"MARATHON MAN"..........THE TOOTH IS OUT THERE.........

Marathon Man (1976)   With Halloween almost upon us, we couldn't think of a more perfect movie to post on......

              Cause technically, it's really a horror film masquerading as some kind of international suspense thriller.......

              And Laurence Olivier's Nazi war criminal dentist Szell became a towering, iconic nightmare creation.......with his ghastly mantra of "Is it safe", spoken just before he jams a drill into Dustin Hoffman's teeth.......(we'd love to see Trick of Treaters dress up as Szell for Halloween, with shiny bald heads book-ended by tufts of white hair....yelling "Is is safe" when they hold their bags out for candy.....)

               William Goldman, the novelist-screenwriter who never let you forget how clever and self-aware he was as he tweaked and warped typical thriller cliches, adapted his own heart-thumping thriller.......

                Very much like Hitchcock, Goldman loved to concoct brilliant, lunatic sequences and then somehow wrap them around a story that would make sense of them.......barely.

                 So 'Marathon Man' is not so much a rational thriller.......it functions more as an aggressive funhouse ride through a series of escalating grisly and horrific scenes........ever so slightly connected to each other by the skeletal plot.

                 Once again, we're plunged into 1970's New-York-City-As-Hell-On-Earth......kicking off with one of the first film depictions of road rage.......a comedic, and ultimately doomed automotive face-off between an elderly Jew and German, both driving junky cars on their last legs.  It's like a min-version of World War II re-fought on the dangerously congested Manhattan streets.

                 Eventually, movie gets around to explaining what this scene has to do Dustin Hoffman's character, a history doctoral candidate who's already emotionally tortured by the McCarthy-era suicide of his wrongly victimized father.......even before he ends up physically tortured by Olivier.

                  Which brings us to Europe and the lethal bloody world  of Hoffman's super-spy brother, played by Roy Scheider.  As part of a deeply unknown U.S. intelligence group called 'The Division', Scheider finds himself fending off assassins who've started bumping off his fellow agents.

                 All of these seemingly disparate plot elements lead back to Olivier's ultra creepy Nazi.....who's forced to leave his secret South American jungle lair and commence cutting a bloody swath through New York City........(and none of this chaos sits too well with an oily 'Division' operative (William Devane) whose loyalties shift faster than the wind direction).

                  William Goldman's script makes a few brief attempts at connecting this stuff together, but it really doesn't matter...........it's all about the jolts, surprises, sudden gory deaths.......and the legendary scenes of Olivier chatting calmly with a tied down Hoffman before laying waste to Hoffman's mouth......deploying those sharp edged dental instruments you never want to think about while getting your own teeth cleaned.

                  It's a non-stop horrorshow, sure enough,  capped off with not one but two bravura sequences......Olivier touring New York's jewelry district. silently revolted and enraged at the sight of all the Jewish diamond merchants and their customers, some of whom recognize him as their concentration camp tormenter.......and of course, the long expected final showdown between Olivier and Hoffman.

                    Yes,we've heard all about the clashes between the two acting icons......the precision stagecraft of Olivier up against Hoffman's extreme method intensity.........whatever the differences in their techniques, together they made some indelible, unforgettable movie magic....

                    For Halloween horror, some might get their goosebumps from Freddy Krueger, 'Friday The 13th's Jason, or Michael Meyers.........we at the BQ hereby nominate Laurence Olivier's Dr. Szell to join that distinguished group. Make an an appointment for a check up soon........we guarantee you that he'll drill his way into your heart, along with a live nerve in one of your molars.  4 painful stars (****).......and no, it's NOT safe.....trick 'r treat.