Marathon Man (1976): Unpacking the Scene in the French Restaurant 

'Wild" with Reese Witherspoon. Great. 'The Frozen Ground' with Nick Cage. Great as well. Both newer Hollywood films. No CGI. Just great stories.

Actually there's plenty of fantastic films like this that come out of America all the time but unlike in the 70's they're not from the major studios, they're independent films or low budget studio films that don't get promoted like the one's they hope will be blockbusters. In the early 70's studio executives came to the realization that they were out of touch with modern audiences and turned control of making the films over to the people actually making them, directors like George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola, then in 1980 Micheal Cimino who was another talented young movie maker who'd been propelled to stardom in 1978 with The Deer Hunter almost put United Artists, a studio founded in 1919, out of business in 1980 with his flop Heavens Gate (in all fairness UA was already teetering on bankruptcy and was hoping Heavens Gate would turn their fortunes around, also modern reassessment of Heavens Gate no longer has it considered to be a bad movie, it was basically just a victim of a couple big name critics not liking it so every critic across the country jumped on the bandwagon and all tried out bashing each other with their reviews, in Europe it's always been considered a masterpiece and is considered one of the greatest westerns ever made with it being ranked right up there with The Searchers), that scared the studios so bad they steered control of movie making back out of the hands of the directors and back into the hands of studio executives, so no longer do you have movies like Marathon Man getting the major backing and promotion of the studios, they spend their millions budgeted for promotion and advertising on their blockbuster films like the Marvel Comics and Star Wars franchises, but they still make lower budget indy style films along with the independent film companies that are true gems but you have to look around for them because you won't see their names up in neon lights because there's no promotion money for them, but they are out there and Netflix is one of the places that's good to find them at, so is Tubi which is free but you have to sit through commercials on it but so what, that's a good time to go to the kitchen and get something to drink, also Tubi has many of the great classics like a lot of the 70's films.

@@dukecraig2402 Yes. You're so correct. I check RU-vid every now and then with the search 'Indie films'. I hate superhero movies. lol

The list of films nominated for Academy Awards, for that year, is outstanding.

@@dukecraig2402 First…… paragraphs exist. Second……Netflix is propaganda at best.

It was imagining the scene that made him write the whole book

He doesn't die!

Stunning moment in movie history.

I was enthralled with the character as a 23 year old fan of Roy Scheider. A spark left the film with him.

Great film..Roy Scheider was terrific...I've seen it several times.

Doc had to get to Amity, he had a shark problem!🦈

I was fortunate to have seen both in the theater.

_Winter K|lls, All the President's Men, Klute_

I just watched both of these 2 movies in the past 2 months. Kinda crazy how 3 Days of the Condor could be made today and fit perfectly with the times.

_Winter K|lls, All the President's Men, Klute_

@@litedawg Cliff Robertson’s short monologue at the end about what the American would expect of them is still very prescient. We are, in general, a fearful, lazy people and would easily start forgoing morals and honor to avoid losing any level of comfort. Hell, we’re doing that right now just to get clicks and likes, let alone because we need base resources.

Is it safe?

7 Ups, Marathon Man, All that Jazz, Sorcerer and of course Jaws. The 70s were a peak decade for Scheider.

@@tracywilliams7929 The late New Jersey resident was also superb in “The French Connection” with Gene Hackman in 1971.

it set dentistry back about a 100 years

Whenever I go to my dentist, I ask him if he is going to ask me “Is it safe?” 😉

The combination of brains and talent; both of which are a scarcity these days.

Cool story. If you like Frankenheimer, have you seen Seconds? I saw it as a kid and it has traumatized me to this day, but still one of my favorite movies.

What a cool story. I love hearing about behind the scenes in Hollywood.

@@jimsannerud6254: Also "52 Pick-Up" also starring Scheider.

@@KutWrite I bought that on DVD years ago, it's a shame that so many Roy Scheider films haven't been all that easy to see in the past.

​@@littlejimmy7402 I agree, hard to find his films. He's a bit of a forgotten man, strangely, as he didn't put in a bad performance in the whole of the 1970s, a talented dude.

Wow good stuff!

Roy Scheider was an amateur boxer before going pro as an actor. That's why he was so athletic.

He is also a highly intelligent person with a bunch of college degrees.

Agreed. I'll just toss out 3 older movies for you to see, in the off chance you haven't. "The Boys from Brazil" (1978), "The Gambler" (1974) (NOT the remake version), and "Notorious" (1946).

Did you see Network and Taxi Driver in the theaters as well? Im 53, born in 71, and became a film fanatic early, since I was raised by HBO and VHS, and envy your 70s moviegoing experiences… Great way of putting it: An embarrassment of riches.

@@jackbedient Oh yes--- saw Taxi Driver and Network in the theater. The Bronson and Eastwood movies. Rocky. All of the Woody Allen flicks. Blazing Saddles. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Jaws, Star Wars, Close Encounters, Alien. I don't believe we'll ever see another cinematic decade like the 70s. I had a few favorite single screen theaters in town and would usually attend a movie on a Friday matinee after classes. This was in Little Rock, just as four screen (!) multiplexes began to appear. Probably the best theater was the UA 150--- a huge immersive single screen dome. Off hours meant I'd usually have the theater to myself. It was incredible. I think a ticket was two dollars.

Olivier is magnificent in Marathon Man. What a great film.

forget it, film review vloggers are some of the most clueless people in the world.

@@plasticweapon I doubt that, but certainly because somebody makes a video doesn't make them an expert, and if something SEEMS confusing, then its more likely that YOU don't understand it, rather than it being 'a mistake'. When you SAY that about a scene, then you should be gracious enough to pen what you think would have been superior. Thats a generic 'you'' by the way.

@@mikearchibald744 well, you may doubt it, but they are.

Yeah, that's pretty idiotic a remark.

@@plasticweapon Dude, five minutes reading COMMENTS tells you thats not the case. Take a look at all these comments, most of them praising the video. IF what you said were true then certainly the COMMENTERS and watchers of vloggers are more 'clueless'. Thats fine to criticize individual remarks and arguments, but thats really unhelpful all around.

If you needed a beautiful psycho double agent in the 70's you called Marthe Keller

who forgot it?

Forgotten by whom? You, maybe.

It's still remembered fondly, goofball.

The other replies to your rather arrogant and deeply ignorant comment save you from my deeper analysis of your type. Suffice to say you know nothing.

My buddy across the street, had nightmares 😂

That's sad but so funny. My poor old manual labourer Dad couldn't stay awake of an evening all through a movie so my mum with 'aspirations' would lug me and my kid sister to the local drive-in. When I was 10 I got to see Deer Hunter and Grease. Not sure which one puzzled and scared me more.

It was a lousy screenplay. Do you know what the movie was ultimately about? I’ve watched it several times and I still don’t.

@@DJ-bj8ku Fear. Fear of mortal enemies (like Nazi war criminals still being around circa 1976 who refuse to give up), fear of betrayal by one's own nation (McCarthyism driving Babe's father to suicide, the Division abusing Babe as a pawn rather than protecting him as a citizen), fear of betrayal by one's own beloved (Marthe Keller as Ilse Opel), fear of losing the protection of your own family (Doc is an excellent secret agent and a kind of guardian angel to Babe, yet still manages to get slaughtered by Szell), fear of madness (Szell refusing to specify "is it safe?"), fear of being hunted down like an animal and tortured -- the entire movie is a study in fear., as well as the power to finally confront that and overcome it. I submit to you that if you watched this movie with a "lousy screenplay" "several times," you may not have found it rationally persuasive -- and I can see that -- but you still saw it "several times" because you FELT something, because it was crafted to evoke that special eerie spooky thrill of fear.

Definitely. If you cast Roy in a great movie like "Jaws" or "Marathon Man" he brought true star power to the film. Amazing, intriguing actor.

Thank you for this valuable information. I have made the appropriate change to the thumbnail, so that others won’t mistakenly believe that this scene was filmed in Lutèce. Getting eyewitness information from someone who knew these restaurants at the time is an astonishing gift. Thanks for taking the time to correct this point. Fortunately, I hedged my bets in the original video, saying only, "...in the novel, it is Lutèce." Actually, the 1974 Goldman book uses the restaurant's name no fewer than six times.

It's not difficult for anyone making a video about a film scene to read the name of the restaurant on the front of the menu that Hoffman is holding....For fuk sake....!?

Schlesinger has gone on record saying how impressed he was with Evans' postproduction involvement.

Wasnt this based on a book?

​@@mikearchibald744 it was and he did a sequel to it that was good.

" He's more like a larval form of his brother." Well stated--I agree.

Thank you for your kind note. I'm glad that you found this video enlightening.

There was something special about them, which will likely not be repeated again…

Amen.@@forcedtohaveahandle

Yes, I could never get enough of Doc. Luckily, there are Scheider's roles in "Klute" and "52 Pick-Up."

@@KutWrite I watched a Klute featurette many years ago and I remember a quick clip where Pakula's on the set yelling, "Roy Scheider? Where is Roy Scheider?"

The Taking of Pelham 123

Glad to be of service.

@StopDropNDolt what's the best scene in the movie?

My father took me to see 2001: A Space Odyssey when I was seven, the same year my brother to me to see Planet of the Apes.