JohnHowardReid Producer: Lazar Wechsler. Copyright 31 March 1948 by Loew's International Corp. Preliminary copyright applied for by Loew's, Inc. A production of Praesens-Film, Zurich, for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. New York opening at the Victoria: 23 March 1948. U.S. release: 6 August 1948. U.K. release: 1 May 1950. Australian release: 17 March 1949. 9,450 feet. 105 minutes. NOTES: Partly photographed in the U.S. Occupied Zone of Germany, through the courtesy of the U.S. Army and the I.R.O Only film of child actor Ivan Jandl, who received a special Hollywood award for "the outstanding juvenile performance of 1948". Number 3 on the National Board of Review's list of the Ten Best Films of 1948. Bosley Crowther of The New York Times also selected The Search as one of his Ten Best Films of the year. The movie took excellent money on domestic release, but failed to ignite the British box-office. In the rest of Europe, however, The Search chalked up such huge receipts, it topped the list of M-G-M's most commercially successful releases of the year. Australia followed the British pattern. Despite super-enthusiastic reviews, the movie took only fair money in the cultural centers of Sydney and Melbourne, with absolutely dismal takings elsewhere - even in Brisbane, the so-called "home of M-G-M". COMMENT: This film, made in its entirety in Europe in 1947, presents a number of parallels with another Zinnemann film, The Men (1950): both deal with the after-effects of war; both are virtually documentaries, with fictional elements added; and both use professional and non-professional actors very effectively. The Search tells the story of a little boy, Karel Malik, who has been separated from his family in a concentration camp. Now that the war is over, the United Nations is trying to restore these thousands of displaced children to their parents. But Karel's experiences have left such a mark on him that he has forgotten everything about his earlier life, including his name and nationality. The UNO authorities decide to transfer him to a welfare camp, but en route Karel escapes and wanders around the rubble of Berlin. At the same time, Mrs Malik is going from one bureau to another seeking information on Karel, the only member of the family who may still be alive. Despite discouragements and failures, she finally arrives at the camp from which Karel has escaped. The film was shot on location among the ruins and rubble of Germany, and in the offices and depots of UNO. The actual direction, however, is characterized by Zinnemann's attractive sensibility, his quick feeling for moods and situations and unobtrusive use of natural backgrounds. The first reel is somewhat marred by a sentimental commentary, which Zinnemann says was included at the insistence of the producers; he wanted to remove it, but was unable to do so. As a whole, the film brings home very forcefully the full horror of war; but there are two individual scenes which stay long in the mind. The first is the sequence in which the children are being given their preliminary interviews: children of 7-10, in all the languages of Europe, tell unemotionally of gas ovens and tortures. The second occurs when the children are ready to be taken to UN welfare camps. They are about to be put into trucks bearing Red Cross symbols; they refuse to enter, remembering that the Nazis took people to gas chambers in such vans. When they are at last persuaded to enter and the trucks move off, stray fumes from the exhaust penetrate the back compartment, and the children panic. Nothing is seen but their faces full of fear, and their hands clawing to break down the doors. These two scenes render the atmosphere of war-time Europe in a way that a thousand books and lectures could never do. The professional actors underplay with quiet assurance, and help invest the film with its air of actuality. Aline MacMahon is admirable as the harassed UN welfare officer, humane and realistic, trying to cope with the task of mending broken lives; Montgomery Clift, in his first screen appearance, acts with likeable charm; and young Ivan Jandl (as Karel Malik), despite the fact that his voice is dubbed by an English-speaking child, plays naturally and unaffectedly. The material of The Search is grim, yet it assiduously avoids moralizing of the Divided Heart school. There are no messages, no hopeful prophecies for the future, simply a straightforward reportage on the European tragedy. For this movie, Zinnemann won the first Screen Directors Guild Award.

atlasmb If you like tearjerkers, this film is for you. Long before Meryl Streep had to make Sophie's choice, The Search centered on the tremendous love of a mother for her child--a love that can be a great blessing, but also a cause for tragic despair.The Search was filmed not long after the end of WWII. It is the story of a young boy who escapes the horrors of Auschwitz and finds himself alone in post-war Europe, as a continent tries to reorganize and assess its damages. The boy is taken in by an American GI (Montgomery Clift in his first role) and they struggle to overcome the barriers of language and the boy's emotional scars.Meanwhile, the boy's mother endlessly searches for him, frustrated by the sheer size of her task, because there are so many displaced or orphaned children.If this film does not bring a tear to your eye, nothing will. It's an excellent story well told.

Howard Schumann I first saw Fred Zinnemann's The Search when I was 12 years old. It was an experience that connected me for the first time with other children in different parts of the world whose suffering I could hardly have imagined. Aside from newspaper pictures of the war and the occasional newsreel, I had never before seen the real face of war, children with sallow looking faces, their clothes in tatters wandering among the bricks and stones of bombed out buildings, many without parents who had been through the most devastating experiences of war that one can imagine. It brought tears to my eyes then as well as each time I have seen it over the years.Set in the U.S. zone of Berlin shortly after World War II, The Search dramatizes the plight of the children left behind, children known euphemistically as DPs, displaced persons, orphans without a place to call home. The film focuses on nine-year-old Karel Malik (Ivan Jandl), the son of a doctor, who was sent to Auschwitz with his mother Hannah (Jarmila Novotna). Both Karel's father and sister were killed, and the boy was separated from his mother, saying goodbye to her through an iron fence, an image that remained deeply embedded in his mind. When the war was over, children by the busload were sent to temporary camps where attempts were made to reunite them with a surviving family member. A compassionate relief worker, Mrs. Murray (Aline MacMahon) questions the little Czech boy in tattered clothes, but he refuses to say anything except "Ich weiß nicht" (I don't know). Frightened by the sound of the exhaust from the ambulance bringing the children to an UNRRA camp, he escapes with a friend but he drowns in the river, leaving Karel alone to scavenge for food among the ruins. All this while, a tired but determined Hannah tries to find her son by going from camp to camp but to no avail. Fond of children, she eventually takes a job at a relief camp, hoping that one day her boy will turn up. Her hopes are raised when she finds a Jewish boy (Leopold Markowsky) who has taken the name of Karel Malik, but sadly it is not her son.Looking at a U.S. soldier sitting in his jeep eating lunch, the starving boy peeks from behind the crumbled facade of a building. The soldier, Steve, a bridge engineer played by Montgomery Clift, spots the boy and offers him some food but he is too frightened to accept. His appetite gets the better of his fear, however, and the two become tentative friends, although the boy refuses to talk or give his name. Steve persuades him to come back to the home that he shares with his roommate Fisher (Wendell Corey) where he names him "Jim" and begins a slow, uphill battle to gain his trust and teach him English. The performance by Clift, his first to be released, elevates the film to a new level and is one of the highlights of his too brief career. In the film's most heartbreaking moment, Jim asks Steve what a mother is.Though The Search is sentimental and perhaps ends too abruptly for modern tastes, it never seems forced or phony and every bit of its emotion is earned. Jarmila Novotna's portrayal of the mother is a performance of dignity. Though she never allows it to run her life, the pain is clearly written on her face,. Jandl, who received a Special Oscar but never acted again in a feature film, is remarkably real and natural, never once acting like a "movie child". The Search is a sad film but, in its demonstration of determination and courage, it is a rich and rewarding experience. Though the film depicts a particular moment in history, it strikes a universal tone, ringing true for millions of lost children who have been the collateral damage of war.

ma-cortes 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 .