It's almost impossible, I find, not to bracket this movie along with Kubrick's "Spartacus". Both were big-budget epics (although of very different types), made in the same year and were massive commercial hits. They were made by two auteur-ish directors, dealt with the subject of freedom and were each well over three hours in length. Most significantly of course, in terms of Hollywood history, was probably that the screenplay for both was written by and for the first time in several years honestly credited to the formerly blacklisted writer Dalton Trumbo, indeed there's some dispute about who came up with the idea of so breaking the feared Blacklist first, Kirk Douglas or Otto Preminger.
What I can't do however is bracket them together in terms of cinematic entertainment. "Spartacus", which I rewatched recently, is one of my all-time favourite movies and its three hours running time just flew by whereas I struggled to stay interested all the way through "Exodus". The story itself is obviously of interest to modern historians and is quite obviously slanted in favour of the Jewish freedom fighters of the immediate post war period striving to create a homeland for their persecuted countrymen and women as they were promised a land of their own by the British government's important Balfour Declaration of 1917. To force the occupying British forces to finally sit up and take notice, a group of Jewish protestors commandeered an old boat, renamed it "Exodus" and in a daring move sprung several hundred detainees, got them into the boat and sailed for Palestine, there to claim their territorial heritage as some sort of reparation for the holocaust they as a race had suffered at the hands of the Nazis in World War 2.
After they force the British Government's hand by staging a hunger strike on board the boat and so win their permission to settle in Palestine, backed by an official United Nations vote, they next have to contend with the mobilised Arab forces and in particular the supporters of the Palestinians already in situ on the designated area of land. The film ends with this same band of Jewish Resistance going forward into battle against the opposing Arab forces ranged against them after daringly evacuating their children away to safety from the camp through the night.
The Jewish lobby in America reportedly got a massive boost from the success of this movie. It can't be coincidence that the film features prominently an American woman who goes over to the Jewish cause, after initially only wanting to rescue one of their number, a young teenage girl to whom she's taken a shine, falling in love with the movement's leader in the process.
However I found the two romances dreamed up for inclusion (the young girl herself falls for a youthful combatant) to be sentimental distractions from the main drama. Obviously these were inserted as sops to movie viewers' traditional expectations. I also found the action to be slow and lacking in dynamism. More action and less speechifying would certainly have piqued my interest more. That's not to say there aren't moving moments, particularly the death by hanging of the Arab leader sympathetic, up to a point, to the Jewish position, but otherwise the viewer has to soak up a lot of political cant earnestly and lengthily debated along the way. For the key scene of the Jewish political prisoners break-out, director Preminger stretches out the scene interminably by showing the transmission of what seems like countless secret messages and signs in the build-up to the attempt.
I didn't get much from the acting either. Paul Newman here lacks the conviction, not to say charisma of the most obvious comparison Douglas as the rebellion leader and Eva Marie Saint can't elevate her character above cipher status. Of the rest of the large cast, I'd only give pass marks to the reliable Ralph Richardson as the sympathetic British Army officer we meet at the detainment centre in Cyprus at the start of the feature.
I have enjoyed a number of Preminger films of late but not this one. There's little imagination in the cinematography and really he could and should have cut the word-count and by implication the viewing-time considerably even as I appreciate it was based on the weighty novel of the same name.
This was one Exodus I'm afraid which led me to a state of boredom.
What I can't do however is bracket them together in terms of cinematic entertainment. "Spartacus", which I rewatched recently, is one of my all-time favourite movies and its three hours running time just flew by whereas I struggled to stay interested all the way through "Exodus". The story itself is obviously of interest to modern historians and is quite obviously slanted in favour of the Jewish freedom fighters of the immediate post war period striving to create a homeland for their persecuted countrymen and women as they were promised a land of their own by the British government's important Balfour Declaration of 1917. To force the occupying British forces to finally sit up and take notice, a group of Jewish protestors commandeered an old boat, renamed it "Exodus" and in a daring move sprung several hundred detainees, got them into the boat and sailed for Palestine, there to claim their territorial heritage as some sort of reparation for the holocaust they as a race had suffered at the hands of the Nazis in World War 2.
After they force the British Government's hand by staging a hunger strike on board the boat and so win their permission to settle in Palestine, backed by an official United Nations vote, they next have to contend with the mobilised Arab forces and in particular the supporters of the Palestinians already in situ on the designated area of land. The film ends with this same band of Jewish Resistance going forward into battle against the opposing Arab forces ranged against them after daringly evacuating their children away to safety from the camp through the night.
The Jewish lobby in America reportedly got a massive boost from the success of this movie. It can't be coincidence that the film features prominently an American woman who goes over to the Jewish cause, after initially only wanting to rescue one of their number, a young teenage girl to whom she's taken a shine, falling in love with the movement's leader in the process.
However I found the two romances dreamed up for inclusion (the young girl herself falls for a youthful combatant) to be sentimental distractions from the main drama. Obviously these were inserted as sops to movie viewers' traditional expectations. I also found the action to be slow and lacking in dynamism. More action and less speechifying would certainly have piqued my interest more. That's not to say there aren't moving moments, particularly the death by hanging of the Arab leader sympathetic, up to a point, to the Jewish position, but otherwise the viewer has to soak up a lot of political cant earnestly and lengthily debated along the way. For the key scene of the Jewish political prisoners break-out, director Preminger stretches out the scene interminably by showing the transmission of what seems like countless secret messages and signs in the build-up to the attempt.
I didn't get much from the acting either. Paul Newman here lacks the conviction, not to say charisma of the most obvious comparison Douglas as the rebellion leader and Eva Marie Saint can't elevate her character above cipher status. Of the rest of the large cast, I'd only give pass marks to the reliable Ralph Richardson as the sympathetic British Army officer we meet at the detainment centre in Cyprus at the start of the feature.
I have enjoyed a number of Preminger films of late but not this one. There's little imagination in the cinematography and really he could and should have cut the word-count and by implication the viewing-time considerably even as I appreciate it was based on the weighty novel of the same name.
This was one Exodus I'm afraid which led me to a state of boredom.