Murphy's War
| Murphy's War | |
|---|---|
Theatrical poster
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| Directed by | Peter Yates |
| Produced by | Michael Deeley |
| Screenplay by | Stirling Silliphant |
| Based on |
Murphy's War 1969 novel by Max Catto |
| Starring |
Peter O'Toole Siân Phillips Philippe Noiret Horst Janson |
| Music by |
John Barry Ken Thorne |
| Cinematography | Douglas Slocombe |
| Edited by |
John Glen Frank P. Keller |
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Production
company |
Hemdale
Michael Deeley-Peter Yates Films |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
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Release date
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Running time
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107 min. |
| Country | United Kingdom/United States |
| Language | English German |
| Budget | $5 million |
Murphy's War is an Eastmancolor 1971 Panavision war film starring Peter O'Toole and Siân Phillips. It was directed by Peter Yates, based on a novel by Max Catto. The cinematography was by Douglas Slocombe.
Murphy's War set in South America, in the backwaters of the global conflict, pits a stubborn, driven survivor of a sunken ship who seeks retribution for both himself and his fallen comrades. In a battle of wits with a German submarine commander, the survivor realizes he must make the ultimate sacrifice.
In the closing days of World War II, Irishman Murphy (Peter O'Toole) is the sole survivor of the crew of a merchant ship, Mount Kyle, which had been sunk by a German U-boat and the survivors machine-gunned in the water. Murphy makes it ashore (to a missionary settlement on the Orinoco in Venezuela) where he is treated by a pacifist Quaker doctor, Dr Hayden (Siân Phillips).
When he discovers the U-boat is hiding farther up river, under the cover of the jungle, he sets about obsessively plotting to sink it by any means, including using a surviving Grumman J2F Duck floatplane from the Mount Kyle. The floatplane had been recovered, the wounded pilot later being shot dead in his hospital bed by the U-boat captain, in order to preserve the secret of the sub's location and, presumably, its action in shooting survivors in the water.
Murphy learns how to fly the aircraft in the most daring way, getting it out on the choppy waters of the river and discovering how the controls work by trial and error. Murphy soon finds the U-boat's hiding place and attempts to bomb it using home-made Molotov cocktail bombs, which fails. Meanwhile, word has come that Germany has surrendered, but Murphy is obsessed with revenge and makes plans to ram the U-boat with a floating crane owned by the friendly Frenchman Louis (Philippe Noiret). This also fails as the U-boat dives under him. However, the submerged U-boat becomes stuck in a mud bank. Murphy uses the crane to recover an unexploded torpedo fired earlier from the U-boat and drops it on the trapped crew, killing them. Murphy is also killed, as the explosion from the torpedo causes the crane jib to pin him to the deck as the floating crane sinks to the river bed.
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Wikipedia