The Young Lions Suite – Hugo Friedhofer’s Symphony of Conscience (1958)

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The Young Lions (1958) — directed by Edward Dmytryk, starring Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, and Dean Martin — tells the story of three men on opposite sides of war, each searching for meaning in a world that has lost its reason.
The Young Lions was a critically acclaimed, commercially successful World War Two drama based on the 1948 novel by Irwin Shaw. In the book, Shaw writes that “a battle exists on many different levels.” Using this statement as a starting point, screenwriter Edward Anhalt created a faithful, tightly-knit script documenting the key events in the lives of three men serving on opposite sides of the same conflict. The private and public battles waged by the characters are treated separately. Like the book, the film uses an episodic style to highlight the events and the characters’ responses to them. Noah Ackerman (Montgomery Clift) is a Jewish American who encounters racial and religious prejudice both subtle and overt everywhere he turns. Dean Martin plays Michael Whitacre, an American whose timid if not cowardly disposition ignites pangs of guilt within his conscience. The third character is Christian Diestl (Marlon Brando), a Nazi who truly believes in the tenets of Hitler’s philosophy until the gulf between the theory and its practical application becomes unbearably wide.

The score is by Hugo Friedhofer, one of Hollywood’s most thoughtful and unheralded composers.
He came from silence — an orchestrator who learned to speak softly through strings and winds. His music never begged for glory. It sought truth.

In The Young Lions, Friedhofer wrote not a war score but a study of conscience.
The orchestra is spare and transparent — the strings and woodwinds carrying both sorrow and light. There are no grand themes, no patriotic triumphs. The cues unfold like thoughts, restrained and deliberate, each one a quiet act of understanding.
Even the moments of tension breathe with dignity, not anger. Between the minor and major keys lies the ache of humanity — the sound of men who fight, not because they believe, but because they must.

This suite follows that path: the intimate music of doubt, courage, and forgiveness.
It reminds us that real strength is not in the battle, but in compassion — and that sometimes, the softest music is the truest voice of war.
In the process, Friedhofer reminds us that The Young Lions is not a “war” film but a drama dealing with complex moral issues. At the conclusion of the film, the characters interact for the first and last time. In a complete reversal from the book, Christian begins questioning the ends and means of the Nazi program in a fundamental way (in the book, Christian retains his loyalties). Despite Christian’s ruminations, the fatal ending sees Noah shot to death by Christian, who is then killed by Michael (“Death of Christian”). By the time the end titles roll up the screen of this lengthy film (167 minutes), there is no doubt that Dmytryk could not have established such a strong continuity of theme, story, and character without Friedhofer’s superior score.