Marathon Man

Plot synopsis:
Thomas Levy (Dustin Hoffman), nicknamed "Babe" in the film, is a history Ph.D. candidate researching the same field as his father, who committed suicide after being investigated during the Joseph McCarthy era. Babe is also an avid runner, which lends the film its title. Babe's brother, Henry (Roy Scheider), better known as "Doc", poses as an oil company executive but in fact is a U.S. government agent working for a secret agency headed up by Director Peter Janeway (William Devane). Babe is not aware of his brother's true occupation.Doc is often supposedly out of the country on business for extended periods of time but comes to New York under the guise of a visit to Babe. The brother of a Nazi war criminal possesses a safety deposit box key, but is killed in a traffic accident (after a road rage altercation with a short tempered middle-aged Jewish American motorist). Doc suspects that the criminal, Dr. Christian Szell (Laurence Olivier) will be arriving to retrieve an extremely valuable diamond collection. Szell later sends a burly assassin named Chen (James Wing Woo) to kill Doc in his Paris hotel room, but Doc fights the hit man and breaks his back.Babe enters into a relationship with a young woman named Elsa Opel (Marthe Keller), who claims to be from Switzerland. One night while out on a date Elsa and Babe are mugged in a park by two men dressed in suits. Some time later, Doc takes the couple to lunch, where he 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 seeking an American husband so that she can become a U.S. citizen.After Szell arrives in America, Doc meets him to tell the former Nazi he is not welcome in the country, and also to warn Szell to stay away from Babe. Szell casually accepts the pronouncement, but then swiftly knifes Doc, wounding him severely. Doc is able to make it back to his brother's apartment, but collapses and dies in Babe's arms without telling him anything. The police interrogate Babe for hours, until government agents led by Peter 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 feels that Doc struggled all the way to Babe's apartment to give him vital information of some kind.Babe is later abducted from his apartment by Szell's subordinates, Karl and Erhardt (the two men from the park). In an infamous sequence, Babe is tortured by Szell, a skilled dentist, who repeatedly asks "Is it safe?" Confused by the question code phrase he does not understand, Babe denies any knowledge, but is tortured. The dentist offers him oil of cloves, an anesthetic, as positive inducement to cooperate. Eventually, Babe loses consciousness and Szell pauses his torture.Babe is then rescued by Janeway, who apparently kills Szell's bodyguards and takes Babe from Szell's hideout. As he drives, Janeway explains that Szell is in America to sell off his large cache of diamonds, which he had taken from Jews he had exterminated at Auschwitz during World War II. Janeway continually presses Babe about Doc's dying words, but Babe again insists he knows nothing. Frustrated, Janeway reveals himself as a double agent working with the Nazi criminal all along, and he turns Babe over to Karl and Erhardt (Janeway had only faked killing them). Szell, it turns out, is one of Janeway's highest level informants, and had informed on other Nazi war criminals in return for immunity.Delivered back into Szell's hands, the Nazi has a curiously kindly conversation with Babe before calmly explaining why he is holding Babe for questioning. Szell suspected that Doc would attempt to rob him of his diamonds, or rat on him to authorities; thus his desire to know if it's "safe" to withdraw the diamonds, i.e., whether Doc told Babe any incriminating information. Still unable to extract anything from Babe, he proceeds to drill into one of Babe's healthy teeth. Babe eventually escapes again, this time on his own, with Janeway and Szell's two henchmen giving chase in a car. Though exhausted and barefoot, he is able to outrun his pursuers in part by remembering famed "marathon man" Abebe Bikila, who ran barefoot.After inviting a neighborhood acquaintance and his toughs to break into his apartment and steal his pistol (the same pistol his father used to commit suicide), Babe phones Elsa, who agrees to meet him with a car. She drives him to a country home as a hideout. Babe guesses that she has set him up; she confesses that Szell's dead brother owned the home, and that she was one of Szell's couriers. Janeway and Szell's men arrive, but Babe avoids an ambush by taking Elsa hostage. In another twist, 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, but 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 Auschwitz 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 she is hit by a taxi, causing a crowd to assemble to aid her. Amidst the confusion, the shop assistant appears again, directly confronting Szell. Becoming increasingly paranoid, Szell slits the man's throat with a retractable blade concealed in his sleeve.Szell retrieves his diamonds from the bank, but is taken hostage by Babe as he attempts to leave, who inconspicuously forces him into Central Park and into one of the pump rooms at the south end of the Reservoir. Babe holds Szell at gunpoint on a scaffold and seizes the diamonds; rather than kill Szell, Babe informs him that he will allow Szell to live and 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. Szell goes on to insult Babe, and after he spits in Babe's face a fight erupts in which Szell tries to stab Babe. 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.

Tags: suspenseful, murder, violence, horror, flashback, revenge

Review:
Schlesinger made a great action-suspense film and married it to the artistry of unique talents Hoffman was, by then, a dynamic, young and incredibly versatile film actor with three Academy Award nominations already under his belt for "The Graduate," "Midnight Cowboy," and "Lenny." But the key to "Marathon Man" was the chemistry between its stars Perhaps one of the most gut-wrenching and most memorable scenes in the film comes when Hoffman is captured and tortured by Olivier who plays the role of a mean and vicious and sadistic Nazi war criminal, Christian Szell Olivier's performance resulted in a 1976 Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actor In 1945, Szell ran the experimental camp at Auschwitz where they called him the White Angel He was a dentist and could provide escape for any Jew who was willing to pay the price He started out with gold, naturally, but very quickly worked his way up to diamonds As Szell saw the end early, he sneaked his brother into America with the diamonds And they were right here, in New York, in a safe deposit-box until Szell's brother got killed in a head-on collision with an oil truck Uniquely built, and with a marvelous, rugged face, Roy Scheider, well known for his strong performances in "The French Connection," "Klute," and "Jaws," came on board as Hoffman's mysterious businessman brother, getting the rare chance to play a character that's both hero and villain Doc is a fascinating guy because he chooses to work out his problems in a much different way than Dustin's character does He was very touched and very moved by his father's death, but he abandoned all his hopes for whatever he intended to do and he became a spy, a killer, a very jaded personality In doing something truly suspenseful, Schlesinger accomplished a film that's largely about fear and it's about pain and the infliction of pain because of fear The thrilling sensation of great expectations came on the 47th Street in the diamond district in New York, where Schlesinger gets the best of it.
However, unlike a lot of thrillers; Marathon Man uses this time to create characters and establish the situation, which ultimately pays off later on in the film when the movie really gets going.
Dustin Hoffman is a fantastic actor, and he certainly gets to flex his acting muscles here, in a film which sees him go through all manner of unpleasant scenes and also hold up lots of relationships with various characters, as well as drawing sympathy from the audience to accent his situation.
The third lead role, that of the Nazi war criminal, is taken by Lawrence Olivier, who is also a fantastic actor and gives a great performance in this film.
He gives his character just the right atmosphere, and we can tell just by looking at the man that he is cold and uncaring, and also past it; which is the crux of his character.The film ends with a spectacular sequence, which sees the movie and the two centrals characters come to a satisfying conclusion.
It pitches the tone of the film perfectly, establishing an everyday guy and placing him in a sinister chase situation which it is discovered is so easily to get involved in, while systematically foreshadowing the eerie turns the narrative will take to do with having to run for one's life.Marathon Man is like that; there's something very effective behind its ability to inject terror into a relatively routine situation.
In a film in which a lot of people act as if they're one thing in order to garner an advantage, this use of improper name and alias to act as an alter-ego is interesting.But Marathon Man provides us with a ray of light in the form of Babe, a down to Earth and accessible lead with whom we are able to relate in his innocence and copious levels of naivety to his situation when espionage and betrayal catches up with him.
In one swooping camera shot, we are left to read into as much as we can about this one individual, while a lesser film of the thriller ilk would have seen a bunch of people gather in a room; brought Szell's face up on a screen and laid out everything for the uninformed characters and audience alike.Babe's involvement in what it is he ends up neck deep in is ultimately instigated by the unsightly sequence in which the death of somebody we do not see coming occurs in his arms.
The film is a tight, gripping piece; a film that clashes a world of smuggling, deceit and murder with the quieter, more routine world of a young man who's nervous around girls and just attempting to make-good out of some pretty harsh living conditions.It progresses to encompass a series of quite extraordinary sequences, the one of which everyone remembers more fondly than others being the torture sequence involving a dentist's drill, a sadomasochistic game of fear; terror; power play; ambiguous questions; honest but disbelieved answers and sheer pain.
Olivier and Scheider give particularly great performances, and Marthe Keller comes across as appropriately sweet and sexy (her big "secret," though, should be really easy for anyone to guess!) I'm a little less enamored of Dustin Hoffman, whose character is inexplicably nicknamed "Babe." He's just way too old to be a typical graduate student (almost forty years old, to be precise), and he simply doesn't have much charisma to me.
Let me get this right, and I am quoting other commenters here, `a Columbia graduate student (Hoffman) unwittingly thrust into a game of deadly international intrigue when his brother (Scheider) is killed by a Nazi fugitive (Olivier) looking to smuggle a stash of diamonds he had left over from World War II after escaping justice' (virek213) and `Dustin Hoffman plays a marathon runner whose CIA brother is killed by an evil former nazi played by Laurence Olivier.' (Adam Morrison).
'Marathon Man' should have earned Oscar nominations for -- Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor in a Leading Role - Dustin Hoffman, Best Actor in a Supporting Role - Laurence Olivier, Best Actor in a Supporting Role - Roy Scheider, Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography and Best Film Editing.
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.
As the film opens, Szell's brother dies in a car crash, which sets up this entire aspect of the plot, since his brother had the key to the vault.Babe's brother, Doc (Roy Scheider, "JAWS"), comes to visit him in New York City, but turns up at his apartment with stab wounds.
Basically, in the words of Steve Martin, "Hoffman came to the set one day looking absolutely wretched, and Sir Larry said, 'Dusty, you look absolutely wretched!', and it turns out that he had been awake for twenty-four hours, because at this point in the movie, his character had been, so Larry replied, 'Oh, Dusty, why don't you just try acting?', and the American retorted, 'Act on this, you British fag,' and Larry replied, 'I asked for a meal, not a snack!'"So perhaps Steve Martin made up the end of that story, but the beginning is true.
Is it safe?" Every time it's spoken it sends a shiver down my spine.Two very important films of Dustin Hoffman's career came out in 1976: "All the President's Men" and, of course, "Marathon Man." They are both universally regarded as some of his best work, and it's not a surprising fact, really, since it's true that they really *are* some of his best work.
The movie "Marathon Man" starts out with a car accident where Christian Szell's, Laurence Olivier, brother Klaus, Ben Dova, is killed.
The movie is so confusing with a convoluted love story between Babe, Dustin Hoffman, and the mysterious Columbia Collage student Helga, Marthe Keller, added in that almost half way through the film.
I think that the director, John Schlesinger, had to put in a scene in where William Devane who plays Jeneway, also a member of this super-secretive government agency, who like Simon Okland in the movie "Psycho" after he "saved" Babe from Szell's henchmen starts talking into the camera.
Director John Schlesinger uses every trick in the book to save 'Marathon Man,' but while he succeeds at bringing a certain gritty elegance, so typical of the decade, to the film, he can't quite conceal (the overrated) William Goldman's contrived and fantastical script.
(The moment when he tells Roy Scheider that he's too old and too smart to fight him captures his character beautifully.) Dustin Hoffman works physically in the part  he's certainly plausible as a marathon runner  but the character is so poorly defined by Goldman's screenplay that the actor is forced into bombastic hamminess as the film moves along.
Roy Scheider is a good actor, but he's badly miscast as the stereotypically witty and worldly secret agent, and Marthe Keller is such a mush-mouth that it's no surprise she didn't go on to any significant English-language success.In the end, 'Marathon Man' is certainly worth a watch for hardcore fans of thrillers; more casual viewers won't be missing much.
Marathon Man is glossy trash that substitutes queasiness for genuine suspense and is mostly famous for its scenes of dental torture carried out by a splashy Olivier who is the best and only memorable thing about this over-rated film.
Roger Ebert complained of plot holes in his review of this thriller, but I wasn't aware of any holes: the movie is so vague about its plot that it's impossible to tell whether it's making a mistake, avoiding an outright mistake by being equivocal, or if we the viewers are just being inattentive.Dustin Hoffman plays a graduate student haunted by the suicide of his father, who was falsely accused of something or other.
Laurence Olivier plays a Nazi war criminal, who in a famous scene, tortures Hoffman with a dental drill.
In addition to being so slow to shift gear, Marathon Man's plot is, right from the start, completely convoluted and the more the movie goes, the more this characteristic emphasizes, the more you figure out this story goes nowhere.The narration is divided into two story lines that are quite hard to connect, that fit together too badly to surprise and captivate the viewer.The gloomy atmosphere and the excellent opening running scene around Jackie Onassis reservoir are the only things that stand out in this unimpressive, long, boring pseudo thriller, which title, Marathon Man, is by the way in total contradiction with the actual story told..
You have a top director, one of our best screenwriter's (adapting his own novel) and a cast headed by Dustin Hoffman, Laurence Olivier, Roy Scheider, and William Devane.I think the big problem with "Marathon Man" is that the plot is much too complicated.
The plot builds up like a puzzle, slowly but steadily, and is a bit hard to follow at places.In compensation for the pretty messy plot, "Marathon Man" offers many exceptionally effective moments of suspense, a thing which many films fail to deliver.
Scripted by William Goldman, 'Marathon Man' is undeniable classic of cinema, Dustin Hoffman, plays Babe Levy, a keen graduate student and the 'Marathon Man' of the title, unwittingly becomes involved In a deadly game of international intrigue, involving the legendary Laurence Olivier, who famously plays an Nazi Fugitve, (Szell) who after years of hiding returns to the 'land of plenty'(New York) With his deadly tool's of his dentistry trade to collect his massive cache of diamonds no doubt plundered from the suffering Jews he slaughtered, in the death camps,Hoffman and Olivier, two acting legends,face off each other in the Nail biting climax, Roy Scheider, plays Hoffman's older yet none the wiser, brother who is also mysteriously connected with Szells affairs, The film which feature's the now classic scene in which Levy is mercifully tortured by Szell(Ex dentist) still holds up today,Also starring in this golden classic is Willaim Devane, who plays Janeway, who works in the 'Division' the alluring European beauty Martha Keller,plays Hoffmans love interest, The Godfather's Richard Bright,(RIP) And Diamond's Are Forever/Man With the Golden Gun, Marc Lawrence, Have appearance's as Szells goon,.
It's what got him an Oscar nomination his only one in the Supporting Actor category.Marathon Man has a lot of holes in the story, but the acting between Hoffman and Olivier is not to be missed..
I must admit that, albeit my being impartial at all time, New York City in the 70's is my weak spot from a photography standpoint and that's the second main reason why I was very pleased by this motion picture.Dustin Hoffman is known by his fans as an excellent improviser on the movie set, a comment Schlesinger also made, and that makes him a standout compared to other big screen artists.
But it doesn't make you forget that there are more great actors in this movie such as of course Dustin Hoffman in the main lead and Roy Scheider, one of the biggest stars of the '70's.
Good suspence movie with very good cinematography,directing,cast and acting performances.Could have been a classic if it had better screenplay and editing.The gun pointing confrontations were not realistic enough to satisfy what the flow of this movie demands.Also,the visual aspect of the film is badly damaged by the very unattractive look of Hoffman due to the dental torture he recieved.Very annoying sight.There are also other annoying sequences in this movie that just does not help it,like the very unlikely waste of Jewels in the finale.Only for fans of cloak and dagger action/suspence movies and big fans of the lead actors.........
BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations were also handed out for John Schlesinger's direction, Dustin Hoffman and Marthe Keller's acting, and William Goldman's script.This is the way thrillers used to be made, and producers today should pay attention.It slowly draws you in.
We have a super-director like John Schlesinger ("Darling", "Midnight Cowboy", "Sunday Bloody Sunday"), two screen giants like Dustin Hoffman and Laurence Olivier -plus a luxurious cast with Roy Scheider, William Devane and Marthe Keller-.
Olivier probably takes the top acting honors (he's brilliant in the scene in which "Szell" has to eat one of his diamonds), but Hoffman certainly works himself up into effective emotional lathers throughout.
Dustin Hoffman, Laurence Olivier, Roy Scheider are wonderful in this movie.
Based on the novel of the same name by William Goldman, 'Marathon Man' directed by John Schlesinger, is a Dark & Gripping film, that definitely deserves to be hailed as a classic of it's time.
'Marathon Man' tells the story of A graduate history student, who unwittingly is caught in the middle of an international conspiracy involving stolen diamonds, an exiled Nazi war criminal, and a rogue government agent.William Goldman's Screenplay is neat & makes some really twisted characters.
Finally Laurence Oliver gives a great performance as the villain Szell who was obviously modelled after the infamous Nazi doctor at Auschwitz Joseph Mengele.The plot of "The Marathon Man" is simplistic, but the way that the story is told is superb.
Nevermind, there are several others to enjoy (Scheider's fight scene with an Eastern-looking assassin, Olivier disposing of a Jewish relic who reveals his former Nazi identity just to name a couple).The tone throughout is quite chilling, like an urban horror film with Hoffman in his everyday man character reacting to the chaos as one would expect - taking flight, hence the title.
There's the legendary scene in which Sir Laurence Olivier, a former Nazi death camp dentist, tortures Dustin Hoffman by drilling holes in his teeth.
"The Marathon Man" is an excellent thriller in a sort of "Hitchcockian" style about ordinary guys that by chance get involved in complex, dangerous and extreme circumstances that will turn them into non ordinary guys (Cary Grant in "North by Northwst" and James Stewart in "The Man Who Knew Too Much" being perfect examples).The ordinary guy here is Dustin Hoffman whose older brother (Roy Scheider) is mixed up with a fugitive Nazi war criminal (Lawrence Olivier) who is decided to recover a stolen fortune in diamonds.
There are also good works by Roy Scheider in a less demanding role, Marthe Keller as the girl who gets involved with Hoffman and William Devane.Don't miss this one if you enjoy thrillers; this is a real good one..
If I had to write a tag line to get Regan Babies to see this film it would be:Nazis, big brother, a White Guy Living in Harlem & Spys.Dustin Hoffman, Laurence Olivier, Roy Scheider are a remarkable combination of leading men that is seldom ever seen.
Certain scenes in MARATHON MAN have the kind of suspense you find in the best Hitchcock films--but the plot heavy twists and turns make this an uneven exercise in the "edge of your seat" kind of thriller.
The dental scene is almost excruciating to watch.This is heavy stuff, never relieved by much humor--but so well acted by Dustin Hoffman, Laurence Olivier, William Devane, Roy Scheider and Marthe Keller that it will have you shuddering from the intensity of some of the scenes.
Secondly,this film features an attractive star cast made up of actors namely Sir Laurence Olivier,Dustin Hoffman and Roy Scheider.
This film is a faithful adaptation of a great thriller novel, the acting by all main characters is superb, with Olivier (towards the end of his career) and Hoffman (towards the beginning of his) showing their mastery of the art.
An excellent mystery/suspense film.I watched this movie awhile ago and was amazed at the photography,acting,and tense moments.The bathtub scene where Dustin Hoffman sees the lights going off in his room is very tense.Very good story too,but the plot could have been a little bit stronger.Overall,a great film.
What made Marathon Man a good movie were the excellent performances from the actors especially Dustin Hoffman, Roy Scheider, and Laurence Oliver.