The Passage (1979, Anthony Quinn, James Mason, Malcolm McDowell, Christopher Lee, Patricia Neal, Kay Lenz, Michael Lonsdale) – Classic Movie Review 10,422

Director J Lee Thompson’s 1979 The Passage is a poor, nasty and depressingly violent World War Two action adventure film, wasting the impressive talents of Anthony Quinn, James Mason, Malcolm McDowell, Christopher Lee, Patricia Neal, Kay Lenz, and Michael Lonsdale.

Quinn does yet another variation on his Zorba the Greek turn as an exuberant Basque sheep farmer conducting professor John Bergson (a grim Mason) and his glum family members across all that treacherous and mountainous terrain from France to Spain, pursued by a sadistic German.

The highlight is McDowell’s outrageous and unintentionally hilarious performance as Captain Von Berkow, a perverted Nazi having kinky sex dressed only in a jockstrap with a swastika, which is unintentionally hilarious. Lonsdale’s character Alain Renoudot meets a particularly distressing end typical of an unpleasant movie.

Based on his own novel Perilous Passage by Bruce Nicolaysen, The Passage is a dismaying experience.

Also in the cast are Paul Clemens, Marcel Bozzuffi, Rose Alba, Neville Jason, Robert Brown, Robert Rhys, Jim Broadbent as German Soldier (uncredited), Peter Arne, Frederick Jaeger as German Major (uncredited), Terry Yorke as First German Sentry (uncredited), and Terence Maidment as Second German Sentry (uncredited).

The Passage is directed by J Lee Thompson, runs 98 minutes, is made by Hemdale, Passage Films, Monday Films and General Film, is released by Hemdale (1979) (UK) and United Artists (1979) (US), is written by Bruce Nicolaysen, based on the novel by Bruce Nicolaysen, is shot by Michael Reed, is produced by John Daly executive producer, Derek Dawson executive producer, John Quested producer, Lester Goldsmith associate producer, and Maurice Binder associate producer, is scored by Michael J Lewis, and is designed by Jean Forestier and Constantin Mejinsky.

Michael Lonsdale died on 21 September 2020.

RIP Michael Lonsdale, who died on 21 September 2020, aged 89, best remembered as Deputy Commissioner Claude Lebel in The Day of the Jackal (1973) and Bond villain Hugo Drax in Moonraker (1979).

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,422

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