Vitals

Laurence Olivier as Dr. Christian Szell, escaped war criminal aka “Christopher Hess”

New York City, Fall 1975

Film: Marathon Man
Release Date: October 8, 1976
Director: John Schlesinger
Costume Credit: Robert De Mora

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

One of the defining paranoid thrillers of the ’70s, Marathon Man was released 50 years ago today on October 8, 1976 and has spent the subsequent half-century spreading as much positive PR for dentistry as Psycho did for showers.

Adapted by William Goldman from his novel of the same title, Marathon Man follows Columbia grad student “Babe” Levy (Dustin Hoffman), who falls teeth-first into a scheme involving escaped Nazi war criminal Christian Szell (Laurence Olivier) and his cache of diamonds obtained by trading the gold fillings he extracted from Holocaust victims. Babe’s unwitting involvement culminates in Szell’s famously gruesome orthodontic torture as the doctor attempts to learn where the diamonds have been hidden. Continue reading →