| Exodus | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster bySaul Bass | |
| Directed by | Otto Preminger |
| Screenplay by | Dalton Trumbo |
| Based on | Exodus 1958 novel byLeon Uris |
| Produced by | Otto Preminger |
| Starring | Paul Newman Eva Marie Saint Ralph Richardson Peter Lawford Sal Mineo Jill Haworth Lee J. Cobb John Derek |
| Cinematography | Sam Leavitt |
| Edited by | Louis R. Loeffler |
| Music by | Ernest Gold |
Production companies | Carlyle-Alpina, S.A. |
| Distributed by | United Artists |
Release date |
|
Running time | 208 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $4.5 million[3] |
| Box office | $8.7 million (US/ Canada)[4] $20 million (worldwide)[3] |
Exodus is a 1960 Americanepichistorical drama film about the founding of theState of Israel. Produced and directed byOtto Preminger, the screenplay was adapted byDalton Trumbo from the1958 novel of the same name byLeon Uris. The film stars anensemble cast includingPaul Newman,Eva Marie Saint,Ralph Richardson,Peter Lawford,Lee J. Cobb,Sal Mineo,John Derek andGeorge Maharis. The film'ssoundtrack music was written byErnest Gold.
Preminger openly hired screenwriter Trumbo, who had been on theHollywood blacklist for over a decade for being a communist and forced to work under assumed names. Together withSpartacus, also written by Trumbo,Exodus is credited with ending the practice ofblacklisting in the US motion picture industry.
Released on December 15, 1960, byUnited Artists, the film earned $8.7 million at the box office in the United States and Canada, and $20 million worldwide.
After theSecond World War, Katherine "Kitty" Fremont, a widowed American nurse, is sightseeing inCyprus following a tour of duty for the U.S.Public Health Service in Greece. Her guide mentions theKaraolosinternment camp on Cyprus, where thousands of Jews — manyHolocaust survivors — are being detained. The British refuse them passage toPalestine. British General Sutherland, who knew her late husband, suggests Kitty volunteer at the internment camp. Feeling uncomfortable around Jews, she refuses but reconsiders.
WhenHaganah rebel Ari Ben Canaan, a wartime captain in theBritish Army'sJewish Brigade, smuggles 611 Jews aboard a cargo ship for anillegal voyage toPalestine, military authorities blockadeFamagusta harbor to prevent the ship's departure. The refugees stage ahunger strike, and Ari threatens to blow them up with the ship. The British permit the ship, renamedExodus, to sail.
Kitty grows fond of Karen Hansen Clement, aDanish-Jewish teenager she meets in the camp, and offers to take her to America but she declines. Her mother and siblings were Holocaust victims and she is searching for her missing father while promoting theZionist cause. As opposition topartitioning Palestine into Arab and Jewish states intensifies, Karen's beau, Dov Landau, joins theIrgun, a radical pro-Zionist militant group led by Akiva Ben Canaan, Ari's uncle. Akiva interrogates Dov who confesses being aSonderkommando inAuschwitz where he learned bombing skills. Akiva's violent activities run counter to his brother Barak, Ari's father, who heads the mainstreamJewish Agency, working to create a Jewish statethrough political and diplomatic means. Barak fears the Irgun will derail these efforts.
Karen relocates to Gan Dafna, a Jewishkibbutz nearMount Tabor, close to themoshav where Ari was raised.[5] Kitty and Ari fall in love, but Kitty pulls back after meeting Ari's family and learning about his previous love. Dafna was kidnapped, tortured, and murdered by Arabs, and is the namesake of the Gan Dafna kibbutz. Ari helps locate Karen's father, Dr. Clement, now committed to a mental hospital inJerusalem and in adissociative state caused by the horrors he suffered in a Nazi concentration camp.
Akiva is imprisoned by the British inAcre fortress, and sentenced to hang after the Irgunbomb the King David Hotel. Ari plots an escape to free Akiva and Haganah and Irgun prisoners. Dov, who eluded capture, turns himself in to utilize his bomb expertise to facilitate theAcre Prison break. Hundreds of prisoners escape, and Akiva is fatally wounded being pursued. Ari, wounded, makes it to Gan Dafna and is moved to Abu Yesha, an Arab village nearby where his lifelong Arab friend, Taha, is themukhtar. He develops a life-threatening infection and Kitty saves his life, rekindling their romance.
Dr. Lieberman is arrested by the British after they discover an illegal weapons cache hidden the children's village. Taha warns Ari that Arab nationals plan to attack Gan Dafna and massacre the Jews. Ben Canaan orders the children evacuated as a detachment ofPalmach troops arrives to reinforce Gan Dafna's defenses. Karen, ecstatic over the prospect of the new nation, visits Dov on night patrol at the Gan Dafna perimeter and proclaims her love for him. He vows they will marry after the war, but Karen is ambushed returning to Gan Dafna and murdered by Arabs. Taha's body is found hanging in Dov's village, killed by the Grand Mufti. AStar of David is carved into his body with aswastika and signs saying "Jude" are on village walls.
Karen and Taha are buried in one grave. Ari eulogizes them, saying that one day Jews and Arabs will peacefully share the land. Ari, Kitty, Dov, and a Palmach contingent board trucks to fight in the1948 Arab–Israeli War.
Exodus was filmed on location inIsrael andCyprus. Although filming key elements ofExodus on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus was authentic, as it was the location of the British internment camps for Jewish refugees trying to reachPalestine, it was difficult, as the island was in the middle of a Greek insurgency against British rule, led by the Greek nationalist organisationEOKA. EOKA was considered a terrorist organisation by the British authorities in Cyprus, who were opposed to the filming of a movie on the island that seemed to combine anti-British sentiments with a storyline that appeared to show terrorist action could be successful. As a result, the British authorities refused to helpOtto Preminger with the logistical side of filming. The only assistance given by the British authorities was the placement of an armed guard on the large number of decommissioned rifles used as props in the film, to prevent them from falling into the hands of EOKA and being recommissioned.[6]
Relations between the director and actors were difficult, particularly with the male lead,Paul Newman.[7] After Newman's suggested changes to the script were rejected by Preminger, and the actor given a dressing down for making the suggestions, Newman hid amannequin on a high balcony on which he was due to play out a fight scene. At the end of the scene, Newman pretended to stumble, and threw the mannequin over the balcony. Not realising this was a practical joke, Preminger collapsed and required medical attention. At other times, Preminger and Newman were barely on speaking terms.[8]
Leon Uris, author of the source novelExodus, was originally signed to write a screenplay of the film, but Preminger rejected his script as excessivelyanti-British andanti-Arab. Preminger instead hired blacklisted writerDalton Trumbo, with whom he collaborated on a script in forty days. Trumbo had never visited Israel, resulting in initial errors, such as locating the site of theAcre prison break, located in a coastal city, as taking place in the middle of the desert. Trumbo also made less use of Biblical themes than Uris wanted. His biographer wrote that Trumbo refused "to go back toOld Testament times, and follow the Jews through the centuries of theDiaspora and the horror ofthe Holocaust." Trumbo and Preminger did not share Uris's preoccupation with history as moulding the Israeli national character.[9]
Paul Newman andEva Marie Saint had previously appeared together as George Gibbs and Emily Webb, teenage lovers who subsequently marry in a 1955 musical version ofThornton Wilder'sOur Town withFrank Sinatra as the stage manager, an episode of the anthology television seriesProducer's Showcase. Newman and Saint sing a duet during the malt shop sequence.
The Karen Hansen part was originally offered toHayley Mills, but her parents turned it down.[10] It was one ofJohn Derek's last appearances as an actor.[11]
Bosley Crowther ofThe New York Times described the film as a "dazzling, eye-filling, nerve-tingling display of a wide variety of individual and mass reactions to awesome challenges and, in some of its sharpest personal details, a fine reflection of experience that rips the heart." The film's "principal weakness," Crowther wrote, "is that it has so much churning around in it that no deep or solid stream of interest evolves—save a vague rooting interest in the survival of all the nice people involved."[1]
Philip K. Scheuer of theLos Angeles Times described the film as "a kaleidoscopic yet memorable impression of highlights from the long-time best seller by Leon Uris," with a "generally excellent" screenplay by Trumbo.[12]Variety declared, "There is room to criticizeExodus—its length might be shortened to advantage; perhaps Preminger tried to crowd too much incident from the book for dramatic clarity, and some individual scenes could be sharpened through tighter editing. But the good outweighs the shortcomings. Preminger can take pride in having brought to the screen a Twentieth Century birth of a nation."[13]
Richard L. Coe ofThe Washington Post stated that the film "has this vitality of the immediate and will be of incalculable influence in reaching those unfamiliar with the background of Israel ... It is safe to say that in several years, when this film will have played much of the world, its influence will have become critical."[14]The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote, "Exodus lacks the historical imagination to cope with its theme on one level, the human awareness to dramatise it on the other. At the end of three and a half hours, its approach remains more exhausting than exhaustive. And the determination to be fair to all sides—almost the only character the script is prepared to dislike is theNazi leader of the Arab terrorists—produces some strange consequences."[15]
Roger Angell ofThe New Yorker wrote, "Such a bubbling pot of intrigue, violence, and hatred would almost seem to guarantee a lively film, but Mr. Preminger has approached his task with a painstaking reverence that would have been more suitable if he had been filmingthe original work of this title. He permits nearly everyone in his large cast to state his ideological and political convictions before and after each new turn of events, and the result is an awesome talkfest that is all too rarely interrupted by the popping of rifles."[16]
Reviews criticizing the film’s political message only appeared in less mainstream sources. For example, Gideon Bachmann, who was present in Palestine in 1947, wrote inFilm Quarterly (published byUniversity of California Press) that the film was "dishonest" and propaganda designed to be "the best promotion Israel ever had."[17]
The film holds an approval rating of 65% onRotten Tomatoes based on 17 reviews, with an average rating of 6/10.[18] On Metacritic, it has a 70/100, based on 11 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews.[19]
By September 1961, although having only played 22 locations overseas, the film had earnedtheatrical rentals of $14 million worldwide.[20]
| Award | Category | Nominee(s) | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Academy Awards[21] | Best Supporting Actor | Sal Mineo | Nominated |
| Best Cinematography – Color | Sam Leavitt | Nominated | |
| Best Music Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture | Ernest Gold | Won | |
| Golden Globe Awards[22] | Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture | Sal Mineo | Won |
| Best Original Score – Motion Picture | Ernest Gold | Nominated | |
| Most Promising Newcomer – Female | Jill Haworth | Nominated | |
| Grammy Awards[23] | Best Sound Track Album or Recording of Music Score from Motion Picture or Television | Exodus – Ernest Gold | Won |
| International Film Music Critics Awards | Best Re-Recording of an Existing Score | Ernest Gold; Nic Raine and James Fitzpatrick | Won |
| Laurel Awards | Top Male Dramatic Performance | Lee J. Cobb | 4th Place |
| Paul Newman | 4th Place | ||
| Top Male Supporting Performance | Sal Mineo | Won | |
| Satellite Awards[24] | Best Classic DVD | The Towering Inferno(as part ofPaul Newman: The Tribute Collection) | Nominated |
The musical score, byErnest Gold, won theAcademy Award for Best Music Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture at the33rd Academy Awards, and themain theme has been widely recorded by other artists.
A version of the theme byFerrante & Teicher reached number 2 on theBillboard Hot 100 in January 1961.[26] Other versions were recorded byjazz saxophonistEddie Harris,Mantovani,Grant Green,Manny Albam,Andy Williams,Peter Nero,Connie Francis,Quincy Jones, the 1960s British instrumental bandthe Eagles andthe Duprees, who sang the theme with lyrics written byPat Boone.
Other artists to record the song includeEdith Piaf (who sang French lyrics),gospel pianistAnthony Burger (in theGaither Vocal Band's "I Do Believe"), andclassical pianistMaksim Mrvica.Davy Graham reinvented the main theme on his 1963 albumThe Guitar Player.Trey Spruance of theSecret Chiefs 3 rescored the theme for "surf band and orchestra" on the album 2004Book of Horizons.Howard Stern uses it for comedic effect when discussing aspects of Jewish life. TheWWF used the main theme as wrestlerMr. Perfect's song. A portion of the theme was played live by '70sSouthern rock bandBlack Oak Arkansas, whose three lead guitarists used eBows to play the theme in harmony, embedded into an arrangement of theBuddy Holly song "Not Fade Away."[27]
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Often characterized as a "Zionist epic",[28][29] the film has been identified by many commentators as having been enormously influential in stimulatingZionism and support for Israel in the United States.[30][31][32] While Preminger's film softened the anti-British and anti-Arab sentiment of the novel, the film remains contentious for its depiction of theArab–Israeli conflict.[33][34][35]
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| National | |
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