The movie "Marathon Man" starts out with a car accident where Christian Szell's, Laurence Olivier, brother Klaus, Ben Dova, is killed. The word comes back to Szell in Paraguay, or is it Brazil, that Szell's fortune in diamonds is in danger, why? For some reason Szell and his henchmen take off for NYC after being for some 30 years in hiding from the international courts for war crimes. Why does Szell blow his cover and expose himself to jail or worse? We really don't seem to know. All I could gather from the plot is that Szell wanted to know, as he kept saying over and over in the movie, "Is it safe"? Safe from what? There are diamonds in a safe-deposit box in a curtain midtown bank and Szell had the key to it so what was he so worried about since his brother Klaus had no trouble at all going in and out of the bank with the diamonds, as we've seen in the beginning of the movie which Klaus must have been doing for years. Szell walking all over the streets of NYC without a care in the world why would't he be safe when he goes in and out in just this one bank with his henchmen, one who has a limp, there protecting him? Klaus when he was alive also could have sent them, the diamonds, registered mail back to Szell in South America if he was so worried about them being lost or stolen. Why now was Szell who seemed to have no fear or trouble at all in murdering a number of people, one on a crowed midtown street in broad daylight, so paranoid about? It turns out that Szell is somehow connected with this super-secretive US government agency who's protecting him from the law for services rendered. So why can't they take care of Szell's problems, whatever they are! They've been doing it since the end of WWII and it seems that the diamonds is what that agency is paying Szell for his services. Later in the movie Szell goes to, of all places, the midtown diamond district on West 47th St to see what diamonds are selling on the open market! Why on earth does Szell have to go to the diamond district in midtown Manhattan to get an evaluation of how much diamonds are worth? Wasn't Szell informed enough, being involved with diamonds for years, to know this for himself? and why does he go to the diamond district in midtown Manhattan to get an evaluation where it seems that everybody there is a survivor from the concentration camp that Szell brutally ran during WWII and where he'd be immediately recognized! On top of all that crazy Szell acts toward those people there as if he was still running a concentration camp and that they were still his prisoners? The movie is so confusing with a convoluted love story between Babe, Dustin Hoffman, and the mysterious Columbia Collage student Helga, Marthe Keller, added in that almost half way through the film. I think that the director, John Schlesinger, had to put in a scene in where William Devane who plays Jeneway, also a member of this super-secretive government agency, who like Simon Okland in the movie "Psycho" after he "saved" Babe from Szell's henchmen starts talking into the camera. Jeneway looks as if he were addressing the movie audience as he tells Babe everything about Szell and his brother Doc,Roy Scheider, who also works for the agency, who also works with Szell. There's also the diamonds that Szell has hidden in a bank safe deposit box in a mid-town Manhattan bank and the Nazis and the super-secretive agency and and blab blab blab in order so that those of us, still awake and watching, can get just some idea of what the heck is going on in the movie! Just who the hell is this guy Jenaway anyway and who's he working for in the first place? Szell? the CIA? the KBG? the Brooklyn Dodgers? Well anyway getting back to more important things in "Marathon Man". One of my favorite and most exciting moments in the film is when Babe escapes from Szell clutches and tooth drilling equipment and is being chased all over NYC by Szell's boys. Beaten bloodied dirty after being brutally tortured and without having slept for what seemed like days and only dressed in pajama bottoms Babe flags down a cab by the Brooklyn Bridge getting away from Szell's gang. Babe then goes all the way uptown to his apartment in Washington Heights a good ten miles or so. You would think that the cabbie would know enough not to pick up someone looking like an escapee from a mental institution, for that's just what Babe looked like. Not only can he be dangerous but just looking at his style of dress it's obvious that he doesn't have any money to pay for the long and expensive taxi ride. Not only does the cabbie pick Babe up but instead of driving Babe to the nearest hospital or police station to get help, due to the condition that he's in, he drives all the way up-town with Babe half-naked and out cold in the back seat. The cab driver is then surprised when he reaches his destination that Babe doesn't have any cash to pay for the fare? It must have been the cab drivers first day on the job. Yet for some strange reason it turned out that the Szell gang who had Babe in their grip and were torturing him forgot to take an expensive watch that Babe was wearing! Babe pays the car fare by giving the cabbie the watch instead of cash, it turned out to be the cabbies lucky day.
Review of Marathon Man
