're not icy to the heart, it will do the same for you.

I was 7 years of age in 1947 and saw this movie that year with my Mother at a local theater. As a child, seeing this most touching of films evoked many emotions. It was among the first memories I had of movie going and left very compelling and lasting images of the results of war.

Children can easily see themselves as vulnerable and thus feel empathy for the plight of movie characters near their age. Due to the stark and realistic nature of THE SEARCH, it might be appropriate for parents to view this film with smaller children. For me, this film was and still is somewhat frightening, sad, but very uplifting.

This is a film good for all age groups and is an excellent family movie. Explanation of the details might be required for children under 10. It is doubtful that anyone but the most unemotional can leave this movie with a dry eye. I highly recommend it as one of the most important films ever made because of the message it delivers.

This film has been colorized which blunts some impact. If possible see it in it's natural B&W form

'The Search' is about the devastating consequences of WWII. What makes it heartbreaking is the fact that the film focuses on the effects the war had on children.

The film follows Karel Malik, a boy who was separated from his family during the war. Along with other similar kids, Karel is rescued by the UNRRA officials in Berlin, but due to a misunderstanding, he runs away and on a chance encounter meets Steve, an American soldier.

Is the film a bit predictable? Yes. Is the film a bit simplistic? Yes. Can I nitpick about a lot of things like the unnecessary voice- over at the beginning or the lack of depth to certain characters or even the slightly contrived plotting to arrive at the ending scene? Yes. However it is such a sweet, feel-good and affectionately made film that it won me over. Fred Zinnemann and the screenwriters were clearly trying to make a feel good film after the trauma of war and wanted to instill a sense of optimism for the future in the minds of the viewers.

Like most Hollywood films of this era, Zinnemann isn't doing anything too bold or flashy with the camera, but even then the camera movements are swift and he succeeds in creating a powerfully bleak scenario in the first few scenes. The shots of the young, dirty, haggard and rickety kids running helplessly in the streets with the desolate and ruinous post war Berlin in the background were chilling. These scenes reminded me a lot of Italian neo-realism, specially Rossellini's War Trilogy.

One can easily view the story as an allegory for the war itself with Karel representing young Europe. Karel's young life falls apart and he completely loses his spirit. But with the help of the American soldier(Steve), he gets back to his feet and ends up with a chance of having a fulfilling and optimistic future. The allegorical subtext of helpless Europe requiring America's help to survive and have a realistic chance at a good future after the war is undeniably present.

The acting is good. The characters as a whole don't have too much depth, but they are all likable and they all embody the humanistic spirit of the film as a whole.

'The Search' is not really a film I'll call great. It has its problems that I mentioned previously in the review and it doesn't really engage in too much narrative or character related depth. But it manages to create a humanistic, optimistic and feel-good vibe that I as a viewer couldn't escape. If a film manages to derive something hopeful out of something as hopeless as a war, it has to be admired and appreciated.

I've been catching up on Monty Clift movies. He was such a huge presence in movies of the 50s, but I'd seen relatively few. The man is a real actor. He had qualities of a James Dean or a Marlon Brando, but seemed much more intelligent. It's harder to do an impersonation of Monty because he was someone who truly changed for every part. The Search is one of his earliest films, and it's a sentimental piece of post-war propaganda, but both he and his young co-star are believable and touching. It has parts that are hard to believe, like when a young mute Czech boy learns good English in about 2 weeks, and when a picture of a big doggie and her pup make him realize what a "mother" is, and that he misses his (after one brief scene, his father and sister are never seen or even mentioned again). But it's an engrossing film made more so by the real backdrop of post-war German ruins. See it for the early Monty.

Those who don't know better or those who like to be bored.. You could have cut this non-compelling non-story into 5 minutes. Upon reading the description, I thought there is no way they can screw this movie up, but its so tedious, full of redundancy, re-hashing, meaningless dedication to nothing of substance.