Last Embrace
| Last Embrace | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster
|
|
| Directed by | Jonathan Demme |
| Produced by |
Michael Taylor Dan Wigutow |
| Screenplay by | David Shaber |
| Based on |
The 13th Man (novel) by Murray Teigh Bloom |
| Starring |
Roy Scheider Janet Margolin |
| Music by | Miklós Rózsa |
| Cinematography | Tak Fujimoto |
| Edited by | Barry Malkin |
| Distributed by | United Artists |
|
Release date
|
|
|
Running time
|
102 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $1,537,125 |
Last Embrace is a 1979 thriller film directed by Jonathan Demme. Based on the novel The 13th Man by Murray Teigh Bloom, it stars Roy Scheider, Janet Margolin and Christopher Walken, telling the story of a woman who takes the role similar to the biblical avenger Goel and killing the descendants of the Lower East Side Zwi Migdal, who enslaved her grandmother.
In a Mexican cantina across the border from El Paso, government agent Harry Hannan is with his wife, when he spots an informant he is supposed to meet in a few days. Realizing he is about to be attacked, he shoves his wife to the ground and starts shooting at the informant's companions who return fire and flee the restaurant. Harry's wife dies in the attack, and he suffers a nervous breakdown. He spends 161 days in a Connecticut sanitarium before being released.
On his way back to New York City, Harry stumbles and nearly falls into the path of an express train. He goes to the makeup counter at Macy's to retrieve his next assignment, but the assignment slip inside the lipstick case is blank. He accosts his contact who assures him that the agency probably does not have any work for him.
When Harry returns to his apartment, he finds it is occupied by a doctoral student named Ellie Fabian. She explains that she had a sublet arranged while she was in the last semester of her studies at Princeton University. Ellie claims that the housing office said the Hannans would be gone indefinitely. She gives Harry a note that was slipped under the door, but it contains only a few Hebrew characters that he cannot read.
Paranoid that he is being targeted by his own agency, Harry visits his supervisor Eckart, who assures Harry that the agency has higher priorities. Eckart insists that Harry is not ready to return to the field, but that he is perfectly safe. Harry notices that he is being surveilled, loses the tail and goes to the American Museum of Natural History, where Ellie is.
...
Wikipedia