EXODUS (1960) C widescreen 212m dir: Otto Preminger

w/Paul Newman, Eva Marie Saint, Ralph Richardson, Peter Lawford, Lee J. Cobb, Sal Mineo, John Derek, Hugh Griffith, Gregory Ratoff, Felix Aylmer, David Opatoshu, Jill Haworth, Marius Goring, Alexandra Stewart, Michael Wager, Martin Benson, Paul Stevens, Betty Walker, Martin Miller, Victor Maddern, George Maharis, John Crawford, Shmuel Segal, Dahn Ben Amotz, Ralph Truman, Peter Madden, Joseph Furst, Paul Stassino, Michael Wynne, Mark Burns, Esther Ofarim, Zipora Peled, Philo Hauser, Max Slater

From The Movie Guide: "A stirring chronicle of Israel's struggle for independence in 1947, EXODUS focuses on Newman as Ben Canaan, the leader of the Haganah, whose affair with Kitty Freemont (Saint) is engulfed by the conflict. The film tackles the independence movement as a whole, dealing with various factions involved in the internecine struggle between the moderate Haganah and the radical terrorist Irgun. Interspersed throughout are segments showing the migration of European Jews to the new land, paying special attention to the ragged survivors of Nazi death camps on board the vessel Exodus, blockaded in a Cyprus harbor by British warships. The film also depicts the struggle of the Jews in Palestine to gain partition, then profiles the main characters after the partition, fighting to continue as the nation of Israel.

"Under the direction of Otto Preminger, EXODUS boasts strong performances and many memorable sequences including the bombing of the King David Hotel, the capture and subsequent rescue of the Irgun leaders, masterfully handled crowd scenes, and Canaan's moving final speech. Preminger is generally faithful to history and to Leon Uris's best-selling novel; Uris himself was dismissed as the film's screenwriter (Preminger thought he had no gift for screen dialogue), and the filmmakers were necessarily forced to abridge the story to make it cinematically feasible. Though the film is overlong, the story is movingly told, the production values are high, and Ernest Gold's Oscar-winning score is considered a classic."

From the Turner Classic Movies website (www.tcm.com), this 2003 article about the film by Deborah L. Johnson:

"Based on the best-selling novel by Leon Uris, Exodus (1960) focuses on the birth of Israel after World War II. It follows Ari Ben Canaan, an Israeli resistance leader as he tries to help a group of 600 Jewish immigrants escape British-blocked Cypress for Palestine.

"Otto Preminger, director of Exodus, was certainly no stranger to controversy and almost from the beginning his screen adaptation of the Leon Uris novel had its detractors. The first flare-up occurred when he decided to discard Uris's screenplay because Preminger claimed the author couldn't write dialogue. His remark ignited a feud between him and Uris for years. He then approached Albert Maltz, another blacklisted writer, to pen the screenplay but Maltz delivered a version that was 400 pages long. (The average screenplay runs 150 to 160 pages). Preminger then turned to another blacklisted writer, Dalton Trumbo, who was hired to write the screenplay for Exodus under his own name. About the same time, Kirk Douglas helped hire Trumbo to write Spartacus (1960). The reappearance of Trumbo's name in 1960 helped break the power of the blacklist.

"Trumbo, one of the famed 'Hollywood Ten,' was blacklisted for refusing to answer questions of the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1947. After serving a year sentence for contempt in 1950, Trumbo moved to Mexico and continued writing under pseudonyms. He received an Academy Award for his script for The Brave One (1956) under the name Robert Rich.

"Paul Newman described his experience filming Exodus as 'chilly.' Newman and director Otto Preminger had very different styles of work. Newman enjoyed discussing character motivations with his director, but Preminger only wanted actors to do what they were told. The two men got off to a rough start when Newman arrived with several pages of notes for the director. Preminger thought they were interesting, but replied, 'If you were directing the picture, you would use them. As I am directing the picture, I shan't use them.'

"The director's non-compromising nature was probably well suited to this particular production. There were arguments against the film by governing heads of Israel where it was shot on location, as well as leaders of terrorist groups, so Preminger had to face external pressure as well as criticism from within the production. In his autobiography Preminger, he said, 'I think that my picture ... is much closer to the truth, and to the historic facts, than is the book. It also avoids propaganda. It's an American picture, after all, that tries to tell the story, giving both sides a chance to plead their case.'

When Exodus was first released, a funny story circulated concerning comedian Mort Sahl. Supposedly, he stood up in the middle of a premiere screening of the film with Preminger present and shouted, 'Otto, let my people go' in reference to the interminable length of the film. Most critics, but not audiences, tended to agree with Sahl."

EXODUS was also nominated for Oscars for Best Supporting Actor (Mineo) and Cinematography (Sam Leavitt).