Marathon Man

As my quest to catch up on movies I should have seen before continues, I move into the 1970s and the era of the paranoid thriller. I was born in the 1970s and so most of my memories involve learning to ride a bike and having a crush on the next door neighbor rather than Watergate hearings or anti-war protests. So it’s fascinating to see the consistent tone and themes that appear in some of the most influential movies of the decade like All the President’s Men, The Conversation, and this week’s movie – John Schlesinger’s 1976 thriller, Marathon Man.

The film centers on two brothers – Babe, played by Dustin Hoffman, who is a PhD student studying history, and Doc, played by Roy Scheider, who pretends to be an oil businessman but is actually a black ops spy. Obviously, the two brothers live in very different worlds but they collide when Doc turns up in New York working on an assignment involving Christian Szell, an escaped Nazi war criminal sometimes called The White Angel who was known in Auschwitz for his sadistic experiments. Szell is played by the great Laurence Olivier.

The film is definitely a product of its era. Its pace initially is almost languid, taking its time exploring Babe’s life in New York and Doc’s adventures in Europe. Szell doesn’t appear in the film until almost 40 minutes in. Rather than rushing to get to the most exciting stuff, Marathon Man takes its time building slow burn suspense. Once it gets to the exciting stuff, it definitely delivers, particularly in the fight between Doc and one of his would be assassins. But the film earns these moments rather than just dumping them on the viewer unannounced. 

One element that ties paranoid thrillers together is, well, the paranoia, the ominous feeling of dread that there are shadowy forces at work in the world around you and there’s really nothing you can do about it. Schlesinger’s camera work combined with the tense, cat-on-the-keyboard music of Michael Small give every element of the movie a sinister touch. A baby carriage left near a car, a soccer ball kicked into the light from a dark street, some billowing curtains in a hotel window – all are menacing suggestions that something bad is just barely out of sight.

Of course, the 1970s were not a happy political time in the United States. Between the misery, violence, and upheaval surrounding the Viet Nam conflict, the unprecedented political intrigue of Watergate, the energy crisis, and a hundred other things, there was a profound distrust of authority. The idea that everyone, even those closest to you, had some kind of self-serving angle influenced dozens of films in that era. Institutions like government and the military especially were not to be trusted. The feeling that everyone is out to get you permeates Marathon Man.

Hoffman, Scheider, Swiss actress Marte Keller as Babe’s love interest, and the always hateable William Devane as Doc’s duplicitous colleague are all excellent. But the real story here is Sir Laurence Olivier as Christian Szell, the terrifying, complicated villain. My first exposure to Olivier was in the 1980 Neil Diamond remake of The Jazz Singer. This is essentially like discovering Michael Jordan’s basketball career during his time with the Washington Wizards – it wasn’t exactly a high point. But in Marathon Man, Olivier is remarkable. He doesn’t just play Szell as a relentless force of evil, but also as a scared old man who is terrified of losing what he feels he has rightfully earned. His performance is supple and unpredictable. You wouldn’t think watching a greedy, deadly, hate-filled, sadistic Nazi dentist could be a pleasure, but Olivier manages to make it so. I will warn you, however, if you have even the slightest anxiety about dentists, I suggest you skip this one. For everyone else, if you haven’t seen Marathon Man yet, you should.