The Boys from Brazil (1978)

Director:

Franklin J. Schaffner

Writers:

Ira Levin (novel)
Heywood Gould (screenplay)

Release Date:

12 October 1978 (Netherlands)

Genre:

Drama | Sci-Fi | Thriller

Tagline:

If they survive...will we?

Plot:

A Nazi hunter in Paraguay discovers a sinister and bizarre plot to rekindle the Third Reich.

Plot Keywords:

Nazi | Jungle | Civil Servant | Nudity | Conspiracy

Awards:

Nominated for 3 Oscars. Another 1 win & 7 nominations

Cast

Gregory Peck	...	Dr. Josef Mengele
Laurence Olivier	...	Ezra Lieberman
James Mason	...	Eduard Seibert
Lilli Palmer	...	Esther Lieberman
Uta Hagen	...	Frieda Maloney
Steve Guttenberg	...	Barry Kohler (as Steven Guttenberg)
Denholm Elliott	...	Sidney Beynon
Rosemary Harris	...	Mrs. Doring
John Dehner	...	Henry Wheelock
John Rubinstein	...	David Bennett
Anne Meara	...	Mrs. Curry
Jeremy Black	...	Jack Curry / Simon Harrington / Erich Doring / Bobby Wheelock
Bruno Ganz	...	Professor Bruckner
Walter Gotell	...	Mundt
David Hurst	...	Strasser

Also Known As:

Boys from the Brussel (Philippines: English title)

Runtime:

125 min | West Germany:100 min

Country:

UK | USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Canada:13+ (Quebec) | Canada:14 (Nova Scotia) (re-rating) (2002) | Canada:PA (Manitoba) | Canada:R (Ontario) | Canada:R (Nova Scotia) (original rating) | Australia:M | West Germany:16 | Brazil:14 | Argentina:18 | Finland:K-18 | France:-16 | Norway:18 | South Korea:15 (DVD rating) | Spain:18 | Sweden:15 | UK:X (original rating) | USA:R | UK:18 | Finland:K-15 (DVD rating) | Netherlands:16 | Iceland:16

Filming Locations:

Ateliers der Wien-Film G.m.b.H., Sievering, Vienna, Austria

Company:

Incorporated Television Company (ITC)

Trivia:

Gregory Peck felt that his portrayal of Nazi war criminal Dr. Josef Mengele was the only completely unsympathetic role he ever performed.

Goofs:

Errors in geography: Sweden has many mountains and hydro power plants. But, these look no way near the Alpine landscape and the curved concrete structure which are supposed to be in central Sweden in this movie. The only Swedish thing in this scene is the Volvo, but the license plates look more Finnish than Swedish and the tax sticker on the rear plate is completely wrong.

Quotes:

Ezra Lieberman: Did you kill Wheelock?
Dr. Josef Mengele: [sarcastically] No, he's in the kitchen mixing us some cocktails!

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "High Chaparall: (#2.4)" (2004)

Soundtrack:

WE'RE HOME AGAIN

Westphalian ham

Man, does Gregory Peck seem to be enjoying himself here. He was never good with accents but he forges ahead anyway, so "Bobby" comes out as "Buppy." He huffs and puffs. He blows houses down. He strangles a man among bowls of fruit and caviar on the buffet table, and afterwards tells the guy's wife, "Shut up -- you ugly bitch." He makes horrible faces with his jowls widened like a baslisk's. He revels in his villainy. And the best moment in the film is at the end, when he finally greets his nemesis, Lawrence Olivier playing a Nazi hunter, raises his pistol, and smiles, "Herr LEE-ber-man."

Olivier overplays as well although in a more subtle fashion, as befits Lord Olivier, ex-Hamlet, using time-honored techniques such as long pauses before and during significant utterances, and a tendency to look out of the side of his eyes without turning his head. He also projects a kind of wiliness that Peck doesn't show, a kind of ferret compared to his adversary's bulldozer.

Both of them evidently had a good time working together. During the hilarious climactic struggle in which the two aging men with tasty scarlet slashes on their cheeks roll over each other, grabbing for the obligatory gun, biting each other's ears, Olivier at one point during the shooting found himself on the bottom, being crushed by Peck, and looking up at Peck he pursed his lips and batted his eyelashes.

The plot is an effective thriller, so silly that even Ira Levin joked about it. But it makes a kind of nutty sense and carries you along. The kid who plays Hitler really IS obnoxious and I wouldn't mind seeing David Rubenstein knock him off. The location shooting is terrific and distracts one from the weaknesses of the plot. There is an enormous dam set in a mammoth mountain range. And it captures Lancaster, Pennsylvania, perfectly -- the early winter drizzle and chill, rolling hills of woodlots and farm land, the Grandma Moses farmhouses with their distinctive architecture and their barns. (That part of Pennsylvania really looks like what is called "a picture postcard.")

There actually was an organization of ex-Nazi comrades rather like the one described. And a lot of Nazis made it to safety in South America where they lived quietly in modest settings, not the white-suited baronial splendor of Peck's place. They kept busts of Hitler on the mantelpiece, hung Nazi flags on the walls, and even had a Miss Nazi contest. (I'm not making that up. It's from the staff of the Jewish Heritage Museum.)

The historical inaccuraces are unimportant to the plot but perhaps not to our understanding of human nature. The mind seems to have a tendency to operate in superlatives. It makes it easier to think about things if they can be divided up clearly into good and evil. Not just good and evil, but perfect good and perfect evil. Thus, Mengele was a dentist, as we know, but here he is given both an MD and a PhD -- "the perfect combination for a scientist." Mengele, instead of a monstrous and lowbrow sadist, is turned into the personification of evil. He doesn't even have a dog or a girlfriend. Mengele is useful to human thinking -- the mythological Mengele that is -- because he provides us with a perfect bad example, someone we can fully hate without guilt. If Mengele didn't exist we would have to invent someone like him.

(PS: he does not exist anymore.)