Directed by: John Schlesinger
Starring: Dustin Hoffman, Laurence Olivier, Roy Scheider, William Devane, Marthe Keller
Columbia graduate student Thomas "Babe" Levy (Hoffman) finds himself in the middle of a plot he knows nothing about and has to think (or shoot) his way out of it. Marathon Man, a skilled, taut thriller, reteams Dustin Hoffman with his Midnight Cowboy director John Schlesinger and functions like a nightmare. Babe is a troubled student, haunted by his father's suicide when he was a boy, whose life seems to be turning a corner when he begins a romance with a Swiss beauty named Elsa (Keller). But, one night, his visiting brother Doc (Scheider) dies from a nasty knife wound in his apartment, and Babe is suddenly chased by government agents and Christian Szell (Olivier), an escaped Nazi concentration camp dentist looking to claim his late brother's diamonds he'll use to continue financing his exile in South America. Are the agents CIA? FBI? They appear to represent a shadowy organization, called The Division, which takes on jobs the CIA or FBI won't touch.
The sides are blurred and everyone but Babe and Szell seems to be switching sides all of the time. The conflict is soon between Babe and Szell, who, in the famous torture scene, repeatedly and coldly asks Babe, "Is it safe?" while drilling holes in his teeth. Babe doesn't know what the question means and Szell doesn't much care. He appears to have waited a long time to use his dental tools again. Doc, if he were alive, would be better suited to answer the question of safety. Babe thinks his brother is in the oil industry, but Doc is in fact part of the plot to protect Szell and act as a courier for the diamonds.
The movie places Babe in an instantly sympathetic light as an innocent man accused, a "babe in the woods" if you will. Maybe that is why he is called Babe. He was just starting to discover happiness for the first time in a long time when he meets the sultry, alluring Elsa. Doc meets Elsa at lunch with his brother and lays a trap for her to catch her in a lie. Is she what she seems? In a movie like this, you can never be too sure.
There was a famous off-camera conversation between Hoffman and Olivier in which Hoffman put himself through physical hell, including running for miles and staying up for days, to play the role of Babe, who seems to vent his frustrations by running endlessly through the streets of New York . Oliver reportedly (and playfully) said to Hoffman, "Why not try acting? It's much easier," Regardless of Hoffman's off-screen preparations, he is right for the role. As he teeters on physical exhaustion while running away from the bad guys, he is never less than convincing. He also takes what could have been a one-dimensional role and peppers in some human elements of grief and pain from a past that continues to haunt him.
Olivier received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Szell. By definition, a Nazi is already shorthand for evil, but Olivier takes it to another level. He is cold, remorseless, and wields a knife with deadly accuracy. We sense he represents the Nazi pathology in general: Someone who is able to put aside human decency to carry out the systematic torture and murder of millions. Olivier's performance is all the more effective because he never seems to have any inflection. All of his words and utterances are menacing and calculated. It is an ironic twist that his next Oscar nomination came two years later playing a Jewish Nazi hunter in The Boys from Brazil (1978), someone who would likely target Szell for capture.
Marathon Man works as a merciless thriller, made in 1976 when escaped Nazis could still reasonably pose a threat to innocents. Even if plot points are sometimes murky, the overall tone is nightmarish. Many people fear being chased and hunted for reasons unknown to them. There is no way to reason or arbitrate yourself out of the situation. It is scary and in some ways, Marathon Man seems almost like a horror film.
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