Movie from 1978 with Gregory Peck and Lawrence Olivier, behind great names, a supporting early role from Bruno Ganz himself.

The movie based on a novel from Ira Levin, tells a story of a post WWII nazi hunter who goes to find an intricate plan from Josef Mengele to bring back the glory of the Third Reich.

Parts I enjoyed the most are the views of Vienna, which I hope to come back to again, and Bruno Ganz with 37 years old. I recently watched Ganz last performance in the last von Trier movie which I can write later about. Ganz there plays a magnificent role, the appearances are few but the references and the meaning of his role are key to the movie. Old, walking slow, the downhill of life. And just watching this movie, he was starting his name in Hollywood cinema. It’s amazing, or shocking how movie makes you eternal. You as a viewer can kill, bring back to life or see a thousand deaths of the actor you’d like. We are holders of their legacy, what they were behind those lines and can in some way navigate through time. The magic of movies, I guess.

Coming back to the movie. I feel all movies or the general quality of films back then (up to 1980’s) was high and among those I would rate the movie low score. I feel the story was weak, I haven’t read the book, but reading about it looks like movie didn’t miss anything. Weak as too much fiction? or maybe they tried too much that became cheap plot. Rating in the 1970’s scale is like rating a Marvel movie nowadays, entertaining but doesn’t go much further than that. But if I have to rate it in the great scale of movies from all decades considering now we have Adam Sandler movies dropping the average; then easily I rate it with 7,2.

(For those who don’t know me, I seldom watch movies/series rated lower than 7 in ImdB)

Gregory Peck in his Mengele role, tons of make up there but always a pleasure to watch him. Believable, strong, concise, maybe less sadistic of what I picture of Mengele. Olivier, sorry, but so far I don’t see why he is so important in the western film culture, I rather watch him in Marathon Man; better acting quality.

Overall score: 7,2