Marathon Man is the rare Hollywood film on which the screenwriter is the dominant force. It’s based on William Goldman’s novel and he wrote the screenplay as well. He was perhaps the leading screenwriter of his day; he won an Oscar for All The President’s Men the same year. Goldman was a big macher.

Producer Robert Evans, director John Schlesinger, cinematographer Conrad Hall, and stars Dustin Hoffman and Laurence Olivier were all big machers too. That makes Marathon Man a big macher movie. That concludes the alliterative portion of this week’s movie post.

Marathon Man was a movie I saw 3 or 4 times in a theatre during the Seventies. I recall watching it once during the Blockbuster VHS era but not since then. I’m pleased to report that it holds up well.

Marathon Man is a hissing cousin to last week’s movie, The Boys From Brazil. It came first and featured Olivier as the Mythic Mengele character instead of a Simon Wiesenthal knock off. Marathon Man is stronger visually and the story makes more sense. It also has one of the greatest catch phrases in film history:

Marathon Man is often mischaracterized as a political film when it’s a Hitchockian thriller. Yes, it has Nazis but it also has MacGuffins and set pieces up the wazoo. I still don’t know what a wazoo is but I love the word, so I use it.

Dustin Hoffman plays Babe Levy, the son of a victim of the McCarthy Red Scare. His professor father took his own life after being destroyer by the red hunters. As you will see directly, Hoffman still has the gun. Roy Scheider, who was at the peak of his stardom, played Hoffman’s brother who is some sort of spook.

Scheider’s agency is called The Division and it has used Olivier’s character as an informant. Unlike Peck-Mengele in The Boys From Brazil, Christian Szell is a bad Nazi strictly out for himself. So is Scheider’s colleague played by William Devane:

Tennis anyone?

Olivier has a safe deposit box loaded with diamonds stolen from Auschwitz inmates. His brother is in charge of the loot but dies in a set piece at the start of the movie. Olivier must come out of hiding. That sets the action in motion.

Olivier wrongly thinks Hoffman has the diamonds so he captures and tortures him. Hoffman eventually runs away like a marathon man before confronting Olivier at the end.

That’s all the news that’s fit to print about this movie set in New York City. This feature is called pulp fiction, not pulp spoilers, after all.

The acting in Marathon Man is first rate. I’ve mentioned Olivier, Hoffman and Scheider; Marthe Keller and William Devane are also fine. Devane was a JFK doppelganger, he played him 2 years earlier in The Missiles Of October.

Grading Time: I give Marathon Man 4 stars and an Adrastos grade of A. It’s a stone cold classic.

It’s poster time. We have an image of the American and Polish posters. I’ve never used a Polish poster before. It’s pretty polished.

Next, a colorful quad:

All that running around the Big Apple made me sweaty and thirsty. Let’s all go the lobby for a beverage.

They didn’t have cider so I had to make do with a fountain drink while checking out the lobby cards. Here’s the whole damn collection:

If you’re tired from fleeing a Nazi dentist, I suggest we hop aboard the trailer:

The last word goes to Ben Mankiewicz: