The Search

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 Embittered by past experiences, Jandl remains sullen and withdrawn despite Clift's efforts to prove that the world isn't such a horrible place after all.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.