''Murphy's War'' is an
Eastmancolor
Eastmancolor is a trade name used by Eastman Kodak for a number of related film and processing technologies associated with color motion picture production and referring to George Eastman, founder of Kodak.
Eastmancolor, introduced in 1950, was on ...
1971
Panavision
Panavision is an American motion picture equipment company founded in 1953 specializing in cameras and lenses, based in Woodland Hills, California. Formed by Robert Gottschalk as a small partnership to create anamorphic projection lenses during ...
war film
War film is a film genre concerned with warfare, typically about naval, air, or land battles, with combat scenes central to the drama. It has been strongly associated with the 20th century. The fateful nature of battle scenes means that war fi ...
starring
Peter O'Toole
Peter Seamus O'Toole (; 2 August 1932 – 14 December 2013) was a British stage and film actor. He attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and began working in the theatre, gaining recognition as a Shakespearean actor at the Bristol Old Vic ...
and
Siân Phillips
Dame Jane Elizabeth Ailwên Phillips (born 14 May 1933), known professionally as Siân Phillips ( ), is a Welsh actress. She has performed the title roles in Ibsen's ''Hedda Gabler'' and George Bernard Shaw's '' Saint Joan''.
Early life
Phi ...
. It was directed by
Peter Yates
Peter James Yates (24 July 1929 – 9 January 2011) was an English film director and producer.
Biography Early life
Yates was born in Aldershot, Hampshire. The son of an army officer, he attended Charterhouse School as a boy, graduated from ...
based on the 1969 novel by
Max Catto
Maxwell Jeffrey Catto (29 July 1907 – 12 March 1992) was born Mark Finkell in Manchester, England and was an English playwright and novelist.
Writing career
Catto wrote adventure novels and dramas for more than four decades and also wrote under ...
. The film's cinematographer was
Douglas Slocombe
Ralph Douglas Vladimir SlocombeDuncan Petrie, "Slocombe, (Ralph) Douglas Vladimir (1913–2016)", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, Jan 202available online Retrieved 8 July 2020. OBE, BSC, ASC, GBCT (10 Feb ...
.
The film is set in
South America
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...
during World War II and focuses on a stubborn survivor of a sunken merchant ship who is consumed in his quest for revenge and retribution against the German submarine that sank his ship.
Plot
In the closing days of World War II, Irish crewman Murphy is the sole survivor of the crew of merchant ship ''Mount Kyle'', which had been sunk by a German
U-boat
U-boats were naval submarines operated by Germany, particularly in the First and Second World Wars. Although at times they were efficient fleet weapons against enemy naval warships, they were most effectively used in an economic warfare role ...
and the survivors machine-gunned in the water. Murphy reaches the shore and finds a
missionary
A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Tho ...
settlement on the
Orinoco
The Orinoco () is one of the longest rivers in South America at . Its drainage basin, sometimes known as the Orinoquia, covers , with 76.3 percent of it in Venezuela and the remainder in Colombia. It is the fourth largest river in the wor ...
in
Venezuela
Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...
, where he is treated by the
pacifist
Pacifism is the opposition or resistance to war, militarism (including conscription and mandatory military service) or violence. Pacifists generally reject theories of Just War. The word ''pacifism'' was coined by the French peace campaign ...
Quaker
Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of Christian denomination, denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belie ...
Dr. Hayden.
When Murphy discovers that the U-boat is hiding farther up river under the cover of the jungle, he obsessively plots to sink it by any means, including by using a surviving
Grumman J2F Duck
The Grumman J2F Duck (company designation G-15) is an American single-engine amphibious biplane. It was used by each major branch of the U.S. armed forces from the mid-1930s until just after World War II, primarily for utility and air-sea resc ...
floatplane
A floatplane is a type of seaplane with one or more slender floats mounted under the fuselage to provide buoyancy. By contrast, a flying boat uses its fuselage for buoyancy. Either type of seaplane may also have landing gear suitable for land, ...
from the ''Mount Kyle''. The floatplane's wounded pilot was shot dead in his hospital bed by the U-boat captain in order to preserve the secret of the sub's location and of the war crimes committed by the shooting of survivors in the water.
Murphy tries to fly the aircraft on the choppy river water and learns how to manipulate the controls by trial and error. He soon finds the U-boat's hiding place and attempts to bomb it using homemade
Molotov cocktail
A Molotov cocktail (among several other names – ''see other names'') is a hand thrown incendiary weapon constructed from a frangible container filled with flammable substances equipped with a fuse (typically a glass bottle filled with flamma ...
bombs, but his effort fails and the mission settlement is destroyed in retaliation. Later, word comes that Germany has surrendered, but Murphy is obsessed with revenge and plans to ram the U-boat with a floating
crane owned by Louis, a friendly Frenchman. This attempt also fails when the U-boat dives under him. However, the submerged U-boat is ensnared in a mud bank. Murphy uses the crane to recover an unexploded
torpedo
A modern torpedo is an underwater ranged weapon launched above or below the water surface, self-propelled towards a target, and with an explosive warhead designed to detonate either on contact with or in proximity to the target. Historically, su ...
fired earlier by the U-boat and drops it on the trapped crew, killing them. Murphy is also killed as the explosion from the torpedo causes the crane jib to pin him to the deck as the floating crane sinks to the river bed.
Cast
*
Peter O'Toole
Peter Seamus O'Toole (; 2 August 1932 – 14 December 2013) was a British stage and film actor. He attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and began working in the theatre, gaining recognition as a Shakespearean actor at the Bristol Old Vic ...
as Murphy
*
Siân Phillips
Dame Jane Elizabeth Ailwên Phillips (born 14 May 1933), known professionally as Siân Phillips ( ), is a Welsh actress. She has performed the title roles in Ibsen's ''Hedda Gabler'' and George Bernard Shaw's '' Saint Joan''.
Early life
Phi ...
as Dr. Hayden
*
Philippe Noiret
Philippe Noiret (; 1 October 1930 – 23 November 2006) was a French film actor.
Life and career
Noiret was born in Lille, France, the son of Lucy (Heirman) and Pierre Noiret, a clothing company representative. He was an indifferent student and ...
as Louis Brezon
*
Horst Janson as Commander Lauchs, German Submarine Captain
*
John Hallam
John William Francis Hallam (28 October 1941 – 14 November 2006) was a British character actor, who frequently played hard men or military types.
Early life
John Hallam was born, the son of a superintendent at London Docklands, in 194 ...
as Lieutenant Ellis, Seaplane Pilot from RNMS ''Mount Kyle''
*
Ingo Mogendorf
Ingo Mogendorf (born 1940) is a German-born British actor, typically playing handsome and congenial German officers. He is best remembered as the Red Baron in a dogfight against Rock Hudson in Blake Edwards' '' Darling Lili''. He worked as a male m ...
as Lieutenant Voght, Submarine Executive Officer
*
Harry Fielder
Henry Arthur Fielder (26 April 1940 – 6 February 2021), sometimes credited as Harry H. Fielder or Harry Aitch Fielder, was an English actor who worked extensively in British film and television from the 1960s to the 1990s.
Career
Fielder was ...
as German Sub Crewman
*
George Roubicek
George Roubicek (born 25 May 1935) is an Austrian actor, and a dialogue director and script adaptor for English-language versions of foreign films and television shows. Born in Austria, Roubicek appeared in a number of small roles throughout the ...
as U-boat Crewman
Differences between film and book
* Murphy is one of his ship's officers in the novel, but his film counterpart is a mechanic for the seaplane.
* The character of Lieutenant Ellis is not featured in the novel.
* Dr. Hayden is a composite of several doctors from the novel.
* Louis is a self-loathing deserter from the French military in the book but a jovial company man in the film.
* The submarine crew is portrayed more sympathetically in the novel. Most of them are war-weary and apolitical, save for Lieutenant Voght, who seizes command and murders Murphy's crew while the captain is incapacitated by a head wound.
* The book's end is quite different to that of the film. In the book, when Murphy drops the torpedo, it splits the sub in half and inadvertently allows most of the trapped crewmen to swim to the surface and survive. An injured Vought cannot reach shore and is carried away by the current to his death. Murphy also avoids death during the crane operation. Murphy and Captain Lauchs briefly fight each other on the beach before sinking to the ground in exhaustion.
Production
In 1969,
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert Sinatra (; December 12, 1915 – May 14, 1998) was an American singer and actor. Nicknamed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, Chairman of the Board" and later called "Ol' Blue Eyes", Sinatra was one of the most popular ...
was recruited to star in the film, but he withdrew from the project.
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldes ...
agreed to provide half of film's financing in exchange for world-distribution rights.
["Notes: Murphy's War."](_blank)
''Turner Classic Movies''. Retrieved: 19 August 2013. The other half of the budget came from London Screenplays, a finance company.
Michael Deeley
Michael Deeley (born 6 August 1932) is an Academy Award-winning British film producer known for such motion pictures as ''The Italian Job'' (1969), ''The Deer Hunter'' (1978), and ''Blade Runner'' (1982). He is also a founding member and Honora ...
has said that he and
Peter Yates
Peter James Yates (24 July 1929 – 9 January 2011) was an English film director and producer.
Biography Early life
Yates was born in Aldershot, Hampshire. The son of an army officer, he attended Charterhouse School as a boy, graduated from ...
declined the chance to produce ''
The Godfather
''The Godfather'' is a 1972 American crime film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, who co-wrote the screenplay with Mario Puzo, based on Puzo's best-selling 1969 novel of the same title. The film stars Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, ...
'' (1972) in order to make ''Murphy's War''. Yates said that he was particularly interested in "the way in which three people—Murphy, a doctor and a Frenchman left in the backwash of war—are really brought together by circumstance and how each character plays on the other and makes them do things that they wish they hadn't and things they sometimes feel proud of."
Siân Phillips
Dame Jane Elizabeth Ailwên Phillips (born 14 May 1933), known professionally as Siân Phillips ( ), is a Welsh actress. She has performed the title roles in Ibsen's ''Hedda Gabler'' and George Bernard Shaw's '' Saint Joan''.
Early life
Phi ...
, who plays Dr. Hayden, was appearing opposite her husband
Peter O'Toole
Peter Seamus O'Toole (; 2 August 1932 – 14 December 2013) was a British stage and film actor. He attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and began working in the theatre, gaining recognition as a Shakespearean actor at the Bristol Old Vic ...
. The couple had appeared together in the 1964 film
''Becket'' and the 1969 musical film ''
Goodbye, Mr. Chips
''Goodbye, Mr. Chips'' is a novella about the life of a school teacher, Mr. Chipping, written by English writer James Hilton and first published by Hodder & Stoughton in October 1934. It has been adapted into two feature films and two televi ...
''.
Filming began on 23 February 1970 and was completed with location shooting in
Malta
Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...
on 5 July. Filming occurred at locations in the regions of
Puerto Ordaz
Ciudad Guayana () (in English Guayana City) is a city in Bolívar State, Venezuela. It stretches 40 kilometers along the south bank of the Orinoco river, at the point where it is joined by its main tributary, the Caroní river. The Caroni cros ...
and Castillos de Guayana on the
Orinoco River
The Orinoco () is one of the longest rivers in South America at . Its drainage basin, sometimes known as the Orinoquia, covers , with 76.3 percent of it in Venezuela and the remainder in Colombia. It is the fourth largest river in the wor ...
in
Venezuela
Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...
, and on set at
Pinewood Studios
Pinewood Studios is a British film and television studio located in the village of Iver Heath, England. It is approximately west of central London.
The studio has been the base for many productions over the years from large-scale films to te ...
,
Iver Heath
Iver is a large civil parish in Buckinghamshire, England. In addition to the central clustered village, the parish includes the residential neighbourhoods of Iver Heath and Richings Park.
Geography, transport and economy
Part of the 43-square ...
and
Twickenham Film Studios
Twickenham Studios (formerly known as Twickenham Film Studios) is a film studio in St Margarets, in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, that is used by various motion picture and television companies. It was established in 1913 by Ralph ...
,
Middlesex
Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a Historic counties of England, historic county in South East England, southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the Ceremonial counties of ...
, England. Deeley described the shoot as the toughest of his career, which led to the breakup of his partnership with Yates, with whom he had made several films.
For the scenes filmed in Malta that depict the burning of the merchant ship, O'Toole swam through water afire with oil and with explosives detonating all around him. He later said: "I used to do all my own stunts when I first started. I made it a principle. Everything in ''
Lawrence of Arabia
Thomas Edward Lawrence (16 August 1888 – 19 May 1935) was a British archaeologist, army officer, diplomat, and writer who became renowned for his role in the Arab Revolt (1916–1918) and the Sinai and Palestine Campaign (1915–1918 ...
'' I did myself. But after suffering a paralyzed hand, a bad back, broken ankle and countless knocks, I decided never again. It was stupid. Films employ stunt men (for a reason!). They can do these things far better than I. I refused to do any more stunts.
hen
Hen commonly refers to a female animal: a female chicken, other gallinaceous bird, any type of bird in general, or a lobster. It is also a slang term for a woman.
Hen or Hens may also refer to:
Places Norway
*Hen, Buskerud, a village in Ringer ...
I thought, well, just one more time. So I talked myself into it. In Venezuela I even fly a seaplane. If you want to see a picture of sheer terror have a look at the shots of me when I first fly that seaplane."
[''Photoplay Film Monthly'', February 1971.]
Several of the sequences were photographed by
cinematographer
The cinematographer or director of photography (sometimes shortened to DP or DOP) is the person responsible for the photographing or recording of a film, television production, music video or other live action piece. The cinematographer is the ch ...
Douglas Slocombe
Ralph Douglas Vladimir SlocombeDuncan Petrie, "Slocombe, (Ralph) Douglas Vladimir (1913–2016)", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, Jan 202available online Retrieved 8 July 2020. OBE, BSC, ASC, GBCT (10 Feb ...
, including the scenes with Murphy piloting the floatplane and the visuals along the Orinoco River. Especially notable is an airborne shot of a flock of
scarlet ibis
The scarlet ibis (''Eudocimus ruber'') is a species of ibis in the bird family Threskiornithidae. It inhabits tropical South America and part of the Caribbean. In form, it resembles most of the other twenty-seven extant species of ibis, but its ...
es in flight along the shore of the river during the closing credits. For the extensive flying scene with many shots of the floatplane stalling and veering sharply to avoid obstacles, a camera was strapped to the wing of the aircraft.
Several
Peace Corps
The Peace Corps is an independent agency and program of the United States government that trains and deploys volunteers to provide international development assistance. It was established in March 1961 by an executive order of President John F. ...
volunteers serving in towns near the Orinoco River were recruited to play Nazi submariners. The volunteers donated their daily wages to the Venezuelan school districts or other organizations with which they were working.
![Grumman OA-12 Duck USAF](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8c/Grumman_OA-12_Duck_USAF.jpg)
The
Type IX U-boat
The Type IX U-boat was designed by Nazi Germany's ''Kriegsmarine'' in 1935 and 1936 as a large ocean-going submarine for sustained operations far from the home support facilities. Type IX boats were briefly used for patrols off the eastern Unit ...
was represented by the
Venezuelan Navy
)
, mascot =
, battles = Venezuelan War of Independence and the Battle of Lake Maracaibo
, anniversaries = July 24, Birthday of Simon Bolivar, Navy Day and Battle of Lake Maracai ...
's ARV ''Carite'' (S-11); this was the former , which had been sold to Venezuela in 1960. The floating crane was a former World War II
tank landing craft
The Landing Craft, Tank (LCT) (or Tank Landing Craft TLC) was an amphibious assault craft for landing tanks on beachheads. They were initially developed by the Royal Navy and later by the United States Navy during World War II in a series of ver ...
. The
OA-12 Duck used in the film was restored and flown by
Frank Tallman
Frank Gifford Tallman III (April 17, 1919 in East Orange, New Jersey – April 15, 1978 in Santiago Peak, Trabuco Canyon, California) was a stunt pilot who worked in Hollywood during the 1960s and 1970s.
He was the son of Frank Gifford Tallman ...
and is on display at the
National Museum of the United States Air Force
The National Museum of the United States Air Force (formerly the United States Air Force Museum) is the official museum of the United States Air Force located at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, northeast of Dayton, Ohio. The NMUSAF is the ...
at
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (WPAFB) is a United States Air Force base and census-designated place just east of Dayton, Ohio, in Greene County, Ohio, Greene and Montgomery County, Ohio, Montgomery counties. It includes both Wright and Patte ...
in
Dayton, Ohio
Dayton () is the sixth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County. A small part of the city extends into Greene County. The 2020 U.S. census estimate put the city population at 137,644, while Greater Day ...
. In the original book, the aircraft was a
Fairey Swordfish
The Fairey Swordfish is a biplane torpedo bomber, designed by the Fairey Aviation Company. Originating in the early 1930s, the Swordfish, nicknamed "Stringbag", was principally operated by the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy. It was also used ...
.
Release
The film had its world premiere on 13 January 1971 at the
Odeon Leicester Square
The Odeon Luxe Leicester Square is a prominent cinema building in the West End of London. Built in the Art Deco style and completed in 1937, the building has been continually altered in response to developments in cinema technology, and was the ...
.
Reception
''Murphy's War'' was not successful among critics or at the box office.
Roger Greenspun
Roger Greenspun (December 16, 1929 – June 18, 2017) was an American journalist and film critic, best known for his work with ''The New York Times'' in which he reviewed near 400 films, particularly in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and for '' ...
's review in ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' centered on the awkwardness of the plot: "The sense of a film in which nothing quite works with anything else pervades 'Murphy's War,' and it extends from such crucial technical details as the sloppy and finally tedious cross-cutting between things (the seaplane, the motor barge, etc.) and the people who are supposed to be operating them, to the playing together of the principal actors."
A review in ''
Variety
Variety may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats
* Variety (radio)
* Variety show, in theater and television
Films
* ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont
* ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
'' stated: "By no means a film classic, 'Murphy's War' stands out as the kind of good, solid entertainment needed these days to fill houses."
Gene Siskel
Eugene Kal Siskel (January 26, 1946 – February 20, 1999) was an American film critic and journalist for the ''Chicago Tribune''. Along with colleague Roger Ebert, he hosted a series of movie review programs on television from 1975 until his d ...
of the ''
Chicago Tribune
The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television ar ...
'' awarded the film two stars out of four and called it "an adventure story high in production values but low in suspense."
Charles Champlin
Charles Davenport Champlin (March 23, 1926 – November 16, 2014) was an American film critic and writer.
Life and career
Champlin was born in Hammondsport, New York. He attended high school in Camden, New York, working as a columnist for the '' ...
of the ''
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...
'' wrote: "The story proceeds from the detestable to the improbable by way of the uninteresting. Rarely will you see a major motion picture so flat and devoid of tone or atmosphere. O'Toole's performance is all flash mannerisms and unintelligibly gargled accents."
Gary Arnold of ''
The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'' called the film "a dim, self-defeating adventure movie" with a screenplay "at peculiar cross-purposes with itself ... when the German surrender is announced, the script turns on feisty, vengeful sailor Murphy. All of a sudden it's about the madness of the plan to sink the sub, which, unfortunately, happens to be the ''raison d'etre'' of the movie."
A review in the New York ''
Daily News'' praised O'Toole's performance but called the film a "sluggish action spectacle."
[Freedland 1985, p. 153.]
References
Notes
Bibliography
* Deeley, Michael. ''Blade Runners, Deer Hunters and Blowing the Bloody Doors Off: My Life in Cult Movies''. New York: Pegasus Books, 2011. .
* Freedland, Michael. ''Peter O'Toole: A Biography''. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1985. .
* Wapshott, Nicholas. ''Peter O'Toole: A Biography''. New York: Beaufort Books, 1984. .
External links
*
*
*
*
*
{{Peter Yates
1971 films
1970s war adventure films
British war adventure films
British aviation films
1970s English-language films
British films about revenge
World War II submarine films
Films based on British novels
Films directed by Peter Yates
Films set in Venezuela
Films shot in Venezuela
Films scored by John Barry (composer)
U-boat fiction
Films with screenplays by Stirling Silliphant
Films scored by Ken Thorne
1970s British films