Marathon Man (film)

Marathon Man
Movie poster by Bill Gold
Directed by	John Schlesinger
Produced by	Sidney Beckerman Robert Evans
Written by	William Goldman
Based on	Marathon Man by William Goldman
Starring	Dustin Hoffman Laurence Olivier William Devane Roy Scheider Marthe Keller
Music by	Michael Small
Cinematography	Conrad Hall
Editing by	Jim Clark
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date(s)	October 8, 1976 (1976-10-08)
Running time	125 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Box office	$28,204,261

Marathon Man is a 1976 thriller film based on the novel of the same name by William Goldman. The film was directed by John Schlesinger, and stars Dustin Hoffman, Roy Scheider, and Laurence Olivier. The original music score was composed by Michael Small.

Plot

Thomas Babington "Babe" Levy (Dustin Hoffman) is a history Ph.D. candidate and avid runner researching the same field as his father, who committed suicide after being investigated during the Joseph McCarthy era. Babe's brother, Henry (Roy Scheider), better known as "Doc", poses as an oil company executive but, unknown to Babe, is actually a U.S. government agent working for a secret agency headed by Director Peter Janeway (William Devane).

The brother of a Nazi war criminal possesses a safe deposit box key but is killed in a traffic accident. Doc suspects that the criminal, Dr. Christian Szell (Laurence Olivier), will be arriving in New York to retrieve an extremely valuable diamond collection. Doc, who is often supposedly out of the country on business for extended periods of time, comes to New York under the guise of a visit to Babe. Meanwhile, Babe enters into a relationship with a young woman named Elsa Opel (Marthe Keller), who claims to be from Switzerland. The two are later mugged in a park by two men dressed in suits.

Some time later, Doc takes Babe and Elsa to lunch. During the meal, Doc tricks Elsa into revealing that she has been lying to Babe about her background. Though Doc suspects she may have some connection to Szell, he tells Babe only that she is simply seeking an American husband so that she can become a U.S. citizen. After Szell arrives in America, Doc confronts him stating he is not welcome in the country. Szell casually accepts the pronouncement, but then mortally wounds Doc with a retractable blade concealed in his sleeve. Doc makes it back to Babe's apartment and dies in Babe's arms.

The police interrogate Babe for hours until government agents led by Janeway arrive. Janeway asks Babe what Doc told him before he died, and informs Babe of his brother's career as a U.S. government agent. Babe insists that his brother did not tell him anything, but Janeway is convinced Doc would not have otherwise struggled all the way to Babe's apartment without giving him vital information of some kind.

Babe is later abducted from his apartment by the same two men who mugged him in the park, and he is tortured by Szell, a skilled dentist. During his torture, Babe is repeatedly asked "Is it safe?" by Szell, a code phrase he does not understand, and continues to deny any knowledge. Babe is then "rescued" by Janeway, who explains that Szell is in America to sell off a large cache of diamonds which he had taken from Jews killed at Auschwitz. Janeway again presses Babe about Doc's dying words, but Babe still insists he knows nothing. Frustrated, Janeway reveals himself as a double agent and returns Babe to Szell (also a double agent) who the audience learns has informed on other Nazi war criminals in return for immunity.

Szell explains to Babe that he suspected Doc would attempt to rob him of his diamonds, or deliver him to authorities. His query "Is it safe?" relates to whether or not authorities will be waiting to apprehend Szell upon his attempt to retrieve the diamonds. Still unable to extract anything from Babe, he proceeds to drill into one of Babe's healthy teeth. Babe eventually escapes again, aided by his superior skills as a marathon runner.

After inviting a neighborhood acquaintance and his fellow thugs to break into his apartment in order to steal his pistol, Babe phones Elsa, who agrees to meet him with a car and drives him to a country home as a hideout. Upon arrival, Babe correctly guesses that Elsa has set him up, forcing her to confess that the home is owned by Szell's deceased brother. Janeway and Szell's men arrive, but Babe avoids capture by taking Elsa hostage. Janeway kills Szell's men and offers to let Babe kill Szell in revenge for Doc's death if Janeway can have the diamonds. Babe agrees, but as he leaves to find Szell, Janeway attempts to shoot Babe and kills Elsa instead when she tries to alert Babe. Angered, Babe guns down Janeway.

Back in New York, Szell attempts to determine the value of his diamonds. However, he chooses an appraiser in the Diamond District in midtown Manhattan, where many of the shop owners are Jewish. A shop assistant who is also an Holocaust survivor believes he has recognized Szell as a wanted Nazi criminal. After Szell hurriedly leaves the shop, an elderly Jewish woman also recognizes him, but passersby think she is senile. Trying to cross the street to get closer to Szell in order to expose him, the woman is hit by a taxi, causing a crowd to assemble to aid her. Amidst the confusion, the shop assistant appears again, directly confronting Szell, who slits the man's throat with the blade hidden in his sleeve.

Szell retrieves his diamonds from the bank but is taken hostage by Babe as he attempts to leave. Babe forces Szell into Central Park and into one of the pump rooms at the south end of the reservoir. Babe holds Szell at gunpoint and informs him that he can keep as many diamonds as he can swallow. Szell initially refuses, prompting Babe to begin throwing the diamonds into the water below them. Szell relents and swallows one diamond, but then refuses to cooperate further. A struggle ensues; Babe throws the remainder of the diamonds down the scaffold steps towards the water; Szell dives for them, but stumbles, and fatally falls on his own knife blade. Picking up his gun, Babe exits the pump room and heads out into Central Park. Stopping by the reservoir, he throws the gun into the water.

Cast

• Dustin Hoffman…Thomas "Babe" Levy
  • Babe is originally interested in becoming a marathon runner. Gene D. Phillips, author of Major Film Directors of the American and British Cinema, Volume 1999, says that Babe "seemingly loses interest in training for a marathon because "he knows he has already won the most important race of his life—one which will never be chalked up in the official records—when he literall outran his captors and escaped from Szell's lair, which marked the beginning of the end for Szell."
• Laurence Olivier…Dr. Christian Szell
• Roy Scheider…Henry "Doc" Levy
• William Devane…Peter Janeway
• Marthe Keller…Elsa Opel
• Richard Bright…Karl, Szell's subordinate #1
• Marc Lawrence…Erhardt, Szell's subordinate #2
• Tito Goya…Melendez

Production

Marathon Man was not the first feature film production to use the Steadicam (the distinction going to Bound for Glory). However, it was the first feature using Steadicam that saw theatrical release, predating the premieres of both Bound for Glory and Rocky.

Themes

Laurent Bouzereau, author of Ultraviolent Movies: from Sam Peckinpah to Quentin Tarantino, said "The interesting psychological aspect of Marathon Man lies in the fact that Babe is a character who refuses to believe that his father was a Communist traitor. His father died because he refused to defend himself; he refused to fight back."

Patricia Erens, author of The Jew in American Cinema, said that Marathon Man depicts a struggle between a Jew and a Nazi in which, despite the inequality of the forces, the Jew ultimately prevails over the Nazi.

Gene D. Phillips, author of Major Film Directors of the American and British Cinema, Volume 1999, said that by the standards of the marathon runner creed "If you're a marathon runner, you don't give in to pain", Babe becomes "a genuine marathon man" at the conclusion since he has "truly gone the distance" and outlasted the antagonists.

In regards to the ending, Bouzereau commented that "Babe uses the weapon with which his father killed himself to shoot Janeway—a real traitor—at the end. When Szell stabs himself with the knife he used to murder Scylla, it's as if Babe's revenge has come full circle in some kind of weird ritual. The last image of Babe throwing the gun away shows that now justice has been done, he has no further need for a weapon." Bouzereau added that Babe could only accomplish his goals and survive by using violence, and that Babe also "knew when to stop; other's don't."

Reception

The film was a financial and critical success. Olivier's performance was particularly praised: he was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role and he won a Golden Globe in the same category.

Dr. Szell was ranked as villain #34 on the American Film Institute's "100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains" list. The film itself was ranked #50 on the "100 Years...100 Thrills" list. Both the novel and the film contain a graphic depiction in which Szell tortures Babe by drilling into one of his teeth, without anesthetic, while repeatedly asking the question, "Is it safe?" The quote "Is it safe?" was ranked #70 on the "100 Years...100 Movie Quotes" list. The dental torture scene in this film was named #65 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments.

Schlesinger said that Marathon Man was successful not only because it had elements of escapism, but also because the audience easily identified with Babe Levy. Schlesinger said that he "is definitely someone that you can root for. The film is about his survival in a grim and hostile world. In our present age of anxiety we can all identify with characters who are not trying to get ahead but simply to survive."

Gene D. Phillips, author of Major Film Directors of the American and British Cinema, Volume 1999, said that the torture scene was "one of the most frightening sequences in the movies." Phillips argued that the director "stimulates maximum audience identification with Babe by photographing Szell from his victim's subjective point of view, as he implacably trains his drill on a fresh, live nerve in Babe's mouth" and that "[t]he menacing drill thus moves closer and closer to the camera, as if Szell were aiming the gruesome instrument at the viewer."

Differences between the novel and film

An 8½ minute sequence was shot of Doc fighting with some men who kill a spy colleague of his. William Goldman speculates that it was cut because it was violent and that it was a "grievous" cut to the detriment of the film. With the sequence missing, Doc's character seems to be less flawed than he really is.

The ending was rewritten, according to Goldman, because Hoffman was unhappy with it. Goldman was not sure who wrote it, but told an interviewer he thought the new, more famous ending was "shit" because it left out two important plot clarifications. The final confrontation between Babe and Szell, in particular, is changed: in the film, Babe "spares" Szell in a pump room, tries forcing him to swallow his diamonds and Szell then falls on his own retractable blade, dying. In the novel, Babe resolutely leads Szell to Central Park and shoots him multiple times, subsequently lecturing him. He then throws the diamonds away and is quietly led away by a policeman.

References

• Bradey, John Joseph. The Craft of the Screenwriter: Interviews with Six Celebrated Screenwriters (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1981)

Further reading

• Kerner, Aaron. Film and the Holocaust: New Perspectives on Dramas, Documentaries, and Experimental Films. Continuum International Publishing Group, May 5, 2011. 169-173. ISBN 1441124187, 9781441124180.

External links

• Marathon Man at the Internet Movie Database
• Marathon Man at AllRovi
• Marathon Man at Rotten Tomatoes