The Passage (1979)

User Rating:

5.8/10   

Director:

J. Lee Thompson

Writers:

Bruce Nicolaysen (novel)
Bruce Nicolaysen (screenplay)

Release Date:

March 1979 (Turkey)

Genre:

Action | Drama | War

Tagline:

An ice-swept escape route in front of them. A cold-blooded killer behind them. The only way out is up.

Plot:

During WW 2, a Basque shepherd is approached by the underground, who wants him to lead a scientist and his family across the Pyrenees. While being pursued by a sadistic German. |

Plot Keywords:

Train | Female Nudity | Nudity | Nazi | Assassination

Cast

Anthony Quinn	...	The Basque
James Mason	...	Professor Bergson
Malcolm McDowell	...	Capt. Von Berkow
Patricia Neal	...	Mrs. Bergson
Kay Lenz	...	Leah Bergson
Paul Clemens	...	Paul Bergson
Christopher Lee	...	Gypsy
Robert Rhys	...	Gypsy Son
Michael Lonsdale	...	Renoudot
Marcel Bozzuffi	...	Perea
Peter Arne	...	Guide
Neville Jason	...	Lt. Reinke
Robert Brown	...	Major
Rose Alba	...	Madame

Runtime:

USA:99 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

UK:X | Iceland:16 | Australia:R | New Zealand:R16 | Finland:K-18 | France:-12 | Netherlands:16 | Norway:16 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Pyrénées, France

Company:

General Film

Trivia:

James Mason had predicted to his co-star Kay Lenz that the movie would be a flop at the box office. He said, "You mark my words. All films that are predominantly in thick snow are a flop at the box office. Somehow they make an audience feel uncomfortably cold and damp." It turned out he was right and the film flopped worldwide.

THE PASSAGE (J. Lee Thompson, 1979) **

I had watched this on PAL VHS during the late 1980s; it's an ill-advised (and misguided) attempt to update the big-budget, star-studded WWII adventure spectacle spearheaded by THE GUNS OF NAVARONE (1961) – by the same director and featuring one of its leads (Anthony Quinn), no less – for the more permissive 1970s (with new-fangled dollops of violence, sex and foul language). Being aware of its bad reputation (mostly due to Malcolm McDowell's outrageous contribution as the villain), I decided to give it another look when it turned up recently on Cable TV.

The film involves a shepherd-cum-experienced mountain-climber (a rather glum Quinn) who's asked by the French resistance (in the figures of Marcel Bozzuffi and Michel Lonsdale) to take a prominent nuclear scientist (James Mason) and his family (including wife Patricia Neal and daughter Kay Lenz) across the Pyrenees to safety in neutral Spain; along the way, they're helped by a group of traveling gypsies (led by Christopher Lee), while McDowell is the maniacal SS officer in pursuit.

The journey is fraught with problems – mainly caused by Neal's poor health (a really thankless role for the Oscar-winning actress), with which Quinn has little patience. Eventually, she decides to rid them of the burden and goes away to die in the snow (Quinn and Bozzuffi feel her emerging from the cabin where they're all sheltered, but do nothing to stop her!)…after which Mason tries to attack Quinn for pushing her to this, but falls flat on his face in the snow after only a couple of paces (this bit somehow reminded me of a scene from one of the NAKED GUN films in which George Kennedy lashes at a couple of bullies for mistreating his partner and ends up getting beaten to a pulp himself!). Lee, then, expires in a fiery death at the hands of the sadistic McDowell – except that whatever tension there was here is destroyed by its being continually cross-cut with the flight of the central group!

However, the film's main source of entertainment is McDowell – especially via his campy attire as a chef while torturing the captured Lonsdale, his Swastika-imprinted underpants (during the scene in which he rapes Lenz), and even while mimicking the Fuehrer in front of a mirror (parting his hair a' la Hitler, putting the black comb above his lips as a makeshift moustache, and giving himself the Nazi salute). Surely it was no great stretch for him to go from this to Tinto Brass' CALIGULA (1979)! Worst of all, though, is the climax as a deranged and wounded McDowell turns up at the cabin (after having miraculously survived an avalanche he caused himself!) and bloodily exterminates the remaining members of the group…which transpires to be merely a delirious fantasy – one final folly enacted in his own head, and given away really by being intercut with snippets from scenes that have gone on before! – and that he's the one to perish. In the face of all this, Michael J. Lewis' sweeping score seems out of place – especially when considering that the action sequences are too few and far between, and certainly nothing to write home about when compared to the typical war movies of its ilk.