Lord Jim (1965 film)
Encyclopedia
Lord Jim is a 1965
adventure film
made by Columbia Pictures
. It was produced and directed by Richard Brooks
with Jules Buck
and Peter O'Toole
as associate producers, from a screenplay by Brooks. The film stars O'Toole, James Mason
, Curd Jürgens
, Eli Wallach
, Jack Hawkins
, Paul Lukas
, and Daliah Lavi
.
It is the second film adaptation of the 1900 novel of the same name
by Joseph Conrad
. The first was a silent film released in 1925
and directed by Victor Fleming
.
The film received two BAFTA
nominations, for best British art direction and best British cinematography
.
under Captain Marlow (Jack Hawkins). However, Jim is injured and left at Java. When he is fit again, he signs on with the first available ship, a dilapidated freighter
called the S.S. Patna, crammed with hundreds of Muslim
s on pilgrimage to Mecca
. When a storm threatens the leaking ship, the crew panics and takes to the lifeboats without a thought for their passengers; Jim in a moment of weakness joins them.
When they reach port, the sailors are stunned to find an intact Patna already there before them. The rest of the crew disappears, but Jim insists on confessing his guilt at an official enquiry and is stripped of his sailing papers. Filled with self-loathing, Jim becomes a drifter.
One day, he saves a boatload of gunpowder from sabotage. Stein (Paul Lukas), the cargo's owner, offers him an extremely dangerous job: transporting it and some rifles by river to distant Patusan to help Stein's old friend, the town's chief, lead an uprising against bandits led by the General (Eli Wallach).
When Schomberg (Akim Tamiroff) is bribed to deny Stein the use of the motorboat he had promised, Jim takes a sailboat with two native crewmen, leaving the aged Stein behind. As they near their destination, one of the crewmen reveals himself to be working for the General. He kills the other sailor then flees to warn the warlord. Jim manages to hide the cargo before he is captured.
Though tortured, he refuses to divulge the location. This surprises Cornelius (Curd Jürgens), the drunken, cowardly agent of Stein's trading company, who in fact obeys the General. That night, the Girl (Daliah Lavi) leads Jim's rescue.
Jim distributes the arms and plans the attack on the General's stockade. He is assisted by Waris (Juzo Itami), the chief's son. After much bloody fighting, Jim delivers the crushing blow, pushing a barrel of gunpowder through a hail of bullets into the bandits' final stronghold, blowing it up along with the General. Only Cornelius survives, hidden in a secret underground room with the General's loot.
Jim is hailed as a hero. One of the grateful natives bestows the title tuan on him. The Girl translates it as "Lord".
While Jim is content to live in Patusan with the Girl, Cornelius and Schomberg recruit notorious cutthroat "Gentleman" Duncan Brown (James Mason) and his men to steal the treasure. However, they are detected and cornered. Brown offers to leave peacefully, but no one, with one exception, trusts him. Jim insists they be allowed to go, going so far as to offer his own life as forfeit if anybody is killed as a result. However, under cover of heavy fog, Brown and his men make one last attempt at the treasure, killing a sentry and fatally wounding Waris, before Waris and Jim dispatch them.
Afterward, Stein pleads with his grieving old friend to spare Jim; the chief agrees not to hinder Jim's departure, but if he is still in Patusan the next day, there will be no mercy. Despite Stein's urgings, Jim refuses to desert again. In broad daylight, he calmly walks up to the chief as the people are lined up for Waris's funeral procession, cocks the rifle he brought and places it near the chief, then awaits his fate. The bodies of Jim and Waris are cremated
together.
Bosley Crowther
of the New York Times called Lord Jim a "big, gaudy, clanging color film" that "misses at being either Conrad or sheer entertainment cinema." Nor was he satisfied with O'Toole's performance, characterizing it as "so sullen, soggy and uncertain, especially toward the end, that it is difficult to find an area of recognizable sensitivity in which one can make contact with him." Variety
was equally critical, stating, "Brooks has teetered between making it a fullblooded, no-holds-barred adventure yarn and the fascinating psychological study that Conrad wrote." O'Toole's performance was described as "self-indulgent and lacking in real depth." The consensus was that Brooks, who did good dramas about people, didn't have what took to make a classic story. O'Toole, however, would later stand by the film: he said the role of Lord Jim was the finest role he ever did.
, England
, and on location in Angkor Wat
, Cambodia
, Lantau Island
, Hong Kong
and Malacca
, Malaysia. In a 1971 interview, O'Toole spoke of some of the difficulties of location filming:
It was photographed in Super Panavision 70
by Freddie Young
. The music score by Bronislaw Kaper
featured the use of gamelan
musicians. The crew and cast of the film was joined by Cambodian translator Dith Pran
, who was a liaison between Cambodians and the filmmakers and stars. Later he left the country after the 1975 Communist takeover and his own imprisonment, which were told in the 1984 film The Killing Fields
with Haing S. Ngor
as Pran.
1965 in film
The year 1965 in film involved some significant events, with The Sound of Music topping the U.S. box office.-Top grossing films : After theatrical re-issue- Awards :Academy Awards:...
adventure film
Adventure film
Adventure films are a genre of film.Unlike pure, low-budget action films they often use their action scenes preferably to display and explore exotic locations in an energetic way....
made by Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
. It was produced and directed by Richard Brooks
Richard Brooks
Richard Brooks was an American screenwriter, film director, novelist and occasional film producer.-Early life and career:...
with Jules Buck
Jules Buck
Jules Buck was an American producer of films. He was cameraman for John Huston's war documentaries and began producing as assistant to Mark Hellinger....
and Peter O'Toole
Peter O'Toole
Peter Seamus Lorcan O'Toole is an Irish actor of stage and screen. O'Toole achieved stardom in 1962 playing T. E. Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia, and then went on to become a highly-honoured film and stage actor. He has been nominated for eight Academy Awards, and holds the record for most...
as associate producers, from a screenplay by Brooks. The film stars O'Toole, James Mason
James Mason
James Neville Mason was an English actor who attained stardom in both British and American films. Mason remained a powerful figure in the industry throughout his career and was nominated for three Academy Awards as well as three Golden Globes .- Early life :Mason was born in Huddersfield, in the...
, Curd Jürgens
Curd Jürgens
Curd Gustav Andreas Gottlieb Franz Jürgens was a German-Austrian stage and film actor. He was usually billed in English-speaking films as Curt Jurgens.-Early life:...
, Eli Wallach
Eli Wallach
Eli Herschel Wallach is an American film, television and stage actor, who gained fame in the late 1950s. For his performance in Baby Doll he won a BAFTA Award for Best Newcomer and a Golden Globe nomination. One of his most famous roles is that of Tuco in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly...
, Jack Hawkins
Jack Hawkins
Colonel John Edward "Jack" Hawkins CBE was an English actor of the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s.-Career:Hawkins was born at Lyndhurst Road, Wood Green, Middlesex, the son of master builder Thomas George Hawkins and his wife, Phoebe née Goodman. The youngest of four children in a close-knit family,...
, Paul Lukas
Paul Lukas
Paul Lukas was an Austrian-Hungarian-born actor.-Biography:Born Pál Lukács in Budapest, he arrived in Hollywood in 1927 after a successful stage and film career in Hungary, Germany and Austria where he worked with Max Reinhardt. He made his stage debut in Budapest in 1916 and his film debut in 1917...
, and Daliah Lavi
Daliah Lavi
Daliah Lavi is an Israeli actress, singer and model.Born in Shavei Zion, British Mandate of Palestine, she studied ballet in Stockholm, Sweden, where she appeared in her first film Hemsöborna...
.
It is the second film adaptation of the 1900 novel of the same name
Lord Jim
Lord Jim is a novel by Joseph Conrad originally published as a serial in Blackwood's Magazine from October 1899 to November 1900.An early and primary event is Jim's abandonment of a ship in distress on which he is serving as a mate...
by Joseph Conrad
Joseph Conrad
Joseph Conrad was a Polish-born English novelist.Conrad is regarded as one of the great novelists in English, although he did not speak the language fluently until he was in his twenties...
. The first was a silent film released in 1925
Lord Jim (1925 film)
Lord Jim is a 1925 silent film starring Percy Marmont , Noah Beery, and Duke Kahanamoku. The movie was directed by Victor Fleming and based on the novel Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad. A print is preserved at the Library of Congress...
and directed by Victor Fleming
Victor Fleming
Victor Lonzo Fleming was an American film director, cinematographer, and producer. His most popular films were The Wizard of Oz , and Gone with the Wind , for which he won an Academy Award for Best Director.-Life and career:Fleming was born in La Canada, California, the son of Elizabeth Evaleen ...
.
The film received two BAFTA
British Academy of Film and Television Arts
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts is a charity in the United Kingdom that hosts annual awards shows for excellence in film, television, television craft, video games and forms of animation.-Introduction:...
nominations, for best British art direction and best British cinematography
Cinematography
Cinematography is the making of lighting and camera choices when recording photographic images for cinema. It is closely related to the art of still photography...
.
Plot
Jim (Peter O'Toole) is a promising young English merchant seaman who rises to first officerChief Mate
A Chief Mate or Chief Officer, usually also synonymous with the First Mate or First Officer , is a licensed member and head of the deck department of a merchant ship...
under Captain Marlow (Jack Hawkins). However, Jim is injured and left at Java. When he is fit again, he signs on with the first available ship, a dilapidated freighter
Cargo ship
A cargo ship or freighter is any sort of ship or vessel that carries cargo, goods, and materials from one port to another. Thousands of cargo carriers ply the world's seas and oceans each year; they handle the bulk of international trade...
called the S.S. Patna, crammed with hundreds of Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
s on pilgrimage to Mecca
Hajj
The Hajj is the pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia. It is one of the largest pilgrimages in the world, and is the fifth pillar of Islam, a religious duty that must be carried out at least once in their lifetime by every able-bodied Muslim who can afford to do so...
. When a storm threatens the leaking ship, the crew panics and takes to the lifeboats without a thought for their passengers; Jim in a moment of weakness joins them.
When they reach port, the sailors are stunned to find an intact Patna already there before them. The rest of the crew disappears, but Jim insists on confessing his guilt at an official enquiry and is stripped of his sailing papers. Filled with self-loathing, Jim becomes a drifter.
One day, he saves a boatload of gunpowder from sabotage. Stein (Paul Lukas), the cargo's owner, offers him an extremely dangerous job: transporting it and some rifles by river to distant Patusan to help Stein's old friend, the town's chief, lead an uprising against bandits led by the General (Eli Wallach).
When Schomberg (Akim Tamiroff) is bribed to deny Stein the use of the motorboat he had promised, Jim takes a sailboat with two native crewmen, leaving the aged Stein behind. As they near their destination, one of the crewmen reveals himself to be working for the General. He kills the other sailor then flees to warn the warlord. Jim manages to hide the cargo before he is captured.
Though tortured, he refuses to divulge the location. This surprises Cornelius (Curd Jürgens), the drunken, cowardly agent of Stein's trading company, who in fact obeys the General. That night, the Girl (Daliah Lavi) leads Jim's rescue.
Jim distributes the arms and plans the attack on the General's stockade. He is assisted by Waris (Juzo Itami), the chief's son. After much bloody fighting, Jim delivers the crushing blow, pushing a barrel of gunpowder through a hail of bullets into the bandits' final stronghold, blowing it up along with the General. Only Cornelius survives, hidden in a secret underground room with the General's loot.
Jim is hailed as a hero. One of the grateful natives bestows the title tuan on him. The Girl translates it as "Lord".
While Jim is content to live in Patusan with the Girl, Cornelius and Schomberg recruit notorious cutthroat "Gentleman" Duncan Brown (James Mason) and his men to steal the treasure. However, they are detected and cornered. Brown offers to leave peacefully, but no one, with one exception, trusts him. Jim insists they be allowed to go, going so far as to offer his own life as forfeit if anybody is killed as a result. However, under cover of heavy fog, Brown and his men make one last attempt at the treasure, killing a sentry and fatally wounding Waris, before Waris and Jim dispatch them.
Afterward, Stein pleads with his grieving old friend to spare Jim; the chief agrees not to hinder Jim's departure, but if he is still in Patusan the next day, there will be no mercy. Despite Stein's urgings, Jim refuses to desert again. In broad daylight, he calmly walks up to the chief as the people are lined up for Waris's funeral procession, cocks the rifle he brought and places it near the chief, then awaits his fate. The bodies of Jim and Waris are cremated
Cremation
Cremation is the process of reducing bodies to basic chemical compounds such as gasses and bone fragments. This is accomplished through high-temperature burning, vaporization and oxidation....
together.
Cast
- Peter O'ToolePeter O'ToolePeter Seamus Lorcan O'Toole is an Irish actor of stage and screen. O'Toole achieved stardom in 1962 playing T. E. Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia, and then went on to become a highly-honoured film and stage actor. He has been nominated for eight Academy Awards, and holds the record for most...
— Lord Jim - James MasonJames MasonJames Neville Mason was an English actor who attained stardom in both British and American films. Mason remained a powerful figure in the industry throughout his career and was nominated for three Academy Awards as well as three Golden Globes .- Early life :Mason was born in Huddersfield, in the...
— "Gentleman" Brown - Curd JürgensCurd JürgensCurd Gustav Andreas Gottlieb Franz Jürgens was a German-Austrian stage and film actor. He was usually billed in English-speaking films as Curt Jurgens.-Early life:...
— Cornelius - Eli WallachEli WallachEli Herschel Wallach is an American film, television and stage actor, who gained fame in the late 1950s. For his performance in Baby Doll he won a BAFTA Award for Best Newcomer and a Golden Globe nomination. One of his most famous roles is that of Tuco in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly...
— The General - Jack HawkinsJack HawkinsColonel John Edward "Jack" Hawkins CBE was an English actor of the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s.-Career:Hawkins was born at Lyndhurst Road, Wood Green, Middlesex, the son of master builder Thomas George Hawkins and his wife, Phoebe née Goodman. The youngest of four children in a close-knit family,...
— Marlow - Paul LukasPaul LukasPaul Lukas was an Austrian-Hungarian-born actor.-Biography:Born Pál Lukács in Budapest, he arrived in Hollywood in 1927 after a successful stage and film career in Hungary, Germany and Austria where he worked with Max Reinhardt. He made his stage debut in Budapest in 1916 and his film debut in 1917...
— Stein - Daliah LaviDaliah LaviDaliah Lavi is an Israeli actress, singer and model.Born in Shavei Zion, British Mandate of Palestine, she studied ballet in Stockholm, Sweden, where she appeared in her first film Hemsöborna...
— The Girl (Jewel) - Akim TamiroffAkim TamiroffAkim Mikhailovich Tamiroff was an Armenian actor. He won the first Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor.Tamiroff was born in Tiflis, Russian Empire , of Armenian ethnicity. He trained at the Moscow Art Theatre drama school. He arrived in the U.S. in 1923 on a tour with a troupe of actors...
— Schomberg - Juzo ItamiJuzo Itami, born , was an actor and a popular modern Japanese film director. Many critics came to regard him as Japan's greatest director since Akira Kurosawa. His 10 movies, all of which he wrote himself, are comic satires on elements of Japanese culture....
— Waris - Tatsuo Saito — Du-Ramin
- Andrew KeirAndrew KeirAndrew Keir was a Scottish actor, who rose to prominence featuring in a number of films from Hammer Film Productions in the 1960s. He was also active in television, and particularly in the theatre, in a professional career that lasted from the 1940s to the 1990s...
— Brierly, head of the Patna enquiry - Jack MacGowranJack MacGowranJohn Joseph "Jack" MacGowran was an Irish character actor, whose last film role was as the alcoholic director Burke Dennings in The Exorcist. He was probably best known for his work with Samuel Beckett.-Stage career:...
— Robinson, a Patna crewman - Eric YoungRic Young- Selected Filmography :- External links :...
— Malay - Noel PurcellNoel Purcell (actor)Noel Purcell was an Irish film and television actor.-Career:Purcell began his show business career at the age of 12 in Dublin's Gaiety Theatre. Later, he toured Ireland in a vaudeville act with Jimmy O'Dea....
— Captain Chester - Walter GotellWalter GotellWalter Gotell was a German actor, known for his role as General Gogol, head of the KGB, in the James Bond film series.Gotell was born in Bonn, Germany; his family emigrated to the United Kingdom after the Nazis came to power...
— Captain of Patna - Rafiq Anwar — Moslem Leader (as Rafik Anwar)
Reception
The film opened to bad reviews and to minimal box office returns.Bosley Crowther
Bosley Crowther
Bosley Crowther was a journalist and author who was film critic for The New York Times for 27 years. His reviews and articles helped shape the careers of actors, directors and screenwriters, though his reviews, at times, were unnecessarily mean...
of the New York Times called Lord Jim a "big, gaudy, clanging color film" that "misses at being either Conrad or sheer entertainment cinema." Nor was he satisfied with O'Toole's performance, characterizing it as "so sullen, soggy and uncertain, especially toward the end, that it is difficult to find an area of recognizable sensitivity in which one can make contact with him." Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
was equally critical, stating, "Brooks has teetered between making it a fullblooded, no-holds-barred adventure yarn and the fascinating psychological study that Conrad wrote." O'Toole's performance was described as "self-indulgent and lacking in real depth." The consensus was that Brooks, who did good dramas about people, didn't have what took to make a classic story. O'Toole, however, would later stand by the film: he said the role of Lord Jim was the finest role he ever did.
Production
The film was made at Shepperton StudiosShepperton Studios
Shepperton Studios is a film studio in Shepperton, Surrey, England with a history dating back to 1931 since when many notable films have been made there...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, and on location in Angkor Wat
Angkor Wat
Angkor Wat is a temple complex at Angkor, Cambodia, built for the king Suryavarman II in the early 12th century as his state temple and capital city. As the best-preserved temple at the site, it is the only one to have remained a significant religious centre since its foundation – first Hindu,...
, Cambodia
Cambodia
Cambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...
, Lantau Island
Lantau Island
Lantau Island , based on the old local name of Lantau Peak , is the largest island in Hong Kong, located at the mouth of the Pearl River. Administratively, most of Lantau Island is part of the Islands District of Hong Kong...
, Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
and Malacca
Malacca
Malacca , dubbed The Historic State or Negeri Bersejarah among locals) is the third smallest Malaysian state, after Perlis and Penang. It is located in the southern region of the Malay Peninsula, on the Straits of Malacca. It borders Negeri Sembilan to the north and the state of Johor to the south...
, Malaysia. In a 1971 interview, O'Toole spoke of some of the difficulties of location filming:
The three months we spent in Cambodia were dreadful. Sheer hell. A nightmare. There we were, all of us, knee deep in lizards and all kinds of horrible insects. And everyone hating us. Awful.
It was photographed in Super Panavision 70
Super Panavision 70
Super Panavision 70 was the marketing brand name used to identify movies photographed with Panavision 70 mm spherical optics between 1959 and 1983.-History:...
by Freddie Young
Freddie Young
Freddie Young OBE, BSC , was one of Britain's most distinguished and influential cinematographers...
. The music score by Bronislaw Kaper
Bronislaw Kaper
Bronisław Kaper was a Polish film composer who scored films and musical theater in Germany, France, and the USA. The American immigration authorities misspelled his name as Bronislau Kaper...
featured the use of gamelan
Gamelan
A gamelan is a musical ensemble from Indonesia, typically from the islands of Bali or Java, featuring a variety of instruments such as metallophones, xylophones, drums and gongs; bamboo flutes, bowed and plucked strings. Vocalists may also be included....
musicians. The crew and cast of the film was joined by Cambodian translator Dith Pran
Dith Pran
Dith Pran was a Cambodian photojournalist best known as a refugee and survivor of the Cambodian Genocide. He was the subject of the Academy Award-winning film The Killing Fields . He was portrayed in the movie by first-time actor Haing S. Ngor , who won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor...
, who was a liaison between Cambodians and the filmmakers and stars. Later he left the country after the 1975 Communist takeover and his own imprisonment, which were told in the 1984 film The Killing Fields
The Killing Fields
The Killing Fields are a number of sites in Cambodia where large numbers of people were killed and buried by the Khmer Rouge regime, during its rule of the country from 1975 to 1979, immediately after the end of the Cambodian Civil War ....
with Haing S. Ngor
Haing S. Ngor
Dr. Haing Somnang Ngor was a Cambodian American physician, actor and author who is best known for winning the 1985 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his debut performance in the movie The Killing Fields, in which he portrayed Cambodian journalist and refugee Dith Pran. His mother was...
as Pran.