La guerre de Murphy

In scanning through these reviews, I'm very pleased to see that this movie is well liked by many people.

I saw it first around the time it came out and even though I was only eleven or twelve, many things about this movie left an impression on me: the sunny, tropical locations, the excellent cast and the impeccable performances.

The very last scene where Murphy is literally consumed by his own revenge is at least as memorable and disturbing as the last scene in The Planet of the Apes (60's version) and drives home the whole point of the movie as perfectly as I've ever seen it done.

See it! You won't be disappointed.

Crusty Irish Seaman (ooooh that just sounds wrong!) Peter O'Toole swears vengeance upon the nasty German U-boat that sank his ship. Not only that, but the heartless Huns machine-gunned O'Toole and the rest of the survivors as they bobbed helplessly in the ocean. So, like the deranged captain Ahab in Moby Dick, he devotes his considerable energies to tracking down that submarine and sinking it.

I saw this on TV back in the early eighties. Now, as an adult I see the resemblance to Moby Dick and I enjoy this movie even more. Anyone who likes Peter O'Toole should see Murphy's War. The location shooting is beautiful. The flying sequences are breathtaking. And the downbeat anti-war ending is awesome.

MURPHY'S WAR… Peter O'Toole…Director Peter Yates… Central Casting sent Jerry Floyd, Nick (the bubble) and myself down to Portsmouth or Southampton (cant remember which) to play German U Boat crew. We'd be there for a couple of days and stay in a local B/B over night. When we get called onto the set we go below decks on a British submarine that is decked out like a second world war German U Boat. Now it seems in the film the U Boat has run aground on a sand bank on an inlet river in South America and is waiting for the tide to turn so it can re-float. Meanwhile Peter O'Toole is trying to chop a very large tree down and put it across our Sub. (Thus, causing us some discomfort.) (Got the plot so far, he's dropping trees, and I'm in the basement..) A cute make up girl asks me to strip to the waist (and I think, from the shoes up, what no flowers? We've only just met) but she has to put make up on my face and body to make me look tanned as if I was in South America. Bert Batt the 1st A.D. took us all to see the Director Peter Yates (of Bullitt fame) and I was chosen to be the blue eyed German working the controls of the Sub.. After a few different angles the make up girl applies sweat to my hair and face. The camera is stuck an inch from my nose. (Now we are talking about close ups here. My face plastered sixty foot by eighty foot at the Odeon Marble Arch. She could have saved on the sweat, I was sweating for England.) Peter was guiding me through the shots. ''Imagine you can hear a noise above you. Now imagine there's a noise to your left, now to your right. Don't move your head Back too far, we're close on your eyes.'' Then it was ''CUT, see you in the morning Eight O clock.. Thanks Harry that was good''. Well that was good for me too. It took me hours to come down. Me, Jerry and Nick went out on the town and got very drunk. (Well it makes a change)? The next day I'm back at the controls of the Sub and I'm thinking is it to be another starring role. Peter tells us today's the day the Sub gets hit and there could be a drop of water splashing around. First scene control room…I'm standing at the controls and Peter talks me through it. ''Now concentrate on the controls Harry and keep looking about. It seems the tide is coming in and you're going to be all right. Now give a huge sigh of relief. It's very quiet now but suddenly, !!!!! CRASH !!!!. That's the cue for the Prop men to sling big buckets of freezing cold water over me. ''You're panicking now Harry (He's got good eyesight) More water on him and CUT. I spent most of the rest of the day sitting on the Sub deck enjoying the warm sun while the Stuntmen got their share of the water. We shot some other stuff in one of the cabins drinking beers then it was time to head off back to London. Thanks Mr. Yates. (You must remember in the film game that all the shots don't make it to the big screen, a lot end up on the cutting room floor

Two World War was just ending , a German submarine , U-Boat , commanded by a captain called Lauchs (Horst Janson) sinks an English ship and gun down most of its crew . Then , a sole survivor of the ship , the revenge-minded Murphy (Peter O'Toole) carries on his own war , no matter what the cost to himself . The Irishman survives and returns to health thanks to a nurse named Hayden (Sian Phillips , real-life O'Toole's wife) . Murphy's war is about to begin from a settlement on the banks of the Orinoco River .

Thrilling and exciting screenplay concerning about an obsessive seaman with an eagerly determination to seek vendetta on the Germans , even after he learns the war has ended . Interesting and moving script by prestigious Sterling Silliphant , saddling some nice action scenes at the ending , when it takes place a relentless pursuit between a boat and the sub , specially in the last reel . Sensational acting by Peter O'Toole as the lone survivor from a British naval ship who seeks revenge when his ship is sunk by the Germans and gunned down most of its crew . However , his extreme obsession with desire for vengeance upon the Germans isn't believable , but the moments that click make the movie more than worthwhile . This character about an avenger who seeks revenge on those who killed his crewmates bears remarkable resemblance to ¨Moby Dick's Captain Ahab¨ by Herman Melville . Other important players are : Philippe Noiret as his supporter and sympathetic helper gives a mesmerizing acting , Siân Phillips as a good-tempered nurse and Horst Janson as a captain who massacred the Allied shipmates in the water .

Magnificent color cinematography on tropical places by Douglas Slocombe . Adequate as well as stirring musical score by John Barry . The motion picture was compellingly made by Peter Yates and splendidly edited by film editor John Glen , subsequently director of James Bond movies . Never a prolific director, Peter Yates subsequently made only a few more films . His best films include the stylish and ingenious caper comedy Hot Rock (1972); the underwater adventure Deep (1977), based on the novel and screenplay by Peter Benchley ; and the quirky coming-of-age comedy Breaking away (1979). For the latter, Yates received simultaneous Oscar nominations as Best Director and Best Producer and the enjoyably old-fashioned comedy Curtain call (1998), starring Michael Caine and Maggie Smith as a couple of theatrical ghosts . He was nominated again for a more cerebral 'actor's piece', The dresser (1983), starring Albert Finney and Tom Courtenay , based on a play about an ageing stage actor and his long-standing assistant. It was followed by a flop titled Eleni (1985) with John Malkovich . Most memorable, perhaps, were the courtroom thriller Suspect (1987), and the political drama House de Carroll Street (1988) 2011 , following directing a few films until death in 2011 (age 81).

Originally to be directed by Burt Kennedy and starring Frank Sinatra, both of whom opted for 'Dirty Dingus Magee'(!) this loose adaptation of Max Catto's novel has been inherited by Peter Yates and features Peter O'Toole, his wife at the time Sian Phillips, highly respected French actor Philippe Noiret and a strangely cast Horst Janson.

By all accounts this proved to be a difficult shoot not least because of disagreements between the director and producer Michael Deeley which resulted in the break up of their professional partnership and one cannot but feel that the finished product is a far cry from screenwriter Stirling Silliphant's original concept. As an actress whose sporadic film appearances have never done justice to her talent, Miss Phillips does her best with an undeveloped, underwritten role whilst Janson's submarine commander who offers a wounded British officer a cigarette prior to murdering him in his hospital bed does not entirely ring true.

This is essentially a vehicle for charismatic Mr. O'Toole who has a particular talent for portraying madness in its various forms. Here his character resembles a maniacal Oirish version of Bogart's Charlie Allnut in 'The African Queen'. Murphy's gung-ho, obsessive desire for vengeance despite knowing that Germany has surrended ultimately renders his character unsympathetic but this may very well have been the makers' intention.

Beautifully shot in Venezuela by veteran Douglas Slocombe, the aerial sequences are stunning whilst many scenes prove more effective without a score. All-in-all a pretty good adventure yarn which for this viewer at any rate could have been so much more.

The ending, which differs considerably fom Catto's novel, calls to mind Gandhi's 'An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind'.