# Marathon Man (film)

Marathon Man is a 1976 American thriller film directed by John Schlesinger. It was adapted by William Goldman from his 1974 novel of the same title and stars Dustin Hoffman, Laurence Olivier, Roy Scheider, William Devane and Marthe Keller. In the film, "Babe" Levy, a graduate student, becomes embroiled in a plot by Nazi war criminal Christian Szell to retrieve ill-gotten diamonds from a safe deposit box owned by Szell's dead brother. Babe becomes unwittingly involved due to his brother Doc's dealings with Szell.
The film was a critical and box-office success. Olivier received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Szell, the film's antagonist.

## Plot

Thomas Babington "Babe" Levy is a history student and distance runner who seeks to rehabilitate the memory of his father, who took his own life during McCarthyism. During a training session in Central Park, Babe witnesses a fiery car accident that kills Klaus Szell, the brother of Nazi war criminal Christian Szell. Babe's brother Henry "Doc", under the guise of an oil company executive, is a government agent operating for a secret agency headed by Peter Janeway. Doc is a courier for the transport of diamonds owned by Szell and kept in a safe deposit box in New York City. When Doc takes Babe and his Swiss girlfriend Elsa Opel to lunch, he tricks Elsa into revealing that she has been lying about her background. Although Doc suspects she may be connected to Szell, he tells Babe that she is seeking an American husband so she can become a U.S. citizen. Szell, having learned of his brother's death, secretly arrives in New York to collect the diamonds, and the couriers are mysteriously killed. Doc escapes a couple of attacks, but when he and Szell ultimately meet, he is stabbed by a concealed blade in Szell's sleeve. The mortally wounded Doc reaches Babe's house and dies before he is able to confide anything about his identity.
Szell, concerned that Doc may have informed Babe of the diamonds before he died, has him kidnapped by Janeway and two accomplices. To extort the information that he believes Babe may have received, Szell tortures Babe using his skills as a dentist and drilling into Babe's teeth. Babe is rescued by Janeway, who explains that Szell is in America to sell a cache of diamonds he had taken from Jews killed at Auschwitz. Janeway presses Babe about Doc's dying words, but Babe still insists he knows nothing. Frustrated, Janeway reveals himself to be a double agent and returns Babe to Szell. Still unable to extract details from Babe, Szell drills into one of Babe's healthy teeth, causing excruciating pain. Realizing that Babe is innocent, Szell orders his accomplices to dispose of him. However, Babe escapes, aided by his prowess as a marathon runner.
Babe arms himself with his father's gun and phones Elsa, who agrees to meet him with a car. Arriving at a country house, Babe guesses that Elsa has set him up and predicts the house was owned by Szell's late brother. Janeway and Szell's accomplices arrive, and Babe holds them and Elsa at gunpoint. Janeway kills the accomplices when they attempt to shoot Babe, and offers to tell Babe where Szell is going in exchange for his life. Babe leaves the house, but Janeway retrieves his gun and starts to follow him. Elsa tries to warn Babe, causing Janeway to shoot and kill her, before Babe fires through the window, killing Janeway.
Szell visits the Diamond District to get an idea of the value of his diamonds, but he is recognized on the street by multiple Jewish Holocaust survivors, one of whom Szell kills with his concealed blade. Szell retrieves his diamonds, but as he attempts to leave the bank, Babe forces him at gunpoint to a pump house in the Reservoir. Babe tells Szell he can keep as many diamonds as he can swallow. After swallowing one diamond, Szell refuses to continue and attacks Babe, but Babe throws the rest of the diamonds towards the water. Szell dives for them, but he stumbles down a staircase, impaling himself on his own blade and falling into the water. Babe heads out into Central Park, stopping to throw his gun into the Reservoir.

## Cast

* Dustin Hoffman as Thomas Babington "Babe" Levy
* Laurence Olivier as Dr. Christian Szell
* Roy Scheider as Agent Henry "Doc" Levy
* William Devane as Commander Peter "Janey" Janeway
* Marthe Keller as Elsa Opel
* Fritz Weaver as Professor Biesenthal
* Richard Bright as Karl
* Marc Lawrence as Erhard
* Raymond Serra as Truck Driver
* Allen Joseph as H.V. Levy
* Tito Goya as Melendez
* Ben Dova as Klaus Szell
* Lou Gilbert as Rosenbaum
* Jacques Marin as LeClerc

## Themes

The film explores themes of endurance and the pursuit of Nazi war criminals. Some critics believed that the exhibited violence was necessary to the film and to the character of Babe. Other critics found the violence to be offensive. Critic Pauline Kael considered the film to be a "Jewish revenge fantasy". The nickname given to Laurence Olivier's character, "der weiße Engel" (The White Angel), was inspired by Nazi doctor Josef Mengele, known as the "Angel of Death" (also "der weiße Engel" because, when he stood on the platform of arrivals to concentration camps, he looked like a "white angel" directing victims to their deaths).
Babe originally has childish traits. As the film progresses, these childish traits are replaced with more adult ones. Michelle Citron of Jump Cut compared Babe to Carrie White in the 1976 film Carrie.
Janeway is interested only in his own gain instead of the ideal to advance US interests. Paul Cobley stated in The American Thriller: Generic Innovation and Social Change in the 1970s that Janeway "can be read as the impersonality of late capitalism [...] or a post-Foucaldian embodiment of the shifting locations of power", or "a representative of the vicissitudes of the market". Cobley identifies Melendez and his group as Janeway's "nemesis".

## Production
### Pre-production

Goldman was paid a reported US$500,000 (equivalent to $3.09 million in 2023) for the film rights to his novel, and to write a screenplay, before the novel had been published. Another source said that it was $450,000 (equivalent to $2.78 million in 2023).
"The book reads like the movie-movie of all time", said producer Robert Evans. "I regard it as a cheap investment because you don't often find books that translate into film. This is the best thing I've read since The Godfather. It could go all, all the way — if we don't foul it up in the making."
Goldman estimated that he wrote four versions of the screenplay, and says that Robert Towne was brought in at the end.
Goldman says that John Schlesinger agreed to do the film only because he had just finished The Day of the Locust and was "terrified he was dead in Hollywood". Goldman says "all the stuff dealing with cities in crisis" in an original draft of the script was Schlesinger's idea although "Almost none of it made the finished film."

### Casting

Laurence Olivier was cast early on. However, he had health problems, and at one stage, it was uncertain if he would be able to appear in the film. Richard Widmark auditioned for the part, but Olivier eventually recovered and was able to participate in filming.

### Differences from the novel

An 8½-minute sequence was shot of Doc fighting with some men who kill a spy colleague. William Goldman speculated that the scene was cut because of its violence, and called the cut "grievous" and to the detriment of the film. With the sequence missing, Doc's character seems to be less flawed than he really is. Goldman argued the scenes were part of the reason why Roy Scheider took the role.
In the novel, Janeway and Doc are lovers. This is handled subtly in the movie (when Doc arrives in Paris, he calls Janeway on the phone and says, "Janie, I miss you. Get your ass over here [to the hotel room]"). In the book, their sexual relationship is not subtle at all, and has Doc pining for Janeway at several points.
The ending was rewritten by Robert Towne; it has been speculated that this was because Hoffman was unhappy with it. Goldman told an interviewer that 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 and tries forcing him to swallow his diamonds, and Szell 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 throws the diamonds away and is quietly led away by a policeman.

### Filming

Marathon Man was the second feature film production in which inventor-operator Garrett Brown used his then-new Steadicam, after Bound for Glory. However, it was the first feature using the Steadicam that saw theatrical release, predating the premieres of both Bound for Glory and Rocky by two months. This new camera stabilization system was used extensively in Marathon Man's running and chase scenes on the streets of New York City.
The movie was filmed from October 1975 to February 1976.

### "Why don't you just try acting?"

Marathon Man is famous in acting circles for an often quoted exchange between Hoffman and Olivier concerning a perceived difference in their approaches to acting.
In the usual telling of the story, Hoffman, a proponent of method acting, prepared for a scene in which his character had been awake for three days by doing the same himself. Following much goading and verbal put-downs by Hoffman, who criticized Olivier for not being as committed to his art as Hoffman, Olivier remarked, "My dear boy, why don't you just try acting?" In an interview on Inside the Actors Studio, Hoffman said that this exchange had been distorted; that he had been up all night at a nightclub for personal rather than professional reasons, and Olivier, who was aware of this, was merely joking.

### Deleted violent scenes

Although the first preview of the movie was successful, the second one in San Francisco did not go well. The audience complained about all the violent scenes, so director John Schlesinger and editor Jim Clark chose to delete the following scenes and shots: the scene near the beginning of the film in which Doc fights two assassins who have killed his friend; the graphic and gory close-ups of Szell disemboweling Doc with his wrist blade; and both of the torture scenes, which were heavily cut. Graphic insert shots from the torture scenes, which were filmed by Clark, were removed. Some photos, such as original lobby cards and stills, show Szell torturing Babe longer with dental instruments in the first torture scene, and actual onscreen drilling of Babe's tooth in the second torture scene.
Stanley Kauffmann of The New Republic wrote, "While people said that the violence in Marathon Man was excessive, I was surprised: I had wriggled through that dental torture, but it hadn't seemed a pinnacle in a year during which I had seen two penises cut off and another penis nailed to a board—in films from France and Japan."

### Music

John Schlesinger asked composer Michael Small to make music that matched the theme of "pain, and the endurance of pain".
The opera Hérodiade by Jules Massenet is featured in the scene that takes place at the Paris Opera (Act III scene 8, Dors, ô cité perverse !... Astres étincelants, sung by Joseph Rouleau with the orchestra of the Royal Opera House, conducted by John Matheson, published on Decca Records).

## Reception

The film was a financial and critical success.

### Critical reception

Olivier's performance was particularly praised. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film an approval rating of 82% based on 49 reviews, with an average rating of 7.4/10. The consensus reads: "Marathon Man runs the gamut from patient mystery to pulse-pounding thriller, aided by Laurence Olivier's coldly terrifying performance and a brainy script by William Goldman."
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave Marathon Man 3 stars out of a possible 4. He wrote, "If holes in plots bother you, 'Marathon Man' will be maddening. But as well-crafted escapist entertainment, as a diabolical thriller, the movie works with relentless skill."

### Accolades

| Award | Category | Nominee(s) | Result |
| Academy Awards | Best Supporting Actor | Laurence Olivier | Nominated |
| Bambi Awards | Best Actress – National | Marthe Keller | Won |
| British Academy Film Awards | Best Actor in a Leading Role | Dustin Hoffman | Nominated |
| British Academy Film Awards | Best Editing | Jim Clark | Nominated |
| British Society of Cinematographers Awards | Best Cinematography in a Theatrical Feature Film | Conrad Hall | Nominated |
| David di Donatello Awards | Best Foreign Film | Robert Evans | Won |
| David di Donatello Awards | Best Foreign Actor | Dustin Hoffman | Won |
| Edgar Allan Poe Awards | Best Motion Picture Screenplay | William Goldman | Nominated |
| Golden Globe Awards | Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama | Dustin Hoffman | Nominated |
| Golden Globe Awards | Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture | Laurence Olivier | Won |
| Golden Globe Awards | Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture | Marthe Keller | Nominated |
| Golden Globe Awards | Best Director – Motion Picture | John Schlesinger | Nominated |
| Golden Globe Awards | Best Screenplay – Motion Picture | William Goldman | Nominated |
| Turkish Film Critics Association Awards | Best Foreign Film | Best Foreign Film | 7th Place |
| Writers Guild of America Awards | Best Drama – Adapted from Another Medium | William Goldman | Nominated |

### Cultural influence

Dr. Szell was ranked as villain #34 on its American Film Institute's "100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains" list. The film was ranked #50 on the "100 Years...100 Thrills" list. Dr. Szell was also ranked in Time as one of the 25 greatest movie villains. Both the novel and film contain a graphic depiction in which Szell tortures Babe by first probing a cavity in one of Babe's teeth with a curette, and later drilling into another tooth, 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 placed #66 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments. The torture scene has been described as one of the most frightening sequences in film. Critics have remarked on the high level of talent and class.
Director 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."