The Fixer

It is not often that cinema can do justice to a great novel. This one brings out the existential questions of the lead character Yakov Blok in an honest manner, true to the original. I think I would place the credit more with screenplaywriter Dalton Trumbo for this effort. He did not even change some of the key lines of the book. I wonder what Malamud would have thought of the script.

Frankenheimer needs praise in some sequences, the prison sequences and the seduction sequence--but what amuses me no end is why he chose to cast the three actresses who speak their lines with no care for even a semblance of being East European.

Alan Bates, Dirk Bogarde, Hugh Griffith, David Warner and Ian Holm are all good actors but Frankenheimer made no effort to make them speak like Russians or East Europeans. Bogarde is predictable in his role, but Alan Bates carried the film. He alone played his role with conviction. Maurice Jarre's music was good but not his best.

Like "Gandhi" this film will be remembered because of the subject, not because of its cinema. The true hero was not Bates, not Trumbo, not Frankenheimer--it was Malamud!

In 1969 while in Basic Training at Fort ORD, California our Company viewed this movie. Being 1969 and all that was happening at that time and as basic trainees, in an infantry company, 18 to 21 years of age, most destined for Vietnam, most had few things in our minds beyond our survival in the months to come. The strength, determination and courage in the face of oppression, constant disappointment and the insurmountable odds of survival unified all 120+ of us to a standing ovation of applause and cheering at the end. We all came from such different backgrounds, Watts, Oklahoma, East LA, Salt Lake City, Montana and Chicago. We were all of different ethnic backgrounds, Hispanic, Black, Irish, Catholic etc. None of us knew of Jewish life in Tzarist Russian. All felt a bond with "The Fixer", a victim of times, prejudice and "The System".

For many of us, the move, "The Fixer" did more than just occupy an afternoon away from military training. It connected us with a spirit, a humanness to deal with and hopefully survive adversity. To this day the other message I carry is that every act we do is a political statement. Even the act of being, "Apolitical" is a statement of politics.

A Great & Poignant Movie that should be included in everyones film experiences!

A real Oscar winning performance by Bates.Beats me why he didn't get it!The whole story portrays the times in Russia so well with anti- semitisem as a way to keep away attention from the failings of the Csar and his evil government. A unique actor who really feels his part as can be told by Bates eyes which reflect that his soul is part of what he his doing unlike todays mimik actors.

When people think of anti-Semitism, they usually think of Hitler's Third Reich. But equally as bad was czarist Russia. In "The Fixer", Yakov Bok (Alan Bates) is a Jewish man who leaves the Pale (the area in Eastern Europe to which Jews were relegated) to work for someone. When they discover that he is a Jew, they imprison him on a trumped-up charge. Specifically, government bureaucrat Grubeshov (Ian Holm) believes that Jews are downright untrustworthy.

The movie also shows how Yakov has to hide his background once he leaves the ghetto. In one scene, he is about to have sex with aristocrat Zinaida (Elizabeth Hartman), but he realizes that she will see that he is circumcised, and so he leaves.

We can clearly see how anti-Semitic feelings were alive and well long before Hitler came to power. It's always important to remember these kinds of things.

Alan Bates is one of the most sadly forgotten actors from the 60's and 70's. While he's been doing mostly stage work recently, many seem to have forgotten the extraordinary output that he had: Zorba the Greek, A Kind of Loving, Georgy Girl, Far From the Madding Crowd, An Unmarried Woman, Women in Love, Butley, and this.

His performance as Yakov Bok, a Jewish handyman wrongly accused of murder, is the the driving force behind Dalton Trumbo's adaption of Bernard Malamud's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. While John Frankenheimer's direction is rather clunky at times (a disappointment, seeing as he was coming off a good run with The Manchurian Candidate, Seven Days in May, and The Train), the length is about twenty minutes too long, and a few supporting characters remain under-developed, his gritty performance keeps The Fixer going. It's interesting to see Yakov go from being a non-religious Jew who agrees to work for an Anti-Sematic official for money to a political prisoner who will proclaim his innocence despite whatever torture is inflicted on him. As the brutality of the officials grows harsher, his religious feelings grow stronger, and Bates makes it believable from beginning to end.

Dirk Bogarde also does well as a lawyer who will defend Yakov at any cost (even though his character's intentions remain unclear), as does Ian Holm as an investigator who considers Jews to be inhuman criminals.

The Fixer had a brief run on video a few years ago, but I am not sure if it is still being circulated.