The Search

In Allied-occupied Germany trains transport homeless children (Displaced Persons or DPs), under the care of Mrs. Murray and other United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) workers, to a transit camp where they are fed and protected. The next morning UNRRA officials begin the challenging process of identifying the children and reuniting them with their surviving family.

A young boy named Karel responds "Ich weiß nicht" ("I don't know") to all questions. He grew up in a well-to-do Czech family. The Nazis deported his sister and their father, a physician, while Karel and his mother were sent to a concentration camp. Karel bears a tattoo, number A24328, and it is suggested that the A stands for Auschwitz. They were separated and, after the war, Karel survived by scavenging for food alongside other homeless children.

The next day the children are loaded into trucks and ambulances for transfer to other camps. The children in Karel's group are terrified at first because the Nazis often used ambulances to asphyxiate victims but eventually they enter the vehicle. During the trip the children panic at the smell of exhaust fumes. Karel's friend Raoul forces open the back door and children scatter in all directions. Karel and Raoul try to swim across a river to escape from UNRRA men. Raoul drowns but Karel hides in the reeds.

Later Karel encounters Steve, an United States Army engineer, who cares for him. Because Karel cannot recall his name Steve calls him Jim. Steve teaches the boy English and begins the very long process to take the boy back with him to America.

When Jim sees another young boy interacting with his mother, he starts remembering his own mother and the place where he last saw her, through a fence in the concentration camp. He runs away one evening thinking that the fence is nearby. Jim finds a fence at a factory but cannot find his mother among the workers going home. Steve eventually finds Jim and tells him that his mother is dead. (Steve has reason to believe she was gassed when she arrived at Auschwitz.) He also lets Jim know that he is trying to adopt him and take him to America to start a new life there.

As it turns out Karel's mother, Mrs. Malik, is alive. In a parallel story she has been searching for her son. By chance she has been working for Mrs. Murray at the same UNRRA camp where her son was originally processed. After a while she resigns to resume her nearly hopeless search for Karel. Mrs. Murray begs her to stay because she is so good with the children.

That same day Steve takes the boy to the UNRRA camp before leaving for America. He hopes to send for the boy once the paperwork is completed. Mrs. Murray remembers the boy. Suspecting that Jim is Karel, she hurries to the train station to bring Mrs. Malik back, but her train has already left. Then she sees Karel's mother walking toward her with the latest trainload of displaced children. She saw them being unloaded from a train, changed her mind and decided to stay.

At the UNRRA camp Steve tells Jim to join the crowd of new arrivals. Mrs. Malik tells the children to follow her. Jim walks past neither recognizing the other at first. Then Mrs. Malik swings around and calls, "Karel!", the boy and his mother are reunited as Mrs. Murray and Steve look on.

Bosley Crowther of The New York Times gave the film high praise, calling it, "an absorbing and gratifying emotional drama of the highest sort".[3] Crowther thought that Clift got "precisely the right combination of intensity and casualness into the role".[3] Clint Eastwood singled out Clift's performance as the one that had the greatest influence on his own acting career.[4]

Despite the critical acclaim, the film did not perform well financially.[5]

Anne Helen Petersen, writing for The Hairpin in 2012, commented that the film is "mostly forgotten today".[4]

Leonard Maltin gives the picture 4 out of 4 stars, saying that the “poignant drama...[is] Beautifully acted and directed.”

Theatre Guild on the Air presented The Search March 9, 1952. The one-hour adaptation starred Montgomery Clift and Fay Bainter.[6]

A remake of the same name was released in 2014, moving the action to the Second Chechen War. The film was written and directed by Michel Hazanavicius and stars Bérénice Bejo and Annette Bening, among others.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to The Search.

• The Search at IMDb 
• The Search at AllMovie
• The Search at the TCM Movie Database
• The Search at Rotten Tomatoes