|
One conflict ends abroad, another begins at home. "If you don't mind, I don't want to take my proper place in society." A bullet to the spine fells the young lieutenant (Marlon Brando), the road back into the world begins on a bed at the Birmingham Veterans Hospital. Confusion and rage dominate, the Silver Star on the nightstand gives no light, "the wires are cut." The ward is its own cosmos with needling joker (Richard Erdman) and sardonic egghead (Jack Webb), the pragmatic physician (Everett Sloane) is nicknamed "the Bashful Butcher." Off his back and into the gym, the swimming pool and the basketball court, an arduous recovery marked by the tension between the camera's tastefulnessand the star's physicality. "The legs are out. Now the head has to take over." The wounds of war, a persistent Fred Zinnemann theme (Act of Violence, Teresa) worked out with documentary crispness. His fiancée (Teresa Wright) consciously struggles to keep love and pity apart, the bare minimum for him is being able to stand up during the wedding. (Their honeymoon is strikingly unsettled—the squeaking of a wheelchair and the tremor of a limb are magnified in the gaze of a nervous bride, the new carpet receives the champagne bottle's mistimed ejaculation.) Brando's visceral sense of danger cuts like a blade through any hint of mawkishness, conjuring up varied shades of anger and vulnerability to lend motion to his paralyzed hulk. The classic and the modern, a matter of a shock to the body. "Let's be realistic. How many normal people are there in the world?" The adjustments are by Ashby (Coming Home) and Stone (Born on the Fourth of July). With Arthur Jurado, Virginia Farmer, Dorothy Tree, Howard St. John, Nita Hunter, Patricia Joiner, and Ray Teal. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |