The Search

Switzerland/US (1948): Drama

Fred Zinnemann directs this immensely moving account of displaced people in post-WW II Europe. A silent nine-year-old Czech boy (Ivan Jandl), a survivor of Auschwitz, flees a refugee center in postwar Germany and is found by an American G.I. (Montgomery Clift). At the same time, the boy's mother (Jarmil Novotna), the sole surviving member of his family, searches refugee centers for her son. Time, distance, and the massive numbers of refugee children are factors hampering the reunion of mother and son. (IMDb)

Cast also includes Wendell Corey, Mary Patton and Aline MacMahon (who provides the warm-hearted narration for the film). This is the film in which the moviegoing public first saw Montgomery Clift; although he had made Red River two years earlier, it wasn't released until six monhs after The Search premiered.

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