L'homme de Kiev

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.

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 great cast manages to save the film from unremarkable direction. Dalton Trumbo's script fits the long, winding tale of degradation into the confines of film quite well. Though the paranoia of the book is underplayed to the point you would miss that plot element entirely if you didn't read the book. The message of the book, that self-doubt and self-loathing cripples a person mostly cast aside in favor of a straight-forward prison tale and screed against bigotry. Luckily Trumbo preserved the line where Bok denies any sanctity in the act of mere suffering. So at least they didn't completely miss the point.

Also, the scene with the clergyman seems oddly out of character for a guy who is supposed to be confused and constantly on the verge of a mental breakdown.

I came home from work after working a 24 hour shift and turned on the TV to find something mindless to numb my brain (ready to do the same thing tomorrow), and turned on this film, I had to watch it to the end. The story is simple enough, its the tale of someone who is wrongly accused of a crime in order to satisfy someones higher political manifesto but there's an ageless quality to it. I'm not particularly clued up on films or politics, and certainly not a critic but I have to say that in these times of arrest without trial or evidence, this film strikes a chord. This film highlights some of the best and worst aspects inherent to human nature, a truly remarkable work.

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!