The Boys from Brazil

A great film, and what struck me most while watching it was that only Laurence Olivier was nominated for an Oscar, while Gregory Peck came up empty. Yet his Mengele is the absolute best example of acting that The Boys from Brazil has to offer. Peck is terrifying. His eyes radiate the right kind of passionate fanaticism, his speech is duly cold most of the time, but you feel that just a little bit is enough and he turns 180 degrees ("Shut up, you ugly bitch!")... One cannot help but think of Henry Fonda, who handled the negative role in the western opus Once Upon a Time in the West just as well. If I continue to list the pros, of course, they have to include Goldsmith's bombastic musical score, Ira Levin's brilliantly adapted screenplay, which is still relevant, if not more relevant, and of course Schaffner's direction, which makes The Boys not a confusing film at all, although the plot constantly jumps from one end of the world to the other. Thumbs up especially for the scenes like "Mengele in the former hospital" and the chilling ending. The cons? There are none. (07/03/2011)

I think the book by American writer and playwright Ira Levin is not bad, but its film adaptation did not interest me much and certainly did not make me want to read it. Even the performances didn't particularly impress me. So the only thing I can really commend is the dramatically apt musical score, provided by acclaimed composer Jerry Goldsmith. (40%) (02/25/2022)

A superb thriller from the 70s with Gregory Peck killing it in the role of the evil Dr Josef Mengele. It’s not very well known, I got to it basically by pure chance, and I was all the more pleasantly surprised thanks to that. First of all, it has a great plot. When it is revealed what the film is really about (fortunately, I hadn’t read any of the comments that spoil it), I was overcome by a very unpleasant, almost unsettling feeling similar to, for instance, The Medusa Touch. I haven’t been so thrilled in a long time. (05/21/2011)