Nessieldwi Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

AshUnow This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Kimball Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Galina ...I managed to pack into a dozen scenes with the whole period of Nazi tyranny in a convincingly evil way." - Malcolm McDowell about his work in The Passage. When I saw The Passage back in 1981, in Moscow, I had no idea that it had been a big flop in the USA where it only lasted a week upon theatrical release, that it was considered a bad movie a failure. It would be much later that I recognized very famous and talented actors who were in the film, James Matson, Anthony Quinn, Christopher Lee, and Patricia Neal. The film was directed by J. Lee Thompson, the Oscar nominated director of highly successful The Guns of Navarone (1961). By the time I was watching The Passage at the theater, I had not seen Stanley Kubrick's A Clock Work Orange or notorious Caligula, and I did not know what Malcolm McDowell was capable of as a screen villain. I did know McDowell from the Lindsay Anderson's O Lucky Man that also had been released theatrically in Moscow several years prior The Passage. O lucky Man had left a deep impression on me and huge part of it was McDowell's performance as Mick Travis, the young naive man with the most charming smile who wanted to succeed in this world. Watching McDowell in The Passage playing the psychotic obsessed Nazi chasing the family of the anti-fascist scientist across the Pyrenees I was horrified and genuinely scared. Every time he would enter the screen, I felt physically sick anticipating some horror act to follow and McDowell never disappointed. I won't argue that the movie may not be a great or even a good one but I do remember McDowell's performance all too well, and I could not forget him in the movie for 28 years. Now, after I've seen so many movies and memorable performances, I realize that McDowell was over the top and judging by his own words, he knew it very well and did it on purpose: "I played this real nasty Nazi who was chasing these people across the Pyrenees. We all knew real early on that the movie was not going to be any great work of art and so I was determined to have some fun with it. My attitude was that if I was going to play a Nazi, I was going to take it totally over the top and do it right. I ended up playing the character like a pantomime queen. What I was doing was so far out that James Mason turned to me one day and said, 'That's wonderful dear boy, but are you in our film? You seem to be doing something different from the rest of us'..." If after so many years, one performance in a supposedly bad movie stands out and you can't get it out of your mind, and you remember the exact day when you saw that movie, who you saw it with and how you felt, for me it means that the movie was not bad at all.

MARIO GAUCI I had watched this on PAL VHS during the late 1980s; it's an ill-advised (and misguided) attempt to update the big-budget, star-studded WWII adventure spectacle spearheaded by THE GUNS OF NAVARONE (1961) – by the same director and featuring one of its leads (Anthony Quinn), no less – for the more permissive 1970s (with new-fangled dollops of violence, sex and foul language). Being aware of its bad reputation (mostly due to Malcolm McDowell's outrageous contribution as the villain), I decided to give it another look when it turned up recently on Cable TV.The film involves a shepherd-cum-experienced mountain-climber (a rather glum Quinn) who's asked by the French resistance (in the figures of Marcel Bozzuffi and Michel Lonsdale) to take a prominent nuclear scientist (James Mason) and his family (including wife Patricia Neal and daughter Kay Lenz) across the Pyrenees to safety in neutral Spain; along the way, they're helped by a group of traveling gypsies (led by Christopher Lee), while McDowell is the maniacal SS officer in pursuit.The journey is fraught with problems – mainly caused by Neal's poor health (a really thankless role for the Oscar-winning actress), with which Quinn has little patience. Eventually, she decides to rid them of the burden and goes away to die in the snow (Quinn and Bozzuffi feel her emerging from the cabin where they're all sheltered, but do nothing to stop her!)…after which Mason tries to attack Quinn for pushing her to this, but falls flat on his face in the snow after only a couple of paces (this bit somehow reminded me of a scene from one of the NAKED GUN films in which George Kennedy lashes at a couple of bullies for mistreating his partner and ends up getting beaten to a pulp himself!). Lee, then, expires in a fiery death at the hands of the sadistic McDowell – except that whatever tension there was here is destroyed by its being continually cross-cut with the flight of the central group!However, the film's main source of entertainment is McDowell – especially via his campy attire as a chef while torturing the captured Lonsdale, his Swastika-imprinted underpants (during the scene in which he rapes Lenz), and even while mimicking the Fuehrer in front of a mirror (parting his hair a' la Hitler, putting the black comb above his lips as a makeshift moustache, and giving himself the Nazi salute). Surely it was no great stretch for him to go from this to Tinto Brass' CALIGULA (1979)! Worst of all, though, is the climax as a deranged and wounded McDowell turns up at the cabin (after having miraculously survived an avalanche he caused himself!) and bloodily exterminates the remaining members of the group…which transpires to be merely a delirious fantasy – one final folly enacted in his own head, and given away really by being intercut with snippets from scenes that have gone on before! – and that he's the one to perish. In the face of all this, Michael J. Lewis' sweeping score seems out of place – especially when considering that the action sequences are too few and far between, and certainly nothing to write home about when compared to the typical war movies of its ilk.

geolab-1 I saw this film years ago and am very disappointed to find that it is not available on VHS or DVD. Strange that any film my Malcolm should be unavailable as so much other dross is.This film is very violent with some humour attached. Not the most cerebral piece of work but neither is 'The Hills Have Eyes' or 'Nightmere on Elm Street' but they are cult movies.If this was released again, I am sure it would get an appreciable following for those with 'Bad Taste' and 'Brain Damage' - even Peter Jackson started with over the top violence & humour!Try and get a copy and see for yourself - don't be put off by these other 'critics'.Mark

William United Artist must have lost a bundle back then, when this film only lasted a week in all screens in Seattle when they released this film. The film is "R" rated, violent and brutal! McDowell plays a psychotic WW2 Nazi Captain who is in pursuit of a doctor (Mason) and his family (Neal, Lenz, Clement) who is on the run from the Nazi's, and is helped by a Basque guide (Quinn) and two agents (Lonsadale/Bouzuffi) to take them across the mountain to safetly. McDowell turns into a Nazi Caligula as he do sick things and plays it almost in a camp like fashion like wear a chef hat and chops off Lonsndale fingers while cooking and saying "chop chop, chop chop!", Burn a gypsy (Christopher Lee) alive saying "I'm send him exactly where he told me to go....HELL", and rapes Kay Lenz as he wears a Nazi symbol on his underwear! McDowall also places a black comb under his nose to look like Hitler in one scene! This film is beyond what McDowall did in CLOCKWORK ORANGE! This is a performance that Mike Myers should look into remaking! The ending is incredible, but I can't give it away, but the bad guy's death doesn't involve a gun. Not recommended if you hate this sort of entertainment, despite the fact this is one of those all star cast international co productions, but the TV print cut out of most of the nasty stuff, so check out the TV print instead if you are a fan of the 70's interantional all star cast epics! Others beware! Great score by Michael J Lewis though!