The Boys from Brazil (1978)

A Nazi hunter in Paraguay discovers a sinister and bizarre plot to rekindle the Third Reich.

Director:

Franklin J. Schaffner

Writers:

Ira Levin (novel), Heywood Gould (screenplay)

Stars:

Gregory Peck, Laurence Olivier, James Mason

Nominated for 3 Oscars. Another 2 wins & 10 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Gregory Peck	...	Dr. Josef Mengele
Laurence Olivier	...	Ezra Lieberman
James Mason	...	Eduard Seibert
Lilli Palmer	...	Esther Lieberman
Uta Hagen	...	Frieda Maloney
Steve Guttenberg	...	Barry Kohler (as Steven Guttenberg)
Denholm Elliott	...	Sidney Beynon
Rosemary Harris	...	Mrs. Doring
John Dehner	...	Henry Wheelock
John Rubinstein	...	David Bennett
Anne Meara	...	Mrs. Curry
Jeremy Black	...	Jack Curry / Simon Harrington / Erich Doring / Bobby Wheelock
Bruno Ganz	...	Professor Bruckner
Walter Gotell	...	Mundt
David Hurst	...	Strasser

Storyline

Barry Kohler, a young Nazi hunter, tracks down a group of former SS officers meeting in Paraguay in the late 1970s. The Nazis, led by Dr Mengele, are planning something. Old Nazi hunter, Ezra Lieberman, is at first uninterested in Kohler's findings. But when he is told something of their plan, he is eager to find out more. Lieberman visits several homes in Europe and the U.S. in order to uncover the Nazi plot. It is at one of these houses he notices something strange, which turns out to be a horrible discovery.

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Plot Keywords:

nazi | nazi hunter | old man | nazi war criminal | murder plot | 

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Taglines:

If they survive...will we?

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Genres:

Drama | Thriller

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Certificate:

R

Details

Country:

UK USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

6 October 1978 (USA)

Also Known As:

Los niños del Brasil

Filming Locations:

Kölnbrein Dam, Austria

Box Office

Budget:

$12,000,000 (estimated)

Gross USA:

$19,000,000

Company Credits

Production Co:

Sir Lew Grade,Producers Circle,ITC Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

125 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

James Mason (Eduard Seibert) and Wolfgang Preiss (Lofquist) previously played Field Marshal Erwin Rommel: Mason in The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel (1951) and The Desert Rats (1953), and Preiss in Raid on Rommel (1971).

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Goofs

The theory of replicating a clones upbringing and environment, in reality, could never come to fruition because all the circumstances and events could never be replicated. For instance, replicating the death of the cloned Hitler at age 65 is possible, but the other events that contributed to Hitler's psyche, such as his experience in WW I, to include him leaving his native country, in his case Austria, to join another countries army, Germany, to fighting in the trenches, suffering from mustard gas attack, to being discharged from a defeated nations army and into a depression where a wheel barrel full of money would buy a loaf of bread, to ultimately facing the threat of communism within his own country, to forming political resistance against it, to being imprisoned for his failed attempt at it, etc... could all never be duplicated in order to shape the cloned Hitler into the mindset of the original one.

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Quotes

Barry Kohler: Okay, I'm running it down now. It will only take a second.
Ezra Lieberman: Take your time, old men don't go back to sleep once they've been awakened.

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Connections

Featured in American Masters: A Conversation with Gregory Peck (1999)

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Soundtracks

The Blue Danube
(uncredited)
Music by Johann Strauss
Arranged by Arthur Morton

User Reviews

Overlooked

This is such a classic piece of mystery drama, it's inconceivable that it's not better known. A late seventies film starring the cream of cinema from 20 years earlier, this follows a Nazi plot (in the present day) and the efforts of a Nazi hunter to put the pieces together. The elements include a number of apparently unrelated children, a decades-old plot, a series of murders, Josef Mengele, and a short appearance by one `Steven' Guttenberg, in an early film role. When you finally realise what has been going on, it ups the stakes dramatically. Well worth seeking out.