THE FILM
FILM DIRECTOR: Franklin J. Schaffner
SCREENWRITER: Heywood Gould
FILM STARS: Gregory Peck, Laurence Olivier, James Mason, Lilli Palmer, Uta Hagen, Steve Guttenberg, Denholm Elliott, Rosemary Harris, John Dehner, Anne Meara, Bruno Ganz, Michael Gough
COUNTRY: USA
THIS BOOK
AUTHOR: Ira Levin
TYPE: Novel
PUBLISHER: Pan
THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1979
COUNTRY: Great Britain
COVER: Paperback
THE ORIGINAL BOOK
ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above
YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1976
ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title
NOTES
GENRE: Political thriller, War
WORDS: Ira Levin writes genre novels with an artistic bent … well, I think he does. His most famous novels are perhaps the murder drama, “A Kiss before Dying” (1953), the horror, “Rosemary’s Baby” (1967) or the satirical sci fi “The Stepford Wives” (1972). His plot twists, and perhaps because he was a playwright, make his novels perfect for films … and most have been filmed.
This novel about post WW2 Nazi’s in South America (headed by Dr Joseph Mengele, who was alive at the time) using Hitler’s DNA to to create cloned children (one of which is hoped may one day start a Fourth Reich) is a hoot. The film, if I recollect correctly plays it straight as a political thriller (and as a pseudo cautionary tale about Nazism) with all the mind games, philosophising, and politics mixed with thrills you would expect from a Schaffner film. A magnificent cast though Peck as Mengele and Olivier as the Nazi hunter seem to have got their roles reversed. Perhaps they were looking for a change as Olivier had just played a Nazi in “The Marathon Man” (1976) and Peck had just played uber American general MacArthur in the film of the same name from 1977. James Mason seems happy playing a German … again.
What’s there not to like?
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The movie is completely mad but very entertaining. I think Olivier would have made a better Nazi mad scientist than Peck, but the film still works.
Secret Nazi plots seemed to be a staple of 70’s thrillers. After he wrote The Day of the Jackal , Forsyth wrote The Odessa File, a thriller with a bonkers plot about Nazis planning on using nerve gas to wipe out Israel. I think it was later made into a movie.
Yes, “The Odessa File” was made into a film … and I watched it, again, just recently. I think the secret Nazi plots have been replaced by “Big Brother” scenarios for contemporary thrillers.