Exodus (1960)

I love the theme music for this film and, with such powerful subject material, I expected an epic. I was sorely disappointed. Opinions of the film often seem to depend on the extent to which the reviewer sympathises with the politics as portrayed. However, setting politics aside, this is a really bad film, condemned to death by wooden acting, stilted dialog and poor direction. When 'Karen' unexpectedly dies near the end, I was convinced it was because someone couldn't stand any more of her terrible acting! Even worthies such as Newman and Richardson seem to struggle with the lines they've been given. Newman's speech at Karen's burial is cringe-worthy, and he looks embarrassed to be making it. Even the magnificent theme music is largely wasted, played at apparently arbitrary points during the film including, for example, Newman catching a bus. This film is not the epic it could have been, it's not even average.

This is so disappointing! I cannot even go into the many ways this film was a letdown after reading the book. It really should not have had the same title as the book, because people who saw this movie who had not read the book would think they know what is in the book, and they would be wrong.To be fair, this book is much too epic to have possibly be put into a 2-hour film. It would need something on the order of 6 or even 12 hours in a miniseries. All that said, Uris was not a true historian when it came to beefing up his book. It's a crying shame that otherwise good historical novels twist the truth just for the sake of their "product."One HUGE example is that in the book 300 children aged 7 to 13, most who had been in concentration camps all their lives, were the ONLY ones that were taken on the Olympus when the escape was made from the detainment camp to take them to Palestine. In the film it started out all ages -- and then the Jew in charge of the escape sending ALL children BACK to the detainment camp when the going got tough. And all I can say for certain is that in real life, the Brits sent the Jews who were on that ship back to Germany. The whole point (in the book and in real life) was that it was very well publicized worldwide, so that the international community cared -- for a short time, at least -- for the Jews, and this is significant and a factor in what happened on the world stage in relation to Israel.There is SO MUCH depth and flavor in the book that is NOT in this film. In addition, I don't have anything against Paul Newman, but he was not right for the part of Ari Ben Canaan. Oh sure, in this film (which is NOT like the book), he works as the romantic lead in the usual Hollywood style. For the purposes of Hollywood and the powers that were involved they even had him telling the Jews at a kibbutz to "always respect Allah" at the funeral of his old friend-turned-enemy, Taha. That is absurd. Sure, respect PERSONS (who may believe in Allah), but no self-respecting Jew would tell other Jews at a kibbutz in Israel to always respect Allah. One wonders whether this line was written out of ignorance or under political pressure. Even with the diversions from actual history in the book, it is very well worth reading. Uris put more in correctly than wrongly from what I can tell, and the flavor of the situation I believe was well written. The movie? Eh. I could have never seen it and I would really not have missed anything.

Exodus is a war film made produced and directed by Otto Preminger.It was based on the novel of the same title by Leon Uris.The film features an ensemble cast led by Paul Newman and Eva Marie Saint together with Ralph Richardson,Peter Lawford,Sal Mineo,Jill Haworth,Lee J. Cobb and John Derek.The screenplay was written by Dalton Trumbo.The screenplay is concerned with the emergence of Israel as an independent nation in 1947. Its first half focuses on the efforts of 611 holocaust survivors to defy the blockade of the occupying British government and sail to Palestine on the sea vessel Exodus. Ari Ben Canaan, a leader of the Hagannah, is willing to sacrifice his own life and the lives of the refugees rather than be turned back to war-ravaged Europe, but the British finally relent and allow the Exodus safe passage. Once this victory is assured, 30,000 more Jews, previously interned by the British, flood into the Holy Land.The film works best in all levels of drama and action.But as a reflection upon history, it is compromised by stereotypes, unpersuasive relationships, and a certain moral ambivalence about issues related to gaining Israeli independence. There are good and exciting sequences.Although it was watchable,the movie is quite too long for 220 minutes length.

Someone above wrote "That, and the events that the Six-Day War led to, have eroded the moral assurance that many of the main characters of "Exodus" espouse about Israel and its founding, and would eventually lead to the moral quagmire found 45 years later in Steven Spielberg's "Munich." Today, "Munich" is much closer to the grayness of who is right or wrong in the modern-day Middle East than the black-and-white assumptions that drive the characters of "Exodus" in 1947 -- or its creators in 1960."What a pile of duki.The only "moral quagmire" is the one espoused by moral -equivocating enablers of jihad who see Israel as part of their stumbling block in "deconstructing" the Judeo-Christian West.It's very simple. The Jews were there before the Arabs, BEFORE Islam, the Jews were dispersed, they ALWAYS looked to return, they returned, they offered to share, the UN offered to share, the Arabs were not interested in sharing, only in exterminating the Jews, as most of them are even today.Spielberg's Munich is a perfect example of a guilt-ridden, successful JINO film-maker operating under the Stockholm syndrome, making the the Mossad agents who take out the assassins from the Olympics appear as evil as the PLO killers.Here's a hot tip - there IS good and evil in this world, and if you can't see it, then pluck out your eyes and don't bore the rest of us with your insipid, Howard Zinn-inspired, Marxist film critiques.We need MORE movies like Exodus, not like Munich.