We know.
And we effin' LOVE it........
Novelist Ira Levin was the literary equivalent of cinema shlock genius Larry Cohen......his stories always sprung from one simple whackadoodle premise....(later phrased by Hollywood as "High Concept").......
Levin's satanic newborn and robot housewives became forever a part of American Pop Culture in the book and film versions of "Rosemary's Baby" and "The Stepford Wives". But our personal favorites among Levin's gallery of contemporary creepezoids were the little Hitler clones of "The Boys From Brazil"......
And what a wonderful Santa Claus did Levin's mini-Hitlers find in British producer/impresario Sir Lew Grade.......Sir Lew lavished big money and top-of-the-line talent on the film version of "The Boys From Brazil".........
Imagine "They Saved Hitler's Brain" if it had been made by David Lean......pulp lunacy pumped up with world class actors......
And nobody's kidding here either, the actors tear into it as if it's a Shakespeare adaptation.....(the only creative force who displays an ironic sense of humor about the material is composer Jerry Goldsmith, scoring the film with a grand, lilting Strauss-like waltz......you can almost hear Goldsmith chuckling in the background......)
We thoroughly reject all the carping about the performances of the two superstar leads.....we savor every idiotic moment in their company......Gregory Peck's utterly mad Dr.Josef Mengele, snarling most of his dialogue under his breath, looking like his head was dipped into a mixture of black shoe polish and Botox.......and Sir Laurence Olivier's Nazi-hunter Ezra Lieberman, deploying every cutesy scene-stealing mannerism he ever picked up during a lifetime in the theater......a cinematic Clash Of The Titans.....(more irony coming from the fact that two years prior to this film, Olivier played the evil Nazi dentist Szell, a thinly disguised version of Mengele in "Marathon Man")
Levin's plot hinges on Mengele's embracing the nurture side of the 'nature vs. nurture' argument when it comes to his 94 Hitler clones that he's placed all around the world. Intent on exactly duplicating Hitler's childhood, he sends out Neo-Nazi minions to murder all the kids' 65 year old adopted fathers, Watching this, we can't help wondering if Mengele ever considered what would happen if more than one of his 94 test-tube Fuhrers ascended to the heights of power.......(would the British Mini-Hitler go to war with the American Mini-Hitler? Wouldn't the Swiss Mini-Hitler object?)
We especially admire how this movie, through the artistry and commitment of its cast, maintains a straight face throughout most its running time........it plays like a classy, high-toned thriller right up until it goes gloriously flying off the rails......in its rural Pennsylvania, beyond bonkers showdown between Peck, Olivier and a pack of ravenous Dobermans.
And the BQ wouldn't dream of altering one mili-second of the moment when the raving Peck explains to one of his pride-and-joy clones the genesis of the boy's birth. To which the kid has the most honest, natural reaction in the entire film....."Oh man, you're weird...."
The only thing really chilling about enjoying a fun wallow through the nonsense of "The Boys From Brazil".......knowing that the current White House occupant thinks Nazi supporters are 'very fine people"......and that 39 years later, nobody had to go to the trouble of cloning a mini-Hitler......enough hoodwinked Americans put a homegrown one into power.
Luckily for all of us and the world, the resistance is growing....so hopefully, when we watch it again, as we surely will, we can still think of the movie as a guilty pleasure fantasy and continue to clone 4 stars (****).....and never have to recall an Orange would-be Hitler demanding we all march to 'Heil To The Chief'......
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