The Men Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.5

The Men Blu-ray Movie Review

Wounded Warrior Project, circa 1950.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 6, 2013

The airwaves are currently full of some heart wrenching commercials for the Wounded Warrior Project, a laudable outfit that helps to provide rehabilitation and support services to our many returning veterans who have suffered unimaginable injuries, as well as to their families which must attempt to pick up the shattered pieces of their loved ones' lives. Wounded Warrior was formed in 2002, which begs the question as to how we as a nation cared for servicemen and women injured in conflicts that happened before that year. The Veterans Administration of course bore the brunt of those responsibilities, but as any number of press reports over the past few years have proven, the VA has not always been a model of efficient, nurturing care. My own father was badly wounded twice in World War II, earning a Purple Heart and Oak Leaf Cluster in the process, and one of the wounds he carried with him for the rest of his life. Twelve days after D-Day, he was severely wounded by shrapnel, a piece of which tore through his left arm right at the elbow, almost severing the limb in the process. While the doctors managed to knit him back together, he had a really nasty looking scar and his arm was “locked” in a sort of half crooked position that he could not alter. I remember asking him about the wound and the day he got hit when I was just a little boy, and in one of the very few moments of my Dad opening up about his battle experiences, he looked straight at me and said quite calmly, “Well, I thought I was going to die”. Men of my Dad’s generation tended to tamp down their emotional responses to their wartime experiences, and that also spilled over into how they handled their injuries, something that was portrayed to heartbreaking effect in William Wyler’s The Best Years of Our Lives (certainly an ironic title if ever there were one). Four years after that legendary film, director Fred Zinnemann and producer Stanley Kramer joined with writer Carl Foreman (the three of whom would reteam in two years to make High Noon) to revisit at least some of the themes of the Wyler film, but with a somewhat more dour outlook. Though many incorrectly think that Marlon Brando made his big screen debut recreating his iconic Broadway role of Stanley Kowalski in Elia Kazan’s film adaptation of Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, he actually made his first appearance in this much less remembered film.

The Men begins with a brief textual prelude which is also voiced by a narrator where we’re told that vets often fight two battles, without the second type being immediately defined. We soon find out what that refers to when Ken (Marlon Brando) is shot by a sniper while on patrol and immediately senses that he’s lost the use of his legs. Ironically, Ken’s voiceover which bridges the battle sequence and his stay in the hospital contains an near duplicate of the quote my own father gave to me so many years ago: I was afraid I was going to die. In Ken’s case, however, it becomes an ironic counterpart to the way he now feels as a quadriplegic: I’m afraid I’m going to live.

The film then charts Ken’s slow and halting steps (no pun intended) toward recovery, which in Ken’s case hinge as much on his emotional state as they do on his physical infirmities. Ken is a sullen, angry man who can’t quite come to terms with what has happened to him, and he’s not about to be coddled by the V.A. resident doctor (Everett Sloane), a man who tends to upbraid his patients rather than nurture them. The good doctor also doesn’t shirk from “educating” the relatives of these paralyzed vets, telling their wives and mothers that it’s “useless” to even discuss walking again. There’s also some surprisingly frank dialogue about bladders and bowels, especially for a circa 1950 film.

Ken’s lovely young fiancée Ellen (Teresa Wright) enters this roiling emotional state of affairs despite Ken trying to get her to give him up. Ken is both helped and harassed by a bunch of other vets on the same VA ward, including a caustic guy named Norm (Jack Webb) and, in a perhaps unexpected bit of comedy relief, a go getter who constantly bets on horses named Leo (Richard Erdman). Still, Ken remains defiantly sullen for vast stretches of the film. He makes some emotional strides only to back pedal when some unexpected events throw a monkey wrench into his growing acceptance of his fate.

The Men is a rather prescient film for its era in a number of ways. The United States really wasn’t used to such a searing examination of the repercussions of battle, despite such well meaning efforts like Wyler’s The Best Years of Our Lives. The film world was much more used to offering rah-rah battle films that celebrated America’s might and fights for justice. That began to change in the late forties and early fifties, and The Men was at the forefront of films offering some searing proof that returning vets, especially those with debilitating injuries, did not have an easy time of it. What’s perhaps even more fascinating than Ken’s emotional arc is that of Ellen. Wright essays a character who goes through some unexpected changes of heart—if only momentarily—that more than ably points out how difficult these situations are for relatives.

The Men is bolstered by the work of Wright and Brando, as well as fine supporting turns by a colorful cast (those who only know Webb from Dragnet may be stunned at how effective he is in an unusual role). Brando seethes with resentment and anger throughout the film, but he’s also incredibly vulnerable, something that makes several of his interchanges with Wright incredibly moving. Zinnemann directs in his typically unobtrusive way and Foreman’s writing makes the most out of these emotionally and physically wounded characters.

The Men Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Men is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Olive Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.37:1. The elements used for this transfer are in generally very good condition, though there's a bit of print through that's especially obvious in the early going. There are the expected number of small blemishes and scratches that show up from time to time, but otherwise this high definition presentation features really solid contrast and a decently sharp and well defined image. No compression artifacts were noticed.

The Men Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Men features a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio Mono track that ably supports this quiet, dialogue driven film. There's a rather atypical score by Dimitri Tiomkin (Tiomkin of course would join Kramer, Zinnemann and Foreman on High Noon in a couple of years) which features an unusual opening "theme" consisting completely of paradiddles on the snare drum and other percussive effects. Tiomkin's score sounds just a tad brittle once it segues into more traditional orchestral material, and the dialogue has some boxiness, but fidelity is certainly more than acceptable. There's not much dynamic range here, as the bulk of the film features small scale dialogue sequences.

The Men Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

No supplements are offered on this Blu-ray disc.

The Men Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Men was quite a bit ahead of its time and in its own way presages much later films like the Jon Voigt – Jane Fonda outing Coming Home. The film manages some fairly weighty subjects with appropriate depth and seriousness, but it's also surprisingly spry and uplifting quite a bit of the time. Anyone who can make it through the final moments with Brando and Wright without a lump in their throat is a better man (or woman) than I. This Blu-ray features very good video and audio and comes Highly recommended.