THE BOYS FROM BRAZIL. (1978) BASED ON THE BOOK BY IRA LEVIN. DIRECTED BY FRANKLIN J. SCHAFFNER. SCREENPLAY BY HEYWOOD GOULD. MUSIC BY JERRY GOLDSMITH.
STARRING LAURENCE OLIVIER, GREGORY
PECK, JAMES MASON, LILLI PALMER, UTA HAGEN, MICHAEL GOUGH, PRUNELLA
SCALES, BRUNO GANZ, DENHOLM ELLIOTT AND JEREMY BLACK. REVIEW BY
SANDRA HARRIS. ©
Did you know that The Boys From Brazil
are little Hitlers...? So says Homer Simpson from THE SIMPSONS
anyway, and he might just be right at that. This is a marvellous
film. I revisit it every year or two and it surprises and impresses
me anew every time, one of the few films that can actually do that.
It's not just a terrific film as and of
itself, although of course it is, but it's also special for another
reason. It brings together three iconic actors from the golden age of
cinema who are nearing the ends of their careers and coaxes exemplary
performances from them.
Laurence Olivier in particular was
nominated for an Oscar for his role as Ezra Liebermann the
Nazi-hunter, but James Mason is excellent too and Gregory Peck plays
his role as the infamous Nazi doctor Josef Mengele so well that the
results are terrifyingly good. You could be forgiven for feeling like
he really is the evil
character he's portraying. It's some mighty fine acting there.
Ezra
Liebermann, loosely-based on the real life Nazi-hunter Simon
Wiesenthal, has had Josef Mengele in his sights for some time when
we, the viewers, come in. Everyone, including Liebermann, knows that the Nazi doctor notorious for his inhumane experiments on concentration camp inmates
during the war has absconded to Paraguay.
Liebermann
has no leads on his prey, however, until he is contacted by a young
man who claims that Mengele is hosting a top-secret gathering of Nazi
war criminals in a Paraguayan hotel. He has Mengele on tape ordering
the assassinations of ninety-four middle-aged men all over Europe, Canada and the
United States within a specified time period.
These bizarre
orders (which
must be obeyed...!) will apparently further the Nazi cause and help to bring about
the Fourth Reich. Now Liebermann has his first real lead. He strikes
while the iron is hot. He investigates the deaths of these ageing
civil servants, which have already commenced, and what he discovers
fills him with a horror so all-encompassing he can scarcely credit
it.
I'm dying to
tell you what he discovers, but the secret plot is just so ingenious
and brilliantly chilling that I wouldn't want to spoil the film for
anyone who hasn't already seen it. The hunt is on, anyway, and the
tension and excitement build up gradually until the viewer is blown
away by a grisly and unforgettable climax.
This film
deserves every ounce of praise that's ever been heaped on it. In all
honesty, it should have won a ton of Academy Awards instead of only being nominated. There, I've said it, haha.
Gregory
Peck has the dangerous light of fanaticism in his eyes as he tries to
convince James Mason's Eduard Seibert that his complex and insane
plan will work. I love Mengele's South American house, with the topless
maidservant, the giant portrait of Hitler in pride of place and the
charts with the names of the ninety-four intended victims on it. It's
the home of a man with a plan, an evil plan.
With his neat
black moustache, jet-black hair and maniacal facial expressions, he
could pass for the man himself if he'd only been a little shorter.
This impression is accentuated when we see him losing his temper.
Hitler, of course, was famous for his mad outbursts of bile and vitriol.
Bruno
Ganz is superb as the scientist who just so happens to be an expert
on cloning. Cloning...? Now do
you get it? Snigger. I won't
tell. Incidentally, Ganz went on to play Adolf Hitler himself in the
2004 film DOWNFALL, also
known as DER UNTERGANG.
It was surely
a career-best performance. It's a breathtakingly good film about the
fall of the Third Reich and the last few tensely claustrophobic days
in Hitler's bunker. I doubt if anyone has ever
done a better job than Ganz of portraying the fanatical little
Austrian who caused the Second World War. That'd certainly be something to put on your CV, wouldn't it?
1939-1945: Caused Second World War...!
Ganz
also played a Jewish law professor who'd been in a concentration camp
in the 2008 film THE READER, starring
Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes. It's an interesting if harrowing film which you
should check out if you get the chance.
Kate Winslet
plays a former concentration camp guard who's being tried for war
crimes, plus she gets stark-nekkid with a young fella in it.
Typical Kate Winslet. Always getting her baps out...!
Dear
old Michael Gough, who starred as Arthur Holmwood in Hammer's famous
1958 production of DRACULA, has
a small part in this as one of the middle-aged civil servants
intended for the chop. He does a prissy disapproving face so well you'd have to see it to believe it.
Prunella
Scales, better known as Sybil Fawlty from British sitcom FAWLTY
TOWERS, plays his missus. All
she gets to do is scream...!
I like the
scene with Uta Hagen as Frieda Maloney. She's the imprisoned former
concentration camp guard who basically laughs nastily in Liebermann's face and
tells him that no-one gives a shit about all that old war stuff
anymore. Thankfully, there are plenty of people who think
differently, even today.
A
youthful-looking Denholm Elliott has a small part as well as a
newspaper guy whom Liebermann turns to for help.
Apart
from Gregory Peck and Larry Olivier (Yeah, we're mates, he
said I could call him that!), I
think the best performance comes from young Jeremy Black, who plays
all the boys. The boys
are all uniformly uppity, self-important little shits whom one could
well imagine turning into you-know-who at a later stage.
Black's
coldness and callousness and utter lack of empathy for his fellow man in this role is frightening. His superb performance makes you simultaneously
believe in what's happening and thank the Lord that it's only a film,
if you know what I mean.
Kudos
to the young actor. I wonder what became of him. His dad, played by
John Dehner, does a top job also of portraying an equally unpleasant
character. Like father, like son, eh? I suppose we should give a
shout-out to the doggies too. As Mr. Burns from THE
SIMPSONS would say, 'It's
their Christmas too...!'
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA
HARRIS.
Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, film blogger and movie reviewer. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, womens' fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra's books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO
You can contact Sandra at:
http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com
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