Daniel Ross Much like The Omen, Don't Look Now, The Exorcist, Halloween and The Wicker Man, Franklin J. Schaffner's The Boys From Brazil is one of the best thrillers from the 1970s. Yet it has never enjoyed the same critical kudos and audience awareness that the films mentioned above enjoy. I have never understood why, because in my opinion, this is one of the best films of it's era. I remember catching this film on TV late one night as a teenager, and I've never forgotten it. Re watching it, it's just as unsettling, tense and nerve-wrenching as when I was young, perhaps even more so, because now as an adult, having read about the real life Dr. Josef Mengele, the film has more resonance to me now. Franklin J. Schaffner really was a chameleon filmmaker, I was surprised to find that the same director of this film made Planet of the Apes and Patton. However on closer inspection, his earlier films do have a reoccurring style. Back in the 70s the possibility of cloning Hitler seemed implausible, but now the film is even more chilling because we are now capable of creating such monsters. Laurence Olivier is brilliant as the aging Nazi hunter Ezra Lieberman, and Gregory Peck gives a chilling performance as Dr. Josef Mengele. The music is haunting, and the bleak cinematography adds to the overall feeling of dread and inevitability. The ending feels a bit rushed, but that's a minor complaint. Few films have stuck in my mind quite like Boys From Brazil. It is a must watch for genre fans and film buffs in general.

Ross622 Franklin J. Schaffner's The Boys from Brazil is a thrillingly entertaining movie with a somewhat vengeful plot adapted from an Ira Levin novel. The movie stars Gregory Peck as Dr. Josef Mengele an evil Nazi doctor who was responsible during the Holocaust for killing millions of people and amputating limbs, who is in Paraguay and is now coming up with a plot to kill 94 65 year old men and at first doesn't know that he is being recorded by a young man named Barry Kohler (played by Steve Guttenberg) a young Nazi hunter who later tells an older man who also happens to be a Nazi hunter named Ezra Lieberman (played by Laurence Olivier in an Oscar nominated performance) who all of the sudden wants to find out more about the plot. Another person who is backing Mengele's plan as much as Mengele's remaining fellow Nazis is one of his closest friends which also happens to be a Nazi named Col. Eduard Seibert (played by James Mason). Schaffner's direction for the movie is nothing short of excellent, along with Heywood Gould's intense screenplay, and Jerry Goldsmith's suspenseful music, all go well for a fast-paced thriller of this type. At the 51st Academy Awards a little more than 36 years ago this movie received 3 Oscar nominations Best Actor for Laurence Olivier, Best Film Editing for Robert Swink, and Original Score for Goldsmith, but for me this could have been nominated for a lot more awards for example with Gregory Peck being nominated for best actor, Olivier and Mason being nominated in the supporting actor category. Although this isn't Franklin Schaffner's best film that he ever directed I do think that not only it is one of his most superb, I also think that it was a wonderful film to watch.The one thing that this movie proves most is that the Nazi party is the most evil political party ever to face mankind, as well as other films such as Spielberg's Schindler's List looking at the horror that the Jews faced during the Holocaust, and Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds showing what we felt like doing to the Nazis but what we didn't do to them anyway, and the thing in this film that shows the most of Nazi cruelty was the Gregory Peck performance as Dr. Mengele which was not overplayed it was top-notch. This is a movie that will entertain as well as somewhat horrify, but also many movie lovers will really like to watch as well.

Molly Jay This is a classic old science fiction slash drama slash thriller with even a bit of a mystery feel thrown into it as well. You can't say the acting isn't great when it stars two of the best actors of their generation in Sir Laurence Olivier (a personal favourite of mine) and Gregory Peck. If you like old-ish science fiction movies I recommend it highly!SPOILERS TO FOLLOW!The movie concerns the cloning of Adolf Hitler by a hardcore Nazi who plans to use the Hitler clones to start a new Nazi Reich and a third world war. Obviously our hero wants to stop him from succeeding in creating his vision of the master race and the domination of the entire world.I want to read the book it's based on now! I am assuming it is a great read.

mark.waltz With the most German of movie musical scores (by Jerry Goldsmith) since "Judgement at Nuremberg", the most vile political group of all time is said to be still thriving way down in South America where a nefarious plan is underway. One of the most villainous of all Nazis is in charge, and an all-time Hollywood hero takes on his only evil role to play it. He is joined by one of the all-time classic British actors who just two years before had received an Oscar Nomination for playing another Nazi, so to see him on the opposite side of the spectrum is quite a testimony to Sir Laurence Olivier's career.The evil here comes in the form of Gregory Peck. Yes, Audrey Hepburn's protector in "Roman Holiday" and the heroic attorney of "To Kill a Mockingbird" takes on the role of Dr. Joseph Mengele who at the time of the release of this movie was actually rumored to be living in Brazil. Novelist Ira Levin used Mengele as the doctor based upon his actual experiments during World War II on concentration camp inmates who were apparently too weak to work or were deemed appropriate for misguided medical research. That element of Mengele's real life is utilized here, particularly evidenced on the poor little Brazilian boy whose radio happens to pick up a meeting between Mengele and his constituants over the plan to return the Nazi party to its former Satanic glory.Olivier plays Ezra Lieberman, a fictional character based upon Simon Wiesenthal, the famous Nazi hunter whose investigation helped lead to the arrest of the notorious Adolf Eichmann. Through Jewish college student Steve Guttenberg, Lieberman learns of Mengele's presence in Brazil and further investigation leads him to Brazil for a confrontation with his life-long enemy. The confrontation is violent and bloody, but brings on a moral dilemma for the revelation that part of Mengele's plot has succeeded and that an element of Hitler's evil still resides out there in all parts of the world.Fascinating acting between Olivier and Peck (who share only one lengthy scene) and the tense atmosphere leads to a sinister battle between good and evil. James Mason has a smaller role as one of Peck's co-horts, but is basically wasted. Among the character cameos are by Lilli Palmer, Uta Hagen, Denholm Elliott, Rosemary Harris and Ann Meara. As for Peck's villainy, he is not only genuinely evil as a human being, but deliciously mean, especially when he brutally attacts an underling who was supposed to be elsewhere then tells the man's rather over made-up wife yelling for a doctor, "I am a doctor, you idiot", then adds "Shut up, you ugly bitch!" when she orders him away. Having just played MacArthur, Peck's turnabout is rather shocking, and he takes every opportunity to chew the scenery without choking on it.This is the type of movie that might make an anti-Semite re-think their feeling towards the Jewish race and while obviously fantastic in a Science Fiction way, it also shows the danger of experimental science, particularly cloning. Political explanations of how good this could be for the world are reminiscent of Donald Sutherland's speech in "JFK" of how governments have been doing these sort of things since the days of Julius Caesar. This remains up there with political dramas such as "The Manchurian Candidate" and "All the President's Men" that will keep the eyes of the keen viewer upon the government to make sure that they are doing what they were elected to do-serve the people, not the needs of the 1% or nefarious political ambitions. In an ironic twist of fate, the real Joseph Mengele died a year later while swimming in Brazil, sort of a slice of ice cream to go on the cake of the destruction of that evil political group that almost destroyed the world 35 years before.