The Passage (1979) 99m
One of the last films in the 70s to employ the 'star-stuffed' casting approach. Looking back on it, you'll see that three of the four principal characters could have been played by anyone, and that Anthony Quinn, James Mason, and (especially) Jean Simmons are given little to work with. It's only Malcolm McDowell, the youngest of the quartet, that makes a meal out of his role. And for better or worse, that meal is ham.
Quinn plays a solitary, gruff Basque shepherd (his name is never revealed during the film, a likely harbinger for his anonymous role/performance) hired by the French resistance during the German occupation to escort a professor (Mason) across the Pyrenees into Spain. As if the mountains weren't a big enough hurdle, Mason drags his family along for the ride, and a fanatical SS officer is dogging them every step of the way. Because THE PASSAGE flopped at the box office, and was never released for home viewing, it has become one of those films that people remember rather than revisit. It's interesting to hear other people cite images they find most memorable, which often boil down to the same two or three (McDowell's "chop chop!" scene left an indelible impression on my high school gang when we saw an anamorphic 16mm print of the movie in a friend's garage). I can't be sure of the reasons for the film's failure - perhaps some of McDowell's antics were too sadistic - because it's not what I would call a bad film, even if it's not as good as it should be. It is, by the nature of its premise, a different kind of war movie, a different kind of chase, and a story that requires the hero and villain to be kept separate. To be more specific: Quinn's party ascends through thick snow, leaving little opportunity for fast-moving chase sequences; the hunters and the game are few in number, ruling out the big battle scenes you would expect to see in a war picture (although there is a ridiculous shootout at a border crossing); and because the movie would be over the second that Quinn and McDowell meet (they do walk past each other unnoticed at the beginning of the film), the storyline has to keep cutting back from one to the other, deflating the tension of some scenes.
While these limitations may have created what many perceive to be the film's flaws, I find that they instead create differences that make THE PASSAGE easier to remember among other war-masquerading-as-action films. Having said that, the film would not nearly be as watchable without McDowell relishing his role as the fanatical German officer. We don't stop to think twice about his crazed behavior or obsessive pursuit of Quinn because the archetype of SS officers as villains has well been planted into our cinematic consciousness. McDowell might as well be the Boogeyman from the previous year's HALLOWEEN, and the timing of this film is cannily placed within the onslaught of stalk-and-slash movies that followed Carpenter's horror hit (and in true horror fashion, he doesn't 'die' the first time). Still, bright open snowy spaces are a completely different stalking arena to dimly lit woods, and while the film was made on location in the Pyrenees, it doesn't impress as visually as it should. This film obviously cost money, but what did they spend it on? The great-looking avalanche footage was lifted from another film, and the effects in the shock climax are nothing more than red paint being flicked at people to the accompaniment of dubbed gunshots. But then again, how can you not watch any film that features the one-time wife of 70s pop singer David Cassidy being molested by a guy wearing swastika underwear?
sburridge@hotmail.com
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