Marathon Man (1976)

Director:

John Schlesinger

Writers:

William Goldman (screenplay)
William Goldman (novel)

Release Date:

8 October 1976 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Thriller

Plot:

A graduate history student is unwittingly caught in the middle of an international conspiracy involving stolen diamonds, an exiled Nazi war criminal, and a rogue government agent.

Plot Keywords:

War Criminal | Nazi | Dentist | New York | Diamond

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar. Another 3 wins & 9 nominations

Cast

Dustin Hoffman	...	Babe
Laurence Olivier	...	Szell
Roy Scheider	...	Doc
William Devane	...	Janeway
Marthe Keller	...	Elsa
Fritz Weaver	...	Professor Biesenthal
Richard Bright	...	Karl
Marc Lawrence	...	Erhard
Allen Joseph	...	Babe's Father
Tito Goya	...	Melendez
Ben Dova	...	Szell's Brother
Lou Gilbert	...	Rosenbaum
Jacques Marin	...	LeClerc
James Wing Woo	...	Chen
Nicole Deslauriers	...	Nicole

Runtime:

125 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | French | German | Spanish | Yiddish

Color:

Color (Metrocolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono | Stereo

Certification:

Iceland:16 | Singapore:M18 | Sweden:15 | UK:X (original rating) | Brazil:14 | South Korea:18 | Argentina:18 | New Zealand:R16 | Australia:M | Finland:K-15 (re-rating) (2003) (uncut version) | Finland:K-16 (1988) (cut version) | France:-16 | Ireland:18 | Italy:VM18 | Netherlands:16 | Norway:15 | Norway:16 (1977) | Spain:18 | UK:18 | USA:R | West Germany:16

Filming Locations:

47th Street, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA

Company:

Paramount Pictures

Trivia:

According to "Adventures in the Screen Trade", at one point in rehearsal Laurence Olivier asked William Goldman if he could change a line slightly, and called Goldman "Bill" while doing so. Goldman describes it as the high point of his career.

Goofs:

Crew or equipment visible: When Chen is attempting to garrote Doc in his Paris hotel room, the blood pack attached the back of Roy Scheider's hand is clearly visible.

Quotes:

[addressing his class]
Professor Biesenthal: Well, you four have the dubious honor of having been picked from over two hundred applicants for this seminar. Well, let me just say this. There's a shortage of natural resources. There's a shortage of breathable air, there's even a shortage of adequate claret...
[...]

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Jeopardy!: (#26.14)" (2009)

Soundtrack:

Der Neugierige

Ghosts of the Holocaust on New York City streets...

Dustin Hoffman looks in great shape playing a Columbia graduate student, still haunted by his father's suicide (and perhaps in training for the New York marathon), who gets mixed up by proxy in his nefarious older brother's activities; seems his sibling has been working secretly as a courier in stolen gems, and has run afoul of Szell, a.k.a. The White Angel, the most notorious Nazi war-criminal still alive. Director John Schlesinger exercises a gleefully nasty side here, staging some dental torture scenes that are just about impossible to watch, yet not all of the pieces in William Goldman's adaptation of his own bestseller fit accordingly; Schlesinger just presses ahead so that the story gaps won't be so noticeable. There's much zig-zagging across the continents at the beginning, with red herrings, street bombs, and character intricacies just swept under the carpet. We learn so little about Hoffman's brother (played by an equally fit Roy Scheider) that, by the film's climax, we still don't know whose side he was he on--or why his cohorts lost trust in him. Marthe Keller's German mystery beauty is another character muddle, a pretense of writer Goldman who was really out to stack this deck against Hoffman's runner. Laurence Olivier's knife-wielding Nazi beast is perplexing as well, alternating a steely coldness with an aged confusion (why, for instance, is he staking out jewelry stores just for today's market values--isn't the diamond trade this man's forte?). The film could have eased up a bit on the torture scenes (which aren't really suspenseful as much as they excruciating) and been a bit more clear-headed about the chess game taking place. It leaves a bushel of questions behind, though it is a handsome piece of work, well-cast and with an intrinsically satisfying finale. *** from ****