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RAZZIE SWEEP Critics’ praise and an Oscar nomination were Laurence Olivier’s compensation for the 1978 The Boys from Brazil, but the real reason to see the movie is Gregory Peck in a very trashy performance as Dr. Josef Mengele. True, Peck went all in for the “prestige” workout, the kind he thought he accomplished a year earlier in MacArthur. With the Ira Levin material already sickie camp—Mengele managing to clone 94 little Hitlers, who are about to reach the age of terror—Peck in his preparatory regalia got trapped, and maybe it’s for the best. There’s no way other than to chortle it off, to just sit back and enjoy a great Hollywood liberal doing a Nazi turn. Olivier, looking so frail his face seems to retrograde into a hospice-like second childhood right before our eyes, is a lot less impressive than his reviews. Director Franklin Schaffner botches the scenes of experimental horror—Mengele’s tropical lab and its mutant occupants are staged without chills and thrills. (Some of the experimented-on walk around as if they’re extras for another George Romero Day of the Dead.) The most egregious attempts at scares are the little Hitlers; the actor playing the three we get is Razzie caliber. (Neither he nor Peck were nominated because the Razzies didn’t start until 1981.) This movie is an illustration of what happens when a director, fearing going too far will offend sensibilities, goes nowhere. With computer technology now having reached a diabolic art form, imagine what a fearless movie maker could do with Mengele’s atrocities. Text COPYRIGHT © 2007 RALPH BENNER All Rights Reserved.
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