''Murphy's War'' is an
Eastmancolor 1971
Panavision
Panavision Inc. is an American motion picture equipment company (law), company founded in 1954 specializing in cameras and photographic lens, lenses, based in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, Woodland Hills, California. Formed by Robert Gottschalk a ...
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 ...
starring
Peter O'Toole and
Siân Phillips. It was directed by
Peter Yates
Peter James Yates (24 July 1929 – 9 January 2011) was an English film director and producer. He was known for making films in a wide variety of genres, including the Steve McQueen police thriller film '' Bullitt'' in 1968. He received nomin ...
, based on the 1969 novel by
Max Catto. The film's cinematographer was
Douglas Slocombe.
The film is set in
Venezuela 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
Nazi German
Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictat ...
submarine that sank his ship and slaughtered the survivors.
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
Nazi German
Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictat ...
U-boat
U-boats are Submarine#Military, naval submarines operated by Germany, including during the World War I, First and Second World Wars. The term is an Anglicization#Loanwords, anglicized form of the German word , a shortening of (), though the G ...
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 who 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.Thoma ...
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 approximately 1 million km2, with 65% of it in Venezuela and 35% in Colombia. It is the List of rivers by discharge, f ...
in Venezuela, where he is treated by the
pacifist
Pacifism is the opposition to war or violence. The word ''pacifism'' was coined by the French peace campaigner Émile Arnaud and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress in Glasgow in 1901. A related term is ''a ...
Quaker
Quakers are people who belong to the Religious Society of Friends, a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations. Members refer to each other as Friends after in the Bible, and originally, others referred to them as Quakers ...
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 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, compounding the earlier war crime of shooting the survivors in the water, in order to preserve the secret of the submarine's location. 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 '') is a hand-thrown incendiary weapon consisting of a frangible container filled with flammable substances and equipped with a Fuse (explosives), fuse (typically a glass bottle filled wit ...
bombs, but his effort fails and the mission settlement is destroyed in retaliation.
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, with an explosive warhead designed to detonate either on contact with or in proximity to the target. Historically, such ...
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 as Murphy
*
Siân Phillips 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 a ...
as Louis Brezon
*
Horst Janson as Commander Lauchs, German Submarine Captain
*
John Hallam as Lieutenant Ellis, Seaplane Pilot from RNMS ''Mount Kyle''
*
Ingo Mogendorf as Lieutenant Voght, Submarine Executive Officer
*
Harry Fielder as German Sub Crewman
*
George Roubicek 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
Development
Film rights to the novel were purchased by Paramount Pictures. In 1969,
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert Sinatra (; December 12, 1915 – May 14, 1998) was an American singer and actor. Honorific nicknames in popular music, Nicknamed the "Chairman of the Board" and "Ol' Blue Eyes", he is regarded as one of the Time 100: The Most I ...
was recruited to star in the film, but he withdrew from the project. Eventually
Robert Evans, head of Paramount, offered the project to the team of
Peter Yates
Peter James Yates (24 July 1929 – 9 January 2011) was an English film director and producer. He was known for making films in a wide variety of genres, including the Steve McQueen police thriller film '' Bullitt'' in 1968. He received nomin ...
and
Michael Deeley, who had made ''Robbery'' for the studio. Deeley says a script had already been written by Stirling Silliphant, who worked on subsequent drafts with Yates. Silliphant later recalled:
Our purpose was to make a flat-out statement about the absurdity, the meaninglessness, of war. So we went for minimal sound, minimal dialogue, a kind of intense fumbling toward death, toward the showdown between enemies who have no further reason for enmity except the blind stupidity and vengefulness of the Peter O’Toole character. And this is why, at the end, in a high angle shot director Peter Yates closed out the film with the sub sinking, the barge sinking, and the river surging above both, covering them for all eternity. Over this he shot a ragged flight of jungle birds, wheeling off, the only survivors of this pointless encounter between men and their machines.
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."
Deeley has said that Paramount became less enthusiastic about the project as time passed. Since he and Yates had a pay-or-play contract, Evans offered them the chance to make ''
The Godfather
''The Godfather'' is a 1972 American Epic film, epic crime film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, who co-wrote the screenplay with Mario Puzo, based on Puzo's best-selling The Godfather (novel), 1969 novel. The film stars an ensemble cast inc ...
'' (1972) but Yates turned it down in order to make ''Murphy's War''. Eventually Paramount 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 from Dimitri de Grunwald.
The lead role was given to Peter O'Toole for a fee of $250,000. A number of other stars had turned it down including Warren Beatty, Robert Redford and Lee Marvin. His female co-star was his real-life wife
Siân Phillips. The couple had appeared together in the 1964 film
''Becket'' and the 1969 musical film ''
Goodbye, Mr. Chips''. O'Toole wanted to play an Irishman so the script was rewritten accordingly.
Production
Filming began on 23 February 1970 and was completed with location shooting in
Malta
Malta, officially the Republic of Malta, is an island country in Southern Europe located in the Mediterranean Sea, between Sicily and North Africa. It consists of an archipelago south of Italy, east of Tunisia, and north of Libya. The two ...
on 5 July. Filming occurred at locations in the regions of
Puerto Ordaz 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 approximately 1 million km2, with 65% of it in Venezuela and 35% in Colombia. It is the List of rivers by discharge, f ...
in
Venezuela
Venezuela, officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many Federal Dependencies of Venezuela, islands and islets in the Caribbean Sea. It com ...
, and on set at
Pinewood Studios,
Iver Heath and
Twickenham Film Studios
Twickenham ( ) is a suburban district of London, England, on the River Thames southwest of Charing Cross. Historic counties of England, Historically in Middlesex, since 1965 it has formed part of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, who ...
,
Middlesex
Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a Historic counties of England, former county in South East England, now mainly within Greater London. Its boundaries largely followed three rivers: the River Thames, Thames in the south, the River Lea, Le ...
, 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'' 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, HEN or Hens may also refer to:
Places Norway
*Hen, Buskerud, a village in R ...
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.]
Deeley viewed the film as an action adventure, and says he wanted O'Toole's character to live at the end of the film but Yates insisted he die and to make the film more of an anti-war statement.
[Deeley 2009, p 88]
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 recording of a film, television production, music video or other live-action piece. The cinematographer is the chief of the camera ...
Douglas Slocombe, 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 ibises 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 of the U.S. government, independent agency and program of the United States government that trains and deploys volunteers to communities in partner countries around the world. It was established in Marc ...
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.

The
Type IX U-boat was represented by the
Venezuelan Navy's ARV ''Carite'' (S-11); this was the former , which had been sold to Venezuela in 1960 (the submarine is far taller than a wartime U-boat, and its single gun position behind the conning tower makes it look like a
Type VII U-boat). The floating crane was a former World War II
tank landing craft. The
OA-12 Duck used in the film was restored and flown by
Frank 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 ...
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 a city in Montgomery County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of cities in Ohio, sixth-most populous city in Ohio, with a population of 137,644 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. The Dayton metro ...
. In the original book, the aircraft was a
Fairey Swordfish
The Fairey Swordfish is a retired 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 a ...
.
Release
The film had its world premiere on 13 January 1971 at the
Odeon Leicester Square.
Reception
''Murphy's War'' was not successful among critics or at the box office. Deeley later wrote "From the vantage of today the film looks dated: nothing more than a string of cliched scenes, centring on a cliched character. The aerial photography still looks good, at least. But at the time my chief emotion was, 'Finally, it's over…'."
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'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' 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
Cross-cutting is an editing technique most often used in films to establish action occurring at the same time, and often in the same place. In a cross-cut, the camera will cut away from one action to another action, which can suggest the simulta ...
… to the playing together of the principal actors."
A review in ''
Variety'' 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'' who co-hosted a movie review television series alongside colleague Roger Ebert.
Siskel started writing for the '' ...
of the ''
Chicago Tribune
The ''Chicago Tribune'' is an American daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1847, it was formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper", a slogan from which its once integrated WGN (AM), WGN radio and ...
'' 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'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...
'' 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."
Gary Arnold of ''
The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...
'' called the film "a dim, self-defeating adventure movie" with a screenplay "at peculiar cross-purposes with itself…"
A review in the ''
New York Daily News
The ''Daily News'' is an American newspaper based in Jersey City, New Jersey. It was founded in 1919 by Joseph Medill Patterson in New York City as the ''Illustrated Daily News''. It was the first U.S. daily printed in Tabloid (newspaper format ...
'' praised O'Toole's performance but called the film a "sluggish action spectacle."
[Freedland 1982, p. 153.]
References
Citations
Bibliography
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External links
*
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{{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
English-language war adventure films