Marathon Man

A graduate history student is unwittingly caught in the middle of an international conspiracy involving stolen diamonds, an exiled Nazi war criminal, and a rogue government agent.

• Director: John Schlesinger
• Genre:Crime / Drama / Thriller
• Runtime:125 minutes

Cast

Dustin Hoffman : BabeLaurence Olivier: SzellRoy Scheider : DocWilliam Devane : JanewayMarthe Keller : Elsa

Thomas Levy (Dustin Hoffman), nicknamed “Babe” in the film, is a history Ph.D. candidate researching the same field as his father, who committed suicide after being investigated during the Joseph McCarthy era. Babe is also an avid runner, which lends the film its title. Babe’s brother, Henry (Roy Scheider), better known as “Doc”, poses as an oil company executive but in fact is a U.S. government agent working for an agency headed up by Director Peter Janeway (William Devane). Babe is not aware of his brother’s true occupation.

Doc is often supposedly out of the country on business for extended periods of time but comes to New York under the guise of a visit to Thomas. The brother of a Nazi war criminal possesses a safety deposit box key, but is killed in a traffic accident (after a seemingly humorous road rage altercation with a short tempered middle-aged Jewish American motorist). Doc suspects that the criminal, Dr. Christian Szell (Laurence Olivier) will be arriving to retrieve an extremely valuable diamond collection.

Babe enters into a relationship with a young woman named Elsa Opel, who claims to be from Switzerland. One night while out on a date Elsa and Babe are seemingly mugged in a park by two men dressed in suits. Some time later, Doc takes the couple to lunch, where he tricks Elsa into revealing that she has been lying to Babe about her background. Though Doc suspects she may have some connection to Szell, he tells Babe only that she is simply seeking an American husband so that she can become a U.S. citizen.

After Szell arrives in America, Doc meets him to tell the former Nazi he is not welcome in the country. Szell casually accepts the pronouncement, but then swiftly knives the spy, wounding him severely. Doc is able to make it back to his brother’s apartment, but collapses and dies in Babe’s arms without telling him anything. The police interrogate Babe for hours, until government agents led by Peter Janeway arrive. Babe is highly uncooperative with Janeway, who is trying to find out what Doc told Babe before he died. Janeway informs Babe of his brother’s career as a U.S. government agent. Babe insists that his brother did not tell him anything, but Janeway feels that Doc struggled all the way to Babe’s apartment to give him vital information of some kind. Read more