Exodus

Growing up in Brooklyn in the Fifties and Sixties, I can tell you that every Jewish household seem to have a copy of Herman Wouk's Marjorie Morningstar and Leon Uris's Exodus. The characters in Exodus among the people I grew up with became as known as family members. So when Otto Preminger made the film, he had a built in audience, almost in the same way that every Star Trek movie has.

But we're not talking about a mythical future. The novel is about Israel's founding, but the issues still remain and Exodus should be required viewing for all who wonder about the need for a Jewish state. Wouldn't hurt to read the book either.

Exodus got only one Oscar, but there was really no competition there. Ernest Gold's musical score is one of the great ones done for the cinema. I remember how much it was played back when I was a lad. It's a vigorous and uplifting melody and like so many other good film scores it carries the viewer along in what is a lengthy movie.

Paul Newman and Eva Marie Saint are capable enough leads, but it is the supporting characters that really make this film. Two of my favorites are David Opatoshu as Akiva Ben Canaan, an Irgun leader and Gregory Ratoff as Lazavitch who was the rabble rouser on the ship Exodus. You will remember both of these people after viewing Exodus. Why the Academy overlooked either of them for nominations is beyond me. But that was a year rich in supporting performances.

Making this film must have been the highlight of the career of David Opatoshu. He was a leading actor in the Yiddish Theater and to be in this film must have been a dream come true. Seeing him in various roles, Opatoshu never gave a bad performance in his career.

Sal Mineo as Dov Landau was nominated for Best Supporting Actor,the young concentration camp survivor who joins the Irgun. Sal had some stiff competition that year. Other nominees were Chill Wills for The Alamo, Jack Kruschen for The Apartment, and Peter Falk for Murder, Inc. Groucho Marx made a public declaration that his vote was for Sal Mineo after an appalling campaign appeal was started for Chill Wills. But the winner was Peter Ustinov for Spartacus.

According to a new biography of Sal Mineo, he was very jealous of Ustinov's victory and would curse him out if his name was even casually brought up in conversation.

I'm convinced that Leon Uris in writing Exodus was influenced by the Diary of Anne Frank in creating the character of Karen played in the film by Jill Haworth. Funny also that the film version of the play came out the year before Exodus. It was as if Anne Frank had survived the camps and had come to the birthing of Israel. She's an innocent child who still retains her faith in people like Anne Frank did, making what happens to her all the more tragic. If you've read the book before seeing the film, Haworth's performance was all the more poignant.

Unfortunately Exodus is not history because the war is still being fought by the Jewish people against those who would wish and do evil upon them. Would that it were just history.

Adapted from one of the best books of the last century, Otto Premenger's "Exodus" (1960) had all the components of an exiting, deeply moving masterpiece. It was made by a very talented and celebrated director ("Laura" , "Anatomy of a Murder"); most scenes of the film were made in locations where the original events had occurred; one of the best ever American actors(Paul Newman) played the main character, Jewish hero, a fearless Freedom fighter, Ari Ben Canaan; Sal Meneo gave an absolutely compelling performance as Dov Landau, a young man, a boy really who had survived the horrors of Auschwitz, the only survivor of a big family from Warsaw. Ernst Gold won an Academy award for his truly magnificent musical score. Sadly, "Exodus" is not a masterpiece – it is an overlong, heavy handed, and rather unimpressive movie that caused satirist Mort Sahl to say, "Otto, let my people go" as he watched the film's 220-minute preview. Ironically, with all this running time, the best, the most inspirational parts of the book did not make it to the film. Among them are historical events dealing with the origins of ghetto system, pogroms in Russia, the long and fascinating journey of two brothers from a small Russian town to Palestine by foot, the ideas of Theodor Herzl, the birth of kibbutzes in Palestine, and enormous labor of kibbutznicks to make the land fertile, to grow plants and trees where the desert, rocks, and swamps had been, as well as the tragedy of European Holocaust and dramatic story of United Nations voting for partition of Palestine in 1947 and the war of the infant state against its multiple and hostile neighbors for the right to exist and be an independent country. I watched the movie just before I left for my trip to Israel a few weeks ago and I took the book with me there. Reading the book while be able to see the places it describes with such passion and love, to see the land that is called "promised land" or "Holy land" WAS one of the most emotional and unforgettable experiences in my life, watching the movie was not. It is just an illustration to the fantastic book – no more, no less. IMO, the book deserves the same treatment that Puso's "Godfather" had received – it should've been adapted into several movies, not just one. Like in Godfather, Part II, the scenes of the past and present should've alternated, given the viewers deeper insight in the events and the passions and politics behind them. Or even better, perhaps "Exodus" should've been adapted into TV mini-series format where every important character would've had enough time for his/her story.

This historical film is based on real events and Leon Uris'novel. By the late 1945, millions of bewildered and homeless Jews people were on the move-across Europe and the Far East. They were looking for somewhere to live and for many of them that meant a new country. Jews demanded a land of their own. Jewish refugees were at a British camp on their way to Palestine. The Jews on board hoped to sail to Palestine in the first 'exodus ship'. Jewish refugees struggle ashore from island of Cyprus. But the ship (led by Jewish leader Paul Newman, helped by an American widow (Eva Marie Saint) will be intercepted. On many of the refugees, by a famine-strike, the conditions were appalling , overcrowded, lacking food and water. The British troops (commanded by Ralph Richardson and Peter Lawford) guard the shipload of Jews in the port, they were rounded up, to be sent to the camp. This is an exodus that succeeded. In Palestine coming so soon after the holocaust, the homeless come home, but these traumatic echoes of Auschwitz and Buchenwald inflamed Zionist feelings. 1946,1947 and early 1948 were a years in which Zionist terrorist was at its height and Independent Israel still seemed heartbreaks away. In 22 July 1946, ninety-one people died when the King David Hotel in Jerusalem was blown up by Zionists. When one of the ringleader (David Opatoshu) of the Zionist anarchist group is placed under arrest, to be taken under close guard to the camp , the movement plans the breakout. The subsequent setting is the strife-ridden area of Palestine between Jewish and Arabs fighting cruelly each other. The state of Israel was born in war and spent its youth struggling for survival. The nearly established United Nations did what it could to help, establishing camps for refugees and the supervision of Great Britain over Palestine . And later a voting that declared the independence of Israel under Ben Gurion (similar role played by Lee J Cobb).

This historical film well written by Dalton Trumbo was efficiently directed by Otto Preminger. Good performances from Paul Newman as an obstinate Israeli leader, Ralph Richardson as a commandant of British forces in Cyprus and Sal Mineo as a young terrorist , the latter won the Golden Globe for support actor. Furthermore , the sensitive and emotive soundtrack by Ernest Gold won Oscar 1960 for Original Dramatic Score . Colorful and evocative cinematography by Sam Leavitt, filmed in Israel and Cyprus with spectacular production design by Richard Day. Over budgeted, as cost more than five million dollars , an incredible amount of money at the time .This chronicle about the post-WWII partition of Palestine will appeal to historical events enthusiasts.

I saw Exodus when it first came out in 1960. I lived in a New Jersey community with a large Jewish population and many of this population were Holocaust survivors. I also read the book in 1964 and although the movie couldn't include all of the events in text, it did give people an idea of the struggle to form a Jewish Homeland. I recommended it recently to a Palestinian young woman to give her some idea of this struggle by Israel to survive in a hostile environment. I also suggested that she read the book. In a world in which some people prefer ideas condensed, the movie at least gave some idea of the formation of a new country. Paul Newman was every Jewish girl's dream husband and every mother's son-in-law in my neighborhood, Sal Mineo was convincing in his anguish, the others did what they could. I would recommend it to people who aren't familiar with the events leading to today's difficulties in the Middle East. Perhaps Exodus should have been filmed like the Godfather movies. A movie depicting the past and the present lives of the characters could have helped. Hollywood wasn't in that mind frame in the 1950's and 1960's and that's too bad.

Otto Preminger's presentation of Leon Uris' novel "Exodus" tried to evoke comparisons, in its trailer, to "Gone with the Wind" and "The Birth of a Nation". Those films overcome ideological flaws, and remain genuine, undeniable classics. Despite the starry cast and sweeping grandeur, "Exodus" fails to achieve its epic intentions. Mr. Preminger, coming off the superb "Anatomy of a Murder", gives it a long and dull direction. Paul Newman (as Ari Ben Canaan) and Eva Marie Saint (as Kitty Fremont) are quite unconvincing, in the leading roles. Still, there are some good characterizations, and nicely staged scenes.

The film offers two obvious, award-garnering career moves: Sal Mineo's masterful supporting performance, and Ernest Gold's beautiful musical score. Mr. Mineo (as Dov Landau) won a "Golden Globe" as "Best Supporting Actor"; and, arguably, he also deserved the year's "Academy Award". His subplot, played with pretty blonde newcomer Jill Haworth (as Karen Johansson), is far and away the most interesting story, thanks to Mineo's acting work. Mr. Gold's "Exodus" theme is also outstanding, selling well over a million copies of the Ferrante and Teicher version alone; it won not only an Oscar, but also a Grammy as 1960's "Song of the Year".

****** Exodus (12/15/60) Otto Preminger ~ Paul Newman, Eva Marie Saint, Sal Mineo