The Fixer (1968)

In Czarist Russia, around 1911, a Russian-Jewish handyman, Yakov Bok (Sir Alan Bates), is wrongly imprisoned for a most unlikely crime.

Director:

John Frankenheimer

Writers:

Bernard Malamud (novel), Dalton Trumbo (screenplay)

Stars:

Alan Bates, Dirk Bogarde, Georgia Brown

Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 6 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Alan Bates	...	Yakov Bok
Dirk Bogarde	...	Bibikov
Georgia Brown	...	Marfa Golov
Hugh Griffith	...	Lebedev
Elizabeth Hartman	...	Zinaida
Ian Holm	...	Grubeshov
David Opatoshu	...	Latke
David Warner	...	Count Odoevsky
Carol White	...	Raisl
George Murcell	...	Deputy Warden
Murray Melvin	...	Priest
Peter Jeffrey	...	Berezhinsky
Michael Goodliffe	...	Ostrovsky
Thomas Heathcote	...	Proshko
Mike Pratt	...	Father Anastasy

Storyline

Set in Czarist Russia in 1911, and based on the true story of Russian-Jewish peasant Yakov Bok (Sir Alan Bates), who was wrongly imprisoned for a most unlikely crime, the "ritual murder" of a Gentile child in Kiev. We witness the unrelenting detail of the peasant-handyman's life in prison, and see him gain in dignity as the efforts to humiliate him and make him confess fail.

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Plot Keywords:

period drama | russia | torture | secularism | anger | 

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Taglines:

This is "The Fixer" who didn't know he had courage...until courage was all he had left.

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Genres:

Drama

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Certificate:

M

Did You Know?

Trivia

The cast includes one Oscar winner: Hugh Griffith; and three Oscar nominees: Sir Alan Bates, Elizabeth Hartman, and Sir Ian Holm.

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Quotes

Bibikov: What is your own personal philosophy?
Yakov Bok: That life could be better than it is.

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Connections

Referenced in The Facts of Life: Read No Evil (1982)

User Reviews

Captures the strengths of the book

It is not often that cinema can do justice to a great novel. This one brings out the existential questions of the lead character Yakov Blok in an honest manner, true to the original. I think I would place the credit more with screenplaywriter Dalton Trumbo for this effort. He did not even change some of the key lines of the book. I wonder what Malamud would have thought of the script.

Frankenheimer needs praise in some sequences, the prison sequences and the seduction sequence--but what amuses me no end is why he chose to cast the three actresses who speak their lines with no care for even a semblance of being East European.

Alan Bates, Dirk Bogarde, Hugh Griffith, David Warner and Ian Holm are all good actors but Frankenheimer made no effort to make them speak like Russians or East Europeans. Bogarde is predictable in his role, but Alan Bates carried the film. He alone played his role with conviction. Maurice Jarre's music was good but not his best.

Like "Gandhi" this film will be remembered because of the subject, not because of its cinema. The true hero was not Bates, not Trumbo, not Frankenheimer--it was Malamud!

Details

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Release Date:

20 September 1969 (UK)

Also Known As:

The Fixer

Filming Locations:

Budapest, Hungary

Company Credits

Production Co:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer British Studios, Edward Lewis Productions, John Frankenheimer Productions Inc.

Technical Specs

Runtime:

132 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Metrocolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1