The Search

An American soldier (Montgomery Clift) in post-war Europe becomes attached to a homeless child (Ivan Jandi) in The Search (1948), directed by Fred Zinnemann., A Czech woman combs postwar camps for her son while a GI finds and befriends him., Montgomery Clift elevates a moving drama set in the terrible chaos following the Second World War. Having adopted a young refugee, an American soldier tries to track down the boy’s mother as she searches across Europe for her son., A silent nine-year old boy Czech boy, a survivor of Auschwitz, flees a refugee centre in postwar Germany and is found by an American G.I. At the same time, the boy’s mother, the sole surviving member of his family, searches refugee centres for her son. Time, distance and the massive number of refugee children are factors hampering the reunion of mother and son., Though Red River was his first film, The Search was the earliest of Montgomery Clift’s movie appearances to reach the screen. Filmed on location in war-ravaged Europe, The Search casts Clift as an American GI who befriends starving orphan boy Ivan Jandl. Embittered by past experiences, Jandl remains sullen and withdrawn despite Clift’s efforts to prove that the world isn’t such a horrible place after all. Clift and his friend Wendell Corey attempt to find out if any of Jandl’s family is still living, but they are stymied by bureaucracy and red tape. The audience knows that Ivan’s mother Jarmila Novotna is alive and desperately searching for her son. Only when the beleaguered woman stumbles into a displaced-persons camp do the wheels begin to turn towards a happy reconciliation. MGM hadn’t wanted to back The Search on the grounds that it wasn’t conventional entertainment; the studio chiefs changed their minds when the profits poured in. Sadly, Ivan Jandl, who won a special Oscar for his sensitive performance in The Search, died a penniless alcoholic., While his mother searches for him, a nine-year-old boy flees refugee camps, fearing the same treatment he suffered in Auschwitz. The first Hollywood movie filmed in Germany after the war, with a splendid performance by Montgomery Clift in only his second picture., A Czech woman combs post-war camps for her son while a GI finds and befriends him.