-
4. The Young Lions: Guaranteeing Acceptance (The 1950s)
- University of Texas Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
97 chAPTer 4 • (The 1950s) The Young lionS guArAnTeeing AccePTAnce Irwin Shaw’s The Young Lions is considered one of the best novels about World War II of the immediate postwar period. At the time of publication, it joined Norman Mailer’sThe Naked and the Dead, a book that also dealt with the war, on the bestseller lists. Shaw, a New York City native and Brooklyn College graduate, drew from his own experiences as a soldier with the U.S. Army Signal Corps and from his adventures in North Africa, London, and Paris. Random House published the novel in October of 1948. The film, directed by Edward Dmytryk and released by Twentieth Century-Fox a decade later, premiered on April 2, 1958. One of the three protagonists, Noah Ackerman, is highly representative of the Jew trying to make his way in America during the period that followed World War II. Shaw, whose family namewas changed from Shamforoff when hewas fifteen , grew up very much aware of his Jewishness, but “with no particular feeling about being a Jew.”1 Yet there is a strong Jewish presence in much of his writing. As he told an interviewer in 1977, “I didn’t want to pretend to anybody that I was an Irishman, so that’s one of the reasons why I write so much about being a Jew. . . . To pretend you’re not a Jew is an act of cowardice . . . . I didn’t want to pretend that I wasn’t one.”2 The plot follows the lives of three men, two Americans and one Austrian, whose war experiences intersect in different ways. Each is an invention of Shaw’s, though according to the author, “here and there I’d used a story I’d heard or a scene I’d been witness to, and which was useful for the character .”3 Michael Whitacre, a New York show-business personality, is one 98 • The AmericAn Jewish sTory Through cinemA American; the second is Noah Ackerman, an orphaned, unassuming Jew. The Austrian, who is proud to wear a German uniform, is named Christian Diestl. The novel begins on New Year’s Eve 1938, shortly before the war in Europe, when Margaret, who will become Michael’s girlfriend, is on a ski vacation in Austria; her ski instructor is Christian. The novel concludes toward the end of the war, as American troops liberate a Nazi concentration camp and the three men encounter each other in the woods just beyond the camp. During the course of the narrative, we follow each man’s saga as the war progresses toward its finish. Michael and Noah become friends, and Christian moves upwithin the ranks of the German army with the help of an officer who takes him under his wing.The evolution from the 1948 novel to the 1958 film adaptation is intriguing in several ways: the postwarencounter of the American Jew with Christian America; anti-Semitism in America’s military; the changing portrayal of the German protagonist over a decade; Writer Irwin Shaw waited for more than a decade before his novel was finally made into a film. Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations. [52.54.103.76] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 23:43 GMT) The Young lionS • 99 the inclusion of a Nazi concentration camp scene; and America’s association with the Holocaust.These five items and how they were dealt with and transformed by writer, screenwriter, and director provide an interesting insight into the situation of the American Jew at the time of production. The Jewish encounTer wiTh chrisTiAn AmericA Noah Ackerman, the shy, unpretentious Jewish man from the Midwest, meets Hope Plowman, a gentle non-Jewish woman and new arrival to New York fromVermont.The moment Noah sees her, there is immediate chemistry . In the novel, Noah is introduced to herone night when his roommate has a bunch of friends over to their apartment; in the film they meet at a party given by Michael, whom Noah has just befriended. The evolution of their The three star actors, playing Christian, Michael, and Noah, together on the set of The Young Lions. The three were only together on-set for one day during filming. Marlon Brando, Dean Martin, Montgomery Clift. © 20th Century-Fox. 20th Century Fox Pictures/Photofest. 100 • The AmericAn Jewish sTory Through cinemA relationship over the course of one evening has the two walking about New York City and traveling a...