Marathon Man (1976)

User Rating:

7.6/10   

Director:

John Schlesinger

Writers:

William Goldman (screenplay)
William Goldman (novel)

Release Date:

8 lokakuu 1976 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Thriller

Plot:

A graduate history student is unwittingly caught in the middle of an international conspiracy involving stolen diamonds, an exiled Nazi war criminal, and a rogue government agent.

Plot Keywords:

War Criminal | Nazi | Dentist | New York | Diamond

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar. Another 3 wins & 9 nominations

Cast

Dustin Hoffman	...	Babe
Laurence Olivier	...	Szell
Roy Scheider	...	Doc
William Devane	...	Janeway
Marthe Keller	...	Elsa
Fritz Weaver	...	Professor Biesenthal
Richard Bright	...	Karl
Marc Lawrence	...	Erhard
Allen Joseph	...	Babe's Father
Tito Goya	...	Melendez
Ben Dova	...	Szell's Brother
Lou Gilbert	...	Rosenbaum
Jacques Marin	...	LeClerc
James Wing Woo	...	Chen
Nicole Deslauriers	...	Nicole

Runtime:

125 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | French | German | Spanish | Yiddish

Color:

Color (Metrocolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono | Stereo

Certification:

Iceland:16 | Singapore:M18 | Sweden:15 | UK:X (original rating) | Brazil:14 | South Korea:18 | Argentina:18 | New Zealand:R16 | Australia:M | Finland:K-15 (re-rating) (2003) (uncut version) | Finland:K-16 (1988) (cut version) | France:-16 | Ireland:18 | Italy:VM18 | Netherlands:16 | Norway:15 | Norway:16 (1977) | Spain:18 | UK:18 | USA:R | West Germany:16

Filming Locations:

47th Street, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA

Company:

Paramount Pictures

Trivia:

Producer Robert Evans was set upon getting Laurence Olivier to play the part of Szell. However, because Olivier at the time was riddled with cancer, he was uninsurable so Paramount refused to use him. In desperation, Evans called his friends Merle Oberon and David Niven to arrange a meeting with the House of Lords (the upper body of the UK's parliament). There, he urged them to put pressure on Lloyds of London to insure Britain's greatest living actor. The ploy succeeded and a frail Olivier started working on the film. In the end, not only did he net an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor, but his cancer also went into remission. Olivier lived on for another 13 years.

Goofs:

Crew or equipment visible: After Doc flees the Opera, when we him in the Grecian temple, dolly tracks are clearly visible on the floor. As the camera dollies in, we lose sight of them but Doc obviously high-steps over the tracks.

Quotes:

Old Lady on 47th Street: [recognizing Szell across 47th Street] Szell!... Szell!... Szell!

Movie Connections:

Spoofed in "Clerks: Leonardo Leonardo Returns and Dante Has an Important Decision to Make (#1.1)" (2001)

Soundtrack:

Le Tram

Solid (and Depressing) Thriller

1970s movies are so cynical, aren't they? Dark, depressing, and often grainy-looking and washed out. "Marathon Man" fits that description. It's good, of course - very good - but it's not exactly a good time. Know what I mean?

William Goldman, one of Hollywood's few celebrity screenwriters, wrote both the original novel and the script for this film version. I find him a bit overrated, but here he does a good job of elevating hack-level thriller material into a sort of art form. The beginning of the film is particularly well-written and intriguing, since it's full of creepy and cryptic events that are not immediately explained. But, alas, I find the ultimate explanation of these events to be rather prosaic and disappointing.

So, I think the movie's strengths lie in the acting and directing, more so than the story. Olivier and Scheider give particularly great performances, and Marthe Keller comes across as appropriately sweet and sexy (her big "secret," though, should be really easy for anyone to guess!) I'm a little less enamored of Dustin Hoffman, whose character is inexplicably nicknamed "Babe." He's just way too old to be a typical graduate student (almost forty years old, to be precise), and he simply doesn't have much charisma to me. Usually I like normal-looking, non-glamorous actors, but somehow Hoffman doesn't float my boat.

Still, it's hard not to sympathize with the poor guy while he's being pursued, beaten, tortured etc. The "dental horror" scene is still quite effective, though it's rather short; I was more impressed by the subsequent chase through the dark streets of NYC. (The city, by the way, looks like a hellish, crime-infested, debris-strewn pit in this movie - like it does in most 1970s productions!)

In the end, "Marathon Man" isn't quite another "French Connection," but it's got more than enough suspense to crush a lot of the dross that infests theaters today. It's worth watching just for the terrifying scene when the bad guys start tearing Hoffman's door off its hinges - it's good stuff.