Exodus-1960
Director Otto Preminger
Starring Paul Newman, Eva Marie Saint
Scott’s Review #1,005
Reviewed March 30, 2020
Grade: A-
Creating a monumental epic about the modern state of Israel, director Otto Preminger’s vast project Exodus (1960) is a bold adaptation of the Leon Uris novel from 1958.
Starring stars of the day for added Hollywood spice and a romantic element, the result is a sprawling war drama with robust proportions and a hefty running time.
At times the film lags or even drags, but the enormous importance of the message and the influence of stimulating Zionism should never be forgotten.
With the treacherous World War II barely in the rear-view mirror, Israeli resistance fighter, Ari Ben Canaan (Paul Newman), attempts to bring six hundred European Jewish Holocaust survivors from British-blockaded Cyprus into newly developed Palestine.
He meets Kitty Fremont (Eva Marie Saint), an American volunteer nurse, at the camp. The pair team up, along with others, to attempt to liberate the survivors.
The action eventually switches to Palestine where other characters and motives come into play in a complex story. During this time, opposition to the partition of Palestine into Arab and Jewish states was heating up, leading to tension, bombs, and death among similar types of people.
Central to the main plot is a young love story involving spirited Dov Landau (Sal Mineo), a radical Zionist resistance group member, and Karen Hansen Clement (Jill Haworth), a young Danish-Jewish girl searching for the father from whom she was separated during the war.
Exodus has so much story going on and multiple plots to follow.
The main draw, besides the tense story, is the two love stories told amid the political turmoil.
Newman and Saint have marginal chemistry, he is an eye candy who electrifies the screen, and she seems too old for him and does not photograph well. Kitty, a widow, hedges on her romantic feelings for Ari, but they do ultimately unite.
A gorgeous sequence occurs when the two share a delicious meal of fish and martinis amid a rooftop restaurant overlooking the dazzling landscape. She later dines with his parents, his mother a classic Jewish mother who in stereotypical fashion, cooks, and fusses.
The fresh-faced pairing of Dov and Karen is reminiscent of Tony and Maria from West Side Story. Doomed from the start, the youngsters are opposites in many ways, hot-headed, sensible, and resilient. He is bronze and swarthy, she is blonde and blue-eyed.
I fell in love with the couple, more than Ari and Kitty, and rooted for their happily-ever-after moment, which sadly never occurred.
At nearly four hours in length, the film is best watched in segments, perhaps even four, to let the action marinate overnight. The complex drama is aided by the sweeping cinematic photography and the lush exterior sequences.
A drawback was not getting to see the film on the big screen, almost a must in hindsight, and limited by the DVD quality over Blu-Ray.
Nonetheless, the film is delicious in nearly every way. Just when tedium is about to occur, an event happens that snaps the viewer back to immediate attention.
A notable fun fact is that Preminger boldly hired blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, on the dreaded Hollywood blacklist for over a decade for communist leanings, to write the script.
Together with Spartacus (1960), made the same year, Exodus is credited with ending the practice of Blacklisting in the motion picture industry. The importance of what is written on the blank page is arguably surpassed by the man who wrote those pages.
Exodus (1960) nearly rivals the epic of all epics, Lawrence of Arabia (1962) in its cinematography of exotic and sacred landscapes in daring and forbidding lands.
Perhaps twenty minutes or so could be carved out when the action loses momentum, but with great direction, a top-tier cast, and a history lesson in the harshness of war and generations of conflict, the film resonates with the realism of the subject matter.
Oscar Nominations: 1 win-Best Supporting Actor-Sal Mineo, Best Music Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture (won), Best Cinematography, Color