Marathon Man (1976) on Netflix
Babe Levy, a history student and marathon runner in New York, wants to restore his father's name. His brother Doc, a government agent, carries diamonds belonging to a Nazi war criminal.
- Netflix3.7/5
- IMDb7.4/1076,547 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes81%
Trailer
Plot summary
Babe Levy studies history at Columbia University and runs long distances across New York City. His father died by suicide during the McCarthy era, and Babe wants his name restored. His brother Henry, known as Doc, whom Babe takes for an oil company executive, works for a secret government agency that handles jobs the FBI and the CIA will not touch. Doc carries diamonds belonging to Christian Szell, a Nazi war criminal who worked as a dentist at a concentration camp and now lives in exile in Uruguay. Doc meets his contact LeClerc in Paris. Szell learns that his brother Klaus died in a car crash and sets out for New York to gather the diamonds and sell them.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Marathon Man (1976)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Marathon Man was the second feature film production in which inventor-operator Garrett Brown used his then-new Steadicam, after Bound for Glory, but 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.
- The nickname given to Laurence Olivier's character, "der weiße Engel" (The White Angel), was inspired by SS doctor Josef Mengele, whom some prisoners nicknamed "The White Angel" because he wore a distinctive white coat when he stood on the platform of arrivals to concentration camps to make a selection of prisoners.
- Hoffman prepared for a scene in which his character had been awake for three days by doing the same himself, prompting Olivier's "My dear boy, why don't you just try acting?"; Hoffman later said the exchange was distorted, as he had been up all night at a nightclub for personal reasons and Olivier, who knew, was merely joking.
- John Schlesinger originally envisioned Al Pacino, Julie Christie and Laurence Olivier in the lead roles, but Robert Evans vetoed Pacino and proposed Dustin Hoffman; Olivier's health problems later put his own casting in doubt and Richard Widmark auditioned for the part before Olivier recovered.
- The quote "Is it safe?" was ranked #70 on the American Film Institute's "100 Years...100 Movie Quotes" list, and the dental torture scene that delivers it placed #66 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments.
- Dr. Szell was ranked as villain #34 on the American Film Institute's "100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains" list and was also ranked in Time as one of the 25 greatest movie villains, while the film itself was ranked #50 on the "100 Years...100 Thrills" list.
SPOILER
After the second preview in San Francisco did not go well and the audience complained about the violent scenes, director John Schlesinger and editor Jim Clark deleted an early fight scene and the graphic close-ups of Szell disemboweling Doc with his wrist blade, and heavily cut both torture scenes.
