Exodus (1960)

The state of Israel is created in 1948, resulting in war with its Arab neighbors.

Director:

Otto Preminger

Writers:

Dalton Trumbo (screenplay), Leon Uris (novel)

Stars:

Paul Newman, Eva Marie Saint, Ralph Richardson

Won 1 Oscar. Another 4 wins & 7 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Paul Newman	...	Ari Ben Canaan
Eva Marie Saint	...	Kitty Fremont
Ralph Richardson	...	Gen. Sutherland
Peter Lawford	...	Maj. Caldwell
Lee J. Cobb	...	Barak Ben Canaan
Sal Mineo	...	Dov Landau
John Derek	...	Taha
Hugh Griffith	...	Mandria
Gregory Ratoff	...	Lakavitch
Felix Aylmer	...	Dr. Lieberman
David Opatoshu	...	Akiva Ben Canaan
Jill Haworth	...	Karen
Marius Goring	...	Von Storch
Alexandra Stewart	...	Jordana Ben Canaan
Michael Wager	...	David Ben Ami

Storyline

The theme is the founding of the state of Israel. The action begins on a ship filled with Jewish immigrants bound for Israel who are being off loaded on Cyprus. An Intelligence officer succeeds in getting them back on board their ship only to have the harbor blocked by the British with whom they must negotiate. The second part of the film is about the situation in Israel as independence is declared and most of their neighbors attack them.

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Plot Keywords:

israel | jewish | 1940s | jewish refugee | based on true story | 

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Taglines:

The drama and the passion of one of the epic events of the twentieth century !

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Genres:

Action | Drama | History | War

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Certificate:

Approved

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

2 January 1961 (Brazil)

Also Known As:

Exodus

Filming Locations:

Israel

Box Office

Budget:

$4,000,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Otto Preminger Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

208 min

Sound Mix:

4-Track Stereo (35 mm prints) 70 mm 6-Track (Westrex Recording System) (70 mm prints)

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.20 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

This movie's logo, seen in the opening credits, is an adaptation of the logo of the real-life Irgun, which showed a hand and arm holding a rifle in a similar pose over a map of the entire Palestine Mandate.

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Goofs

The German SS at Auschwitz executed all the Sonderkommandos and selected a new crew 13 times, hence only the last 14th survived. No Jew, therefore, could have had the experience of exploding dynamite to create mass graves. As this process well predated the installation of the crematorium, his Sonderkommando unit would have been liquidated long before liberation.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Cypriot guide: The island of Cyprus, madame. World famous for beauty, and long, tragic history. Been conquered many times, conquered by Phoenicians, Assyrians, Persians, Macedonians; also conquered by Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Turks. Purchased from Turkey by your esteemed self, the British Empire. All Cyprus most wanted the British.
Kitty Fremont: [correcting him] I'm an American.
Cypriot guide: Fond of Americans, also; we Cypriots are fond of everybody.

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Crazy Credits

Opening credits shown over a background of flames.

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Connections

Referenced in The Irv Kupcinet Show: Episode dated 22 April 1977 (1977)

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Soundtracks

Shir HaEmek
(uncredited)
Music Traditional
[Hummed by the children crossing the valley]

User Reviews

Hard to View Today as it Was in 1960; Best Remembered Now for its Score

Seeing "Exodus" early in the 21st century, one is robbed of the experience that moviegoers of the early 1960s would have had; it's impossible to see a movie about the birth of Israel now without the perspective of the Six-Day War of 1967, which changed the perception many non-Jews had of Israel. That, and the events that the Six-Day War led to, have eroded the moral assurance that many of the main characters of "Exodus" espouse about Israel and its founding, and would eventually lead to the moral quagmire found 45 years later in Steven Spielberg's "Munich." Today, "Munich" is much closer to the grayness of who is right or wrong in the modern-day Middle East than the black-and-white assumptions that drive the characters of "Exodus" in 1947 -- or its creators in 1960.

And it's likewise much harder to accept Paul Newman in the role of a Jewish freedom fighter; though he was already a big star in 1960 (which was no doubt the reason that he was chosen for the part), one cannot evaluate his performance here without recalling all the other high points of his career that were still ahead of him -- "The Hustler," "Cool Hand Luke," "Hombre," and of course his two big triumphs with Robert Redford, as Butch and Sundance and in "The Sting" -- not to mention a career that kept humming even into the 1990s. He's hardly remembered for this role at all today, and though even he isn't in every scene in a sweeping epic like this, it's hard to look at the movie without remembering all that would come later.

What stands out today more than Newman's performance, therefore, are the many secondary characters -- Sal Mineo as the tortured survivor of Auschwitz with secrets that lead him to the Irgun (and a performance that would earn him his second and last Oscar nomination); David Opatoshu as a Menachem Begin-like figure who believes violence is better than negotiation; and Jill Haworth, all of 15 at the time, and who would have a bevy of ingénue roles into the 1960s, but whose career would dribble out by the end of the next decade.

In particular, this was a great role for Opatoshu, who is probably best remembered today for his many guest shots on television (like Newman, most that came after this, in everything from "Twilight Zone" and "Mission:Impossible" to "Star Trek" and "Hawaii Five-O"). Though he is recognizable for those roles, it's worth remembering that he came out of Yiddish Theater and was a controlled, subtle performer who rarely got the kind of meaty role that he had here -- and one that no doubt was important to him.

So, while it's mainly remembered today for Ernest Gold's stirring theme music, "Exodus" is interesting as a window into a different time and a different way of thinking -- both about its subject matter and its main character . . . and the once and future star who played him.