Sun 2 Dec 2018
A Book! Movie!! Review by Jonathan Lewis: IRA LEVIN – The Boys from Brazil / Film (1978).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , Suspense & espionage films[5] Comments
IRA LEVIN – The Boys from Brazil. Random House, hardcover, 1976. Dell, paperback, 1977. Reprinted several times since.
THE BOYS FROM BRAZIL. 20th Century Fox, 1978. Gregory Peck (Dr. Josef Mengele), Laurence Olivier, James Mason, Lilli Palmer, Uta Hagen, Steven Guttenberg, Denholm Elliott, Rosemary Harris, John Dehner, John Rubinstein, Anne Meara, Jeremy Black. Based on the book by Ira Levin. Director: Franklin J. Schaffner.
What makes Ira Levin’s The Boys from Brazil such a compelling read is that it seamlessly situates a compelling mystery within the context of an international thriller and blends it with elements of science fiction and horror. Although nominally a story about a Nazi hunter investigating a postwar plot initiated by Dr. Josef Mengele in which the sadistic doctor has targeted some ninety-four civil servants and middle class men for murder, Levin’s work also incorporates aspects found more commonly in the paperback medical thrillers that flooded the market in the 1970s.
Given Mengele’s notoriety for experimenting on twins in Auschwitz, it’s no surprise that the key to the plot involves his desire to utilize his scientific training to promote his vision of a pure Aryan race. But how? That’s for Yakov Liebermann (played by Laurence Olivier in the film as Ezra Liebermann) to find out. A Simon Wiesenthal-like Nazi hunter and Holocaust survivor living in Vienna, Liebermann has built his reputation on his ability to find Nazis hiding in plain, or not so plain, sight and have them extradited for trial. Among them is Frieda Maloney, a former camp guard who later became an American citizen. As in any good thriller, Levin makes sure that seemingly unrelated stories intersect in a meaningful way. For Maloney’s work at an adoption agency in New York ends up being what allows Liebermann to put the pieces of the puzzle together.
As the title of the work indicates, there are boys – children – and they are from Brazil. But they aren’t just any ordinary children. Here’s where the creepiness of medical horror and science fiction enter into the story. Without giving too much away, let me just say that what Liebermann discovers is both horrifying and somewhat ludicrous. But that doesn’t stop The Boys from Brazil from being a deeply original work, one that clearly was meant both to entertain and to raise provocative questions about the nature of evil and how it might manifest itself in one’s very genes.
The film adaptation of Levin’s work, while nominated for several Academy Awards, benefits greatly from Gregory Peck’s portrayal of Mengele but alternatively suffers from Sir Laurence Olivier’s role as Liebermann. Apparently enough people found it Oscar worthy. I didn’t. From his faux German or Yiddish accent to his over-animated mannerisms, Olivier is clearly acting in a manner that prevented me from fully seeing his screen time as anything other than a performance. Peck became Mengele. Olivier was simply unable to disappear into the role. I thought the same thing when I watched him portray a cantor in The Jazz Singer (1980).
There are some good moments, but overall the film, apart from a memorable score from Jerry Goldsmith, is rather lackluster. It certainly doesn’t hold up nearly as well as Marathon Man (1976), in which Olivier played a Nazi fugitive from South America who has traveled to Manhattan to claim his diamonds.
But do look for a young Steve Guttenberg (billed as Steven Guttenberg) in a supporting role as an intrepid Jewish political activist who travels to Paraguay to track down and to photograph Nazi war criminals hiding there. I watched a copy on BluRay from Shout Factory. It looks great.
December 3rd, 2018 at 8:19 am
Right on both counts, Jonathan. The book was hard to put down, and the movie was hard to sit through.
December 3rd, 2018 at 11:25 am
In a way, The Boys from Brazil is the definitive thriller of the 70s, with its pros and cons, where serious themes and camp style are mixed.
December 3rd, 2018 at 3:53 pm
Confession, I didn’t really care for any Levin novel after A KISS BEFORE DYING, this and ROSEMARY’S BABY included.
The film is almost crippled by Olivier (even worse than his Van Helsing in Badham’s DRACULA) who is painfully over the top playing his role as Shylock the Nazi-hunter. His performance is so bad it’s almost Anti-Semitic.
And I have to differ on Peck, who doesn’t give a bad performance, but who I find impossible to accept as a Nazi war criminal.
Frankly I found both book and movie painful.
December 3rd, 2018 at 7:25 pm
“. . . a deeply original work, one that clearly was meant both to entertain and to raise provocative questions about the nature of evil and how it might manifest itself in one’s very genes.”
Now that ain’t easy to do, but Levin pulls it off. Could THE BOYS FROM BRAZIL (the book) be an actual example of “transcending the genre” that the literati deem necessary to legitimize genre fiction, especially the mystery?
December 4th, 2018 at 2:01 pm
Possibly irrelevant anecdote:
I first saw Boys From Brazil the movie, in its initial release, at the Ford City Cinema in Chicago, on the Friday afternoon that it opened.
I had that day off from work, so I thought I’d see a new movie before anybody else did. (I was young then …)
Friday afternoon, small crowd, I bought my popcorn and pop, and settled in.
About a third of the way through the picture, I was brought up short by the sudden appearance of a grotesque ventriloquist’s dummy, accompanied by Anthony Hopkins and Burgess Meredith …
What happened was that Ford City’s print of Boys From Brazil was mispacked at the film exchange; a reel of the as-yet unreleased Magic had been substituted in its stead.
I went to the lobby and mentioned the anomaly to the counter girls and guys, who were taken aback, and offered a freebie in lieu, so all was well (I did seem to be the only patron that afternoon who noticed, but there you are).
I did see The Boys at that same theater a few days later (properly restored), and so that ended well, too.
Oh, by the way –
– the movie itself: between Gregory Peck’s Ming the Merciless homage and Lord Olivier’s “Vass you in Zinzinotti?” dialect, I actually did enjoy Boys In Brazil, and so that ended well, too (as well?).