''The Passage'' is a 1979 British action-

war film War film is a film genre concerned with warfare, typically about navy, naval, air force, air, or army, land battles, with combat scenes central to the drama. It has been strongly associated with the 20th century. The fateful nature of battle s ...

directed by J. Lee Thompson and starring

Anthony Quinn Manuel Antonio Rodolfo Quinn Oaxaca (April 21, 1915 – June 3, 2001), known professionally as Anthony Quinn, was a Mexican-American actor. He was known for his portrayal of earthy, passionate characters "marked by a brutal and elemental v ...

James Mason James Neville Mason (; 15 May 190927 July 1984) was an English actor. He achieved considerable success in British cinema before becoming a star in Hollywood. He was the top box-office attraction in the UK in 1944 and 1945; his British films inc ...

Malcolm McDowell Malcolm McDowell (born Malcolm John Taylor; 13 June 1943) is a British actor, producer, and television presenter. He is best known for portraying Alex DeLarge in ''A Clockwork Orange.'' He was born in the Horsforth suburb of Leeds and raised i ...

and Patricia Neal. The film is based upon the 1976 novel ''Perilous Passage'' by Bruce Nicolaysen, who also wrote the screenplay for the film.

Plot

During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, a Basque farmer is asked by the

French resistance The French Resistance (french: La Résistance) was a collection of organisations that fought the German occupation of France during World War II, Nazi occupation of France and the Collaborationism, collaborationist Vichy France, Vichy régim ...

to help a fleeing

scientist A scientist is a person who conducts scientific research to advance knowledge in an area of the natural sciences. In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, philosophers engaged in the philosop ...

and his family escape across the Pyrenees Mountains to safety in neutral

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = '' Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , ...

. On his trail are a group of Germans, led by a sadistic SS officer.

Cast

as The Basque *

as Professor Bergson *

as Capt. Von Berkow * Patricia Neal as Mrs. Ariel Bergson * Kay Lenz as Leah Bergson *

Christopher Lee Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee (27 May 1922 – 7 June 2015) was an English actor and singer. In a long career spanning more than 60 years, Lee often portrayed villains, and appeared as Count Dracula in seven Hammer Horror films, ultim ...

as The Gypsy *

Michael Lonsdale Michael Edward Lonsdale-Crouch (24 May 1931 – 21 September 2020), commonly known as Michael Lonsdale and sometimes named as Michel Lonsdale, was a French actor and author who appeared in over 180 films and television shows. He is best know ...

as Alain Renoudot * Marcel Bozzuffi as Perea *Paul Clemens as Paul Bergson * Peter Arne as Guide * Neville Jason as Lt. Reinke * Robert Brown as German Major *

Jim Broadbent James Broadbent (born 24 May 1949) is an English actor. He won an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for his supporting role as John Bayley in the feature film '' Iris'' (2001), as well as winning a BAFTA TV Award and a Golden Globe for ...

as German Soldier (uncredited)

Production

The film was based on the novel ''Perilous Passage'', which was published in 1977. 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 ...

'' said that it "isn't really that good". ''

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 ...

'' said it was "very well done" with a "general air of excitement, suspense and even horror". One of the producers was

Maurice Binder Maurice Binder (December 4, 1918 – April 9, 1991) was an American film title designer best known for his work on 16 James Bond films including the first, '' Dr. No'' (1962) and for Stanley Donen's films from 1958. Early work He was born in ...

, who was best known for doing the title sequences for

James Bond The ''James Bond'' series focuses on a fictional British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short-story collections. Since Fleming's death in 1964, eight other authors hav ...

movies. The film was shot on location in the Pyrenees.

had to perform a nude scene with Kay Lenz on his first day of shooting. In order to lighten the atmosphere he wore underpants with a swastika on it; J. Lee Thompson liked the idea so much he made it part of McDowell's character. McDowell says that Kay Lenz "wasn't happy" to do her nude scene. McDowell later called the movie "utter rubbish. I took it only because I needed money to pay my taxes. Making it depressed me terribly."

Reviews

As he made this movie in Europe and England,

predicted to co-star Kay Lenz that people do not like movies in snow and this film would bomb miserably after they were finished making it. He was right: the film opened to bad box office worldwide and, in critics' eyes, was a disaster in contrast to J. Lee Thompson's 1961 masterpiece '' The Guns of Navarone''. The ''Los Angeles Times'' said "we've seen it all so many times before." The ''Globe and Mail'' said: "The director of ''The Passage'' is J. Lee Thompson, possibly the worst experienced director in the world today. The cinematographer is Mike Reed, whose work is appalling: the dominant color is khaki and every scene is either under- or overexposed. The writer is Bruce Nicolaysen, who based the movie on his novel Perilous Passage. They should all be deeply ashamed and should do penance by crossing the Pyrenees on their knees. Too cruel? Fine. They can sit through every movie Anthony Quinn ever made. Twice." ''Filmink'' magazine compared the depiction of rape in this movie unfavourably with the way it was dealt with in J. Lee Thompson's ''Cape Fear'' which they said "is a terrifying examination of that crime" while in ''The Passage'' "the rape of a woman (Kay Lenz) at the hands of an SS Officer (Malcolm McDowell) is treated in an exploitative, camp way (McDowell wears underpants with a swastika on them, Lenz is shown topless in a shower)… it seems like a movie directed by an entirely different person."

References

External links