The Boys from Brazil (1976)Suffice it to say, a young American who had wanted to work for famed Nazi-hunter Yakov Liebermann (think Simon Wiesenthal), but been turned down, uncovers a plot to establish a Fourth Reich. Spying on a meeting of escaped war criminals in Brazil he learns that they plan to kill 90-some odd seemingly random and rather nondescript middle-aged men. He manages to call Liebermann and reveal the scheme before he is murdered. Initially dubious, Liebermann begins to chart a series of mysterious deaths that match the template and sets off on his own investigation. It leads to one of Hitler’s most notorious henchmen, Dr. Josef Mengele, Auschwitz’s “Angel of Death”, who performed diabolical medical experiments on concentration camp prisoners and personally participated in the genocide. The real life Mengele was, indeed, hunted by Wiesenthal and died in Brazil a few years after the book was published. Mengele’s plan is the selling point of the story and, while it seemed somewhat improbable at the time, it is far less so today. The book is worth seeking out, for the first time reader, or rediscovering for us older folk. The film version isn’t great, as I recall, but is at least mediocre and does feature Laurence Olivier and Gregory Peck in the two starring roles. Olivier, who essentially played the Mengele role in Marathon Man, here gets to be the hunter, instead of the hunted, and Peck gets a rare turn as the villain. (It looks like it is, or was, streaming on Peacock) (Reviewed:) Grade: (B+) Tweet Websites:-WIKIPEDIA: Ira Levin -FILMOGRAPHY: Ira Levin (IMDB) -AUTHOR SITE: Welcome to IraLevin.org: The official website of Author Ira Levin -ENTRY: Ira Levin American author (Encyclopaedia Britannica) -ENTRY: Levin, Ira 1929- (Encyclopedia.com) -ENTRY: Ira Levin (Internet Brooadway Database) -ENTRY: Ira Levin (Good Reads) -ENTRY: Ira Levin (Internet Speculative Fiction Database) -ENTRY: Ira Levin (Fantastic Fiction) -ENTRY: Ira Levin (Worlds Without End) -ENTRY: Ira Levin (TV Tropes) -INDEX: Ira Levin (Crime Reads) -INDEX: Ira Levin (NY Times) -WIKIPEDIA: The Boys from Brazil -VIDEO INDEX” “ira levin” (YouTube) -INDEX: Ira Levin (Internet Archive) -INDEX: Rosemary’s Baby (The Guardian) - - - -OBIT: Ira Levin: US writer best known for Rosemary's Baby, The Stepford Wives and The Boys from Brazil (Christopher Hawtree, 15 Nov 2007, The Guardian) -OBIT: Ira Levin, 78; his novels include ‘Rosemary’s Baby,’ ‘Stepford Wives’ (Jon Thurber, Nov. 14, 2007, LA Times) -OBIT: Ira Levin, of ‘Rosemary’s Baby,’ Dies at 78 (Margalit Fox, Nov. 14, 2007, NY Times) -OBIT: Ira Levin (The Telegraph, 11/15/07) -OBIT: Ira Levin, Author of Hit Mystery Play Deathtrap, Dies at 78: Ira Levin, whose five-character mystery thriller Deathtrap was one of the biggest hits in Broadway history and the last major example of its once-bountiful genre, died Nov. 12 of a fatal heart attack in his Manhattan apartment. He was 78. (Robert Simonson, November 13, 2007, Playbill) - - -RADIO ADAPTATION: The Boys from Brazil (2011) by Ira Levin (read by Alex Jennings, Mysterious Magpie) -VIDEO: "Deathtrap" (Bickford Theater, 1998) (The Bickford Theater of Morristown, NJ's production of "Deathtrap", October 1998, written by Ira Levin) -ESSAY: “Stuck with Satan”: Ira Levin on the Origins of Rosemary’s Baby: afterword to the 2003 New American Library edition of the novel Rosemary’s Baby (Ira Levin, Nov 5, 2012, Criterion) - - -ESSAY: The Freudian Gothic Fiction of Ira Levin: "Behind the terse style, there is a poetry to the ironies of Levin’s plots, and there is a brutality that emerges from his intricate imagination." (James Reich, 9/15/23, Crime Reads) -ESSAY: The Banality of Evil: Rosemary’s Baby, the Miniseries (Kelsey Osgood, American Reader) -ESSAY: Ira Levin and This Perfect Day (Jeff Riggenbach, 12/03/10, Mises Daily) -INTERVIEW: An Interview With Ira Levin’s Son As ‘The Boys From Brazil’ Turns 48 (Josh Weiss, Forbes) -PODCAST: Ira Levin explained with Professor Hamamoto & Kirby Sommers (Kirby Sommers, Mar 6, 2022, Epstein Project) -ESSAY: Ira Levin: A Male Author Who Perfectly Captured the Horrors of Womanhood (Ghoul Digest, July 18, 2023) -ESSAY: THE OPEN BOOK ON IRA LEVIN (Michael Carlson, 17 August 2011, Irresistible Targets) -ESSAY: The moment(s) when I realised Ira Levin was a genius (Tom Trott, Jul 28, 2021, Medium) -ESSAY: The Novels of Ira Levin (Andrew Cartmel, 8/26/18, Narrative Drive) -ESSAY: Get Out's paranoid godfather: why Stepford Wives author Ira Levin still gives us nightmares (Tim Robey, 18 March 2017, Telegraph) -INTERVIEW: Writers Talking Writers: Chuck Palahniuk on Ira Levin and Claire Dederer on Laurie Colwin (Nick Hilden, Nov 03, 2023, Publishers Weekly) -ESSAY: 10 Books That Are Far Scarier Than Their Movie Adaptation (Brad LaCour, Dec 21, 2024, Collider) - - - - - - - -REVIEW INDEX: Ira Levin (Kirkus) - - - -REVIEW: of The Boys from Brazil by Ira Levin (Sophia Martelli, The Guardian) -REVIEW: of The Boys from Brazil (Gene Lyons, NY Times) -REVIEW: of The Boys from Brazil (Jabberwock) -REVIEW: of The Boys from Brazil (Madelyn Truitt, eNotes) -REVIEW: of The Boys from Brazil (746 Books) -REVIEW: of The Boys from Brazil (Kirkus) -REVIEW: of The Boys from Brazil (Speesh Reads) -REVIEW: of The Boys from Brazil (Eric Lee) -REVIEW: of The Boys from Brazil (Grace Kim, Embryo Project Encyclopedia) -REVIEW: of The Boys from Brazil (Existential Ennui) -REVIEW: of The Boys from Brazil (Casey Jaywork) -REVIEW: of The Boys from Brazil (Yggdrasille) -REVIEW: of The Boys from Brazil (Story Graph) -REVIEW: of The Boys from Brazil (Jessica’s Reading Room) -REVIEW: of The Boys from Brazil (retroculturati) -REVIEW: of The Boys from Brazil (Jonathan Lewis, Mystery File) -REVIEW: of The Boys from Brazil (Watercolor Stain) -REVIEW: of The Boys from Brazil (Too Many Posts) -REVIEW: of The Boys from Brazil (Triumph of the Now) -REVIEW: of The Boys from Brazil (BookBag) -REVIEW: of The Boys from Brazil (Pajiba) -REVIEW: of The Boys from Brazil (Super Summary) -REVIEW: of The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin (NY Times) -REVIEW: of The Stepford Wives (The Literary Lioness) -REVIEW: of The Stepford Wives ( -REVIEW: of This Perfect Day by Ira Levin (Thomas J. Fleming, NY Times) -REVIEW: of This Perfect Day by Ira Levin ( -REVIEW: of Sliver by Ira Levin (Kirkus) -REVIEW: of Sliver (Publishers Weekly) -REVIEW: of Sliver () -REVIEW: of Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin (Kirkus) -REVIEW: of Rosemary’s Baby (Publishers Weekly) -REVIEW: of -REVIEW: of FILM: -FILMOGRAPHY: Ira Levin (IMDB) -FILMOGRAPHY: The Boys From Brazil (1978) -FILMOGRAPHY: Franklin J. Schaefer (IMDB) -WIKIPEDIA: The Boys from Brazil (film) -FILMOGRAPHY: The Boys from Brazil (Metacritic) -FILMOGRAPHY: The Boys from Brazil (Rotten Tomatoes) -ENTRY: Rosemary’s Baby (Letterboxd) -ENTRY: The Boys from Brazil (Letterboxd) - -ESSAY: The Most Cursed Hit Movie Ever Made: Rosemary’s Baby was a hit novel that became an iconic film, only to bring woe to nearly everyone who made it. (Vanity Fair, June 1, 2017) -ESSAY: A Near-Perfect Rotten Tomatoes Horror Flick Is Back on Streaming (Britta DeVore, Jan 12, 2025, Collider) - - - - - - -FILM REVIEW: The Boys from Brazil (Pauline Kael, The New Yorker) -FILM REVIEW: Boys from Brazil (Gary Arnold, Washington Post) -FILM REVIEW: -FILM REVIEW: -FILM REVIEW: -FILM REVIEW: -FILM REVIEW: -FILM REVIEW: -FILM REVIEW: -FILM REVIEW: -FILM REVIEW: -FILM REVIEW: -FILM REVIEW: -FILM REVIEW: -FILM REVIEW: -FILM REVIEW: -FILM REVIEW: -FILM REVIEW: -FILM REVIEW: The Stepford Wives (AO Scott, NY Times) -FILM REVIEW: The Stepford Wives turns 50: Sure, the film has its flaws and feels a bit dated, but its lasting cultural influence is undeniable. (Jennifer Ouellette – Feb 23, 2025, ars Technica) -FILM REVIEW: -FILM REVIEW: -FILM REVIEW: -FILM REVIEW: -FILM REVIEW: -FILM REVIEW: -FILM REVIEW: -FILM REVIEW: -FILM REVIEW: A Kiss Before Dying (Vincent Canby, NY Times) -FILM REVIEW: -FILM REVIEW: Book-related and General Links: |
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