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The Boys from Brazil (film)
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Wikipedia article
'The Boys from Brazil' is a 1978 thriller film directed by Franklin J. Schaffner. It stars Gregory Peck and Laurence Olivier, and features James Mason, Lilli Palmer, Uta Hagen, Anne Meara, Denholm Elliott, and Steve Guttenberg in supporting roles. The film is a British-American co-production and is based on the 1976 novel of the same title by Ira Levin. It was nominated for three Academy Awards.
Plot
Young, well-intentioned Barry Kohler stumbles upon a secret organization of Third Reich war criminals and Neo-Nazis holding clandestine meetings in Asuncin, Paraguay and finds that Dr. Josef Mengele, the infamous Auschwitz doctor, is with them. He phones Ezra Lieberman, an aging Nazi hunter living in Vienna, Austria, with this information. A highly skeptical Lieberman tries to brush Kohler's claims aside, telling him that it is well known that Mengele is living in Paraguay.
Having learned when and where the next meeting to include Mengele is scheduled to occur, Kohler records part of it using a hidden microphone but is discovered and killed while making another phone call to Lieberman. Before the phone is hung up with Lieberman on the other end, he hears the recorded voice of Mengele ordering a group of ex-Nazis to kill 94 men in nine different countries throughout North America and Europe.
Lieberman follows Kohler's leads and begins traveling to investigate the suspicious deaths of a number of aging male civil servants. He meets several of their widows and is amazed to find that their adopted sons all with black hair and blue eyes share an uncanny resemblance. It is also made clear that, at the time of their deaths, all the victims were aged around 65 and had cold, domineering, and abusive attitudes toward their adopted sons, while their wives were around 42 and doted on the sons.
Lieberman gains insight from Frieda Maloney, an incarcerated former Nazi concentration-camp guard who worked with the adoption agency, before realising during a meeting with Professor Bruckner, an expert on cloning, the terrible truth behind the Nazi plan. During the 1960s, Mengele had secluded several surrogate mothers in a Brazilian clinic and implanted them with zygotes that carried a sample of Adolf Hitler's DNA, preserved since the Second World War. Ninety-four clones of Hitler had then been born and sent to different parts of the world for adoption. In the hopes that one or more of the boys will turn out like the original Hitler, Mengele has attempted to recreate Hitler's youth: he has arranged for all of them to be placed with foster parents similar to Hitler's own, and has ordered the assassination of the fathers when they reach the same age at which Hitler's own died.
As Lieberman uncovers more of the plot, Mengele's superiors become more unnerved. After Mengele happens to meet (and then attacks) one of the agents he thought was in Europe implementing his scheme, Mengele's principal contact, Eduard Seibert, informs him that the scheme has been aborted to prevent Lieberman from exposing it to the authorities. Mengele storms out, pledging that the operation will continue.
Seibert and his men destroy Mengele's jungle estate after killing his guards and servants. Mengele, however, has left, intent on trying to continue his plan. He travels to rural Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, where one of the Hitler clones, Bobby Wheelock, lives on a farm with his parents. There he murders the boy's father, a Doberman pinscher breeder, and waits for Lieberman, who is on his way to the farm to warn Mr. Wheelock of Mengele's intention to kill him.
The instant Lieberman arrives and sees Mengele, he attacks the doctor in a fury. Mengele gains the upper hand and shoots Lieberman, wounding him. He taunts Lieberman by explaining his plan to return Hitler to the world and that he started the operation in Berghof in 1943. Then, with one desperate lunge, Lieberman opens the cupboard where the Dobermans are held and turns them loose. The dogs corner Mengele and attack him. Bobby arrives home from school and calls off the dogs and tries to find out what has happened.
The injured Mengele, having now encountered one of his clones for the first time, greets Bobby with obvious affection and tells him that Lieberman committed the murders. Bobby doubts his story, suspicious of Mengele because the dogs are trained to attack anyone who threatens his family. Mengele then reveals the boy's origins, but Bobby does not believe him. Lieberman tells Bobby that Mengele has killed his father and urges him to notify the police. Bobby checks the house and finds his father dead in the basement. He rushes back upstairs and sets the vicious dogs on Mengele once again, coldly watching as they brutally kill the Nazi doctor. Bobby then helps Lieberman, but only after Lieberman promises not to tell the police about the incident.
Later, while recovering from his injuries in a hospital, Lieberman is encouraged by David Bennett, an American Nazi-hunter, to expose Mengele's scheme to the world. He asks Lieberman to hand over the list (which Lieberman had taken from Mengele's body while Bobby was calling for an ambulance) identifying the names and whereabouts of the other boys from around the world, so that they can be systematically killed before growing up to become bloody tyrants. Lieberman objects on the grounds that the clones are innocent children, who may yet grow up to be harmless, and burns the list before anyone can read it.
Cast
* Gregory Peck as Dr. Josef Mengele
* Laurence Olivier as Ezra Lieberman
* James Mason as Col. Eduard Seibert
* Lilli Palmer as Esther Lieberman
* Uta Hagen as Frieda Maloney
* Steve Guttenberg as Barry Kohler
* Denholm Elliott as Sidney Beynon
* Rosemary Harris as Frau Doring
* John Dehner as Henry Wheelock
* John Rubinstein as David Bennett
* Anne Meara as Mrs Curry
* Jeremy Black as Jack Curry, Jr. / Simon Harrington / Erich Doring / Bobby Wheelock
* Bruno Ganz as Dr. Bruckner
* Walter Gotell as Capt. Gerhardt Mundt
* David Hurst as Strasser
* Wolfgang Preiss as Lofquist
* Michael Gough as Mr Harrington
* Joachim Hansen as Fassler
* Sky du Mont as Friedrich Hessen
* Carl Duering as Maj. Ludwig Trausteiner
* Linda Hayden as Nancy
* Richard Marner as Emil Doring
* Georg Marischka as Gunther
* Gnter Meisner as Farnbach
* Prunella Scales as Mrs Harrington
* Ral Faustino Saldanha as Ismael
* Wolf Kahler as Otto Schwimmer
Production
Development
The book came out in 1976 and was a best seller.Best Seller List: Fiction General Book Ends New York Times ]21 Mar 1976: 220. In August 1976 it was announced the Producers Group (Robert Fryer, Martin Richards, Mary Lee Johnson and James Cresson) had optioned the film rights to the novel and would make the movie in association with Lew Grade.book notes: Getty's version of fact, fableLochte, Dick. Los Angeles Times 1 Aug 1976: j2. Fyer had just made 'Voyage of the Damned' for Grade.Robert Fryer--Clout Plus Taste: ROBERT FRYER
Glover, William. Los Angeles Times 22 Dec 1976: e10. According to producer Martin Richards, Robert Mulligan was originally offered to direct the film.page 36
In May 1977, it was announced Laurence Olivier would star.At the Movies
Flatley, Guy. New York Times 6 May 1977: 54. By this stage Franklin Schaffner was attached to direct.CRITIC AT LARGE: In Search of World Viewers
Champlin, Charles. Los Angeles Times 27 May 1977: g Gregory Peck joined the film in July.Mike's honeymoon: tea for 3
Daly, Maggie. Chicago Tribune 15 July 1977: b4. Olivier had recently been ill and was taking as many well-paying movie jobs as he could get in order to provide for his wife and children after his death.Movies: Laurence Olivier 'Getting On With It' The Indestructible Laurence Olivier
Lewin, David. Los Angeles Times ]26 Feb 1978: n33. Peck agreed to portray Mengele only because he had wanted to work with Olivier. Mason initially expressed interest in playing either Mengele or Lieberman. Lilli Palmer also accepted a small role just to work with Olivier. To prepare for the roles of the European clones, Jeremy Black was sent to a speech studio in New York City by 20th Century Fox to learn how to speak with both an English and a German accent.
"The emphasis of the film is not on Nazis," said producer Fryer. "It is really about cloning, a logical extension of existing facts. And it's about the hatred that two men have for each other."
Filming
Although the bulk of the film is set in South America, Fryer says actually filming in that continent was "logistically impossible" so the decision was made to shoot it in Lisbon, Portugal.FILM CLIPS: Once Around Producer CircleKilday, Gregg. Los Angeles Times 19 Nov 1977: b9. Filming started in Portugal in October 1977, with additional filming in London, Vienna, the Klnbrein Dam in Austria, and Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The scenes that were set in Massachusetts were shot in London.FILM CLIPS: Lew Grade's $97 Million Projects
Kilday, Gregg. Los Angeles Times 15 Oct 1977: b9.
The altercation between Lieberman and Mengele took about three or four days to film due to Olivier's ailing health at the time. Peck recalled that he and Olivier "were lying around on the floor" laughing at the absurdity of having to film such a fight scene at their advanced ages.page 300
Extended ending
A brief end segment with Bobby Wheelock in a darkroom was restored to some versions in later years. In this alternative ending, after Lieberman burns the list in his hospital bed, the scene transitions to Bobby in a darkroom developing photographs of Lieberman and Mengele, with a piercing glare coming from his steely-blue eyes as he focuses on Mengele's jaguar claw bracelet before fading to the end credits.Release
The film had 25 minutes cut when released in West Germany, theatrical as well as all subsequent TV, video and some DVD releases. In 1999, by Artisan Entertainment, and 2009 by Lionsgate Home Entertainment, the film was released uncut on DVD in the U.S. and uncut in Germany on its DVDs.
Lew Grade, who partly financed the film, was not happy with the final result, feeling that the ending was too gory. He says he protested but Franklin J. Schaffner, who had final cut rights, overruled him.Lew Grade, 'Still Dancing: My Story', William Collins & Sons 1987 p 248
In 2015, Shout! Factory released the film on Blu-ray.[http://www.fangoria.com/new/82226/ THE BOYS FROM BRAZIL (Blu-ray Review)]
Reception
Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 69% based on 32 reviews, with an average rating of 6.3/10. The site's consensus states: "Its story takes some dubious turns, but a high-caliber cast and a gripping pace fashion 'The Boys from Brazil' into an effective thriller." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 40 out of 100 based on reviews from 7 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews.'Variety' wrote "With two excellent antagonists in Gregory Peck and Lord Laurence Olivier, 'The Boys from Brazil' presents a gripping, suspenseful drama for nearly all of its two hours then lets go at the end and falls into a heap." Gene Siskel of the 'Chicago Tribune' gave the film one-and-a-half out of four stars and called it "old-fashioned filmmaking at its worst," with "one of the phoniest stories you can imagine."Siskel, Gene (October 10, 1978). "'Boys' doesn't make the Grade". 'Chicago Tribune'. Section 2, p. 2. Charles Champlin of the 'Los Angeles Times' wrote "It is penny-dreadful stuff, sumptuously executed but still as shallow as a Saturday serial. One exasperation of 'The Boys From Brazil' is that, even accepting the biological possibility of the premise, the script by Heywood Gould never confronts any of the interesting questions raised."Champlin, Charles (October 5, 1978). "Clone Caper in 'Brazil'". 'Los Angeles Times'. Part IV, p. 1. Gary Arnold of 'The Washington Post' called it "admirably crafted and surprisingly effective," and "a snazzy pop entertainment synthesis of accumulating suspense, detective work, pseudoscientific speculation and historical wish fulfillment." Pauline Kael of 'The New Yorker' wrote "If the film wants to be taken as a cautionary fableanother one!about the ever-present dangers of Nazism, then it should leave viewers with a sense of menace that Mengele's 'boys from Brazil' constitute. Instead, we get Lieberman's fuddy-duddy humanism and vague assurances that the boys are not really dangerous. And this is supposed to be a movie." Jack Kroll of 'Newsweek' wrote that "the thoughts aren't quite deep enough even for a thriller...Heywood Gould's reasonably suspenseful screenplay blows it by suddenly turning Lieberman into a kindly old Jewish uncle instead of a man who is willing to face the tough paradoxes of good and evil."Kroll, Jack (October 9, 1978). "Little Hitlers". 'Newsweek'. p. 92.
Some scholars have used the film's idea of controlling an individual's genetics and upbringing to illustrate the difficulties of reconciling traditional views of free will with modern neuroscience.
Accolades
;Academy Awards Nominations
* Academy Award for Best Actor Laurence Olivier
* Academy Award for Film Editing Robert Swink
* Academy Award for Original Music Score Jerry Goldsmith
;Golden Globe Awards Nomination
* Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture Actor Drama Gregory Peck
;Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films Saturn Award Nominations
* Best Science Fiction Film
* Best Actor Laurence Olivier
* Best Director Franklin J. Schaffner
* Best Music Jerry Goldsmith
* Best Supporting Actress Uta Hagen
* Best Writing Heywood Gould
;Other honors
The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists:
* 2001: AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills Nominated
* 2003: AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains:
** Dr. Josef Mengele Nominated Villain
See also
* 'They Saved Hitler's Brain'
* 'River of Death'
* Anschluss 1977
References
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