The Boys from Brazil (1978)

The Boys from Brazil 
Directed by Franklin J. Schafner
Written by Haywood Gould from a novel by Ira Levin
1978/USA
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime rental

Professor Bruckner: Is Mengele… trying to reproduce himself?
Ezra Lieberman: No! No, he has brown eyes, and he comes from a very wealthy family.

I can’t decide where this is so bad it’s good or just plain good. Whichever, it is extremely entertaining. Gregory Peck’s outlandish performance as Josef Mengele must be ranked as the most audacious in his career.

I’ll keep my plot synopsis brief. Ezra Lieberman (Laurence Olivier) is a renowned Nazi hunter. An amateur Nazi hunter gets wind of a large cell of Nazis (mostly war criminals) in Paraguay. He reports this to Lieberman who is not impressed, saying that every man on the street knows that there are Nazis in South America.

Later, Lieberman learns that Joseph Mengele himself is joining this group. After investigating thoroughly he finds his way to Paraguay where he runs in to some extremely dangerous men and an unthinkable project. With James Mason as Eduard Seibert, Mengele’s  superior and Bruno Ganz as a doctor who explains the cloning process to Lieberman.

Everything about this movie is just that little bit over the top causing me to wonder if this was deliberate on the part of the filmmakers. Peck throws all reserve to the wayside and portays Mengele as a devil straight from HELL. Olivier is also simply fantastic. He looks like he was having fun doing his German Jewish accent and tons of bits of business that are fun for the audience too. This totally exceeded my expectations.

The Boys from Brazil was nominated for Oscars for Best Actor (Olivier), Best Film Editing and Best Original Score (Jerry Goldsmith).