Marathon Man: "Is it safe?"

Memory is a funny thing. Prior to a recent viewing of Marathon Man, the only things I could remember about this 1976 thriller were the unnerving tooth-drilling scene and Roy Scheider doing push-ups with his feet on the bed and hands on the floor.

Although it's an atypical John Schlesinger film, the opening sequence showcases the director at his best. An elderly German man removes a metal band-aid box from a safety deposit box and slips it discreetly to another man. As he drives away in his Mercedes, the German has a run-in with a Jewish man that escalates quickly from a shouting match to a dangerous car chase along the narrow confines of New York city streets. The conflict ends when the two men crash their cars into a fuel truck--the safety deposit key falling to the asphalt as flames engulf it.

Hoffman as the graduate...student.

The importance of this scene doesn't become apparent until later as the plot shifts to Thomas Babington "Babe" Levy (Dustin Hoffman). Babe is a graduate student at Columbia University whose dissertation has the uninviting title of "The Use of Tyranny in American Political Life." Babe still keeps the gun that his father, a famous academic accused of Communist sympathies, used to commit suicide. It's an odd thing to do, but then Babe is a social misfit with no friends other than his frequently absent brother Doc (Roy Scheider).

Hence, it seems a bit odd when a pretty Swiss student (Marthe Keller) responds to Babe's awkward advances. When Doc--the sharp-dressed opposite of his brother--meets Babe's girlfriend, he immediately spots a fraud. But then, nothing is as it seems in Marathon Man and that includes Doc, too.

The most interesting aspect of Marathon Man is that Hoffman seems to be playing an older version of Ben Braddock from The Graduate (1967). Perhaps, this is what happened to Ben when things didn't work out with Elaine after their escape on the bus! (I never expected the couple to find true happiness, did you?) And, of course, the obvious irony is that Hoffman is a playing a graduate in one film and a grad student in the other.

Laurence Olivier as the villain.

As for Marathon Man, after a quick start (the car chase), it lumbers along until Scheider and Laurence Olivier show up. The latter earned a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination as a Nazi war criminal who is forced to come out of seclusion to secure his investment in diamonds. I don't think the role was a difficult one for Olivier, but somehow he manages to exude pure evil as he interrogates Babe by repeating the single line: "Is it safe?" In fact, that line ranked #70 on the American Film Institute's 100 Years...100 Quotes.

Roy Scheider, one of the 1970s most reliable leading men, excelled in playing edgy roles (The French Connection, Sorcerer, All That Jazz). He makes Doc the film's most interesting character--a sleek professional who is willing to help war criminals for the right price, but also an affectionate brother to the socially-challenged Babe.

The well-dressed Scheider.

Scheider and Olivier make Marathon Man easy to watch, though I wish both of them had more screen time. Frankly, Hoffman's protagonist is pretty boring. Director Schlesinger compensates somewhat by capturing the pulse of New York City, giving the film a much-needed vibrancy. He also book-ends the film with two fine scenes: the aforementioned chase and a sequence in which a concentration camp survivor recognizes Olivier's villain and follows him on the city's busy streets, shouting out his name.

I rarely mention continuity gaffes in movies because...well...anyone can make a mistake. However, I was amused by Babe's changing footwear during his kidnap scene. He appears to be barefoot when initially nabbed. Later, I could swear he's wearing socks. Finally, when he escapes and is running away from the baddies, he sports shoes on his feet. Maybe I just missed the scene where he finds his shoes. Or maybe he's just not as tough as some of those Olympic athletes that run in their bare feet.