Apparently, "The Passage" was a tremendous box-office flop when it got released in 1979, but I don't care. This movie has been standing on my must-see list for quite a while now, due to the awesome cast and its exciting plot about the dared escape of a Professor from the Nazis via the French-Spanish Pyrenees.
Flop or no flop, "The Passage" does not disappoint! There's action aplenty, truly breathtaking scenery and authentic filming locations, and great roles for respectable veteran actors Anthony Quinn, James Mason, and Christopher Lee. The gorgeous Kay Lenz gives a strong performance and brightens up the screen with toplessness, Euro-cult actors Michael Longsdale and Marcel Bozzuffi are impressive as resistance fighters, and Malcolm McDowell ... well, his contribution to the film is so essential that I'll dedicate an entire paragraph to him later.
Basque sheep herder Quinn is approached by the resistance to help escort an American scientist, who wrote mean things about The Third Reich, to Spain via a route over an icy and rough Pyrenees' Mountain. To make the mission even more impossible, the scientist insists that his entire family takes the trip, including his weak and ailing wife, and the Nazis sent their most psychotic and megalomaniacal hunter after them; - Captain Von Berkow.
Should anyone still hesitate to seek out "The Passage", then do it, even if it was for Malcolm McDowell alone! His Nazi-bloodhound depiction is enormously over-the-top, but simultaneously he also manages to embody all the madness, cruelty, inhumanity, corruption, and depravity of the Nazi ideology in one single character. Von Berkow makes a hobby out of torturing people during interrogations, rapes and kills without showing the slightest sign of remorse, considers himself superior to everyone, and hides behind his swastika-symbol to feast all his perverted fantasies. There are numerous of fantastic (and excessively violent) sequences in "The Passage", including the shocking execution of gypsy-leader Christopher Lee and the bloody battle at the Spanish border post, but every scene with the mad-raving McDowell is a highlight on itself.
Flop or no flop, "The Passage" does not disappoint! There's action aplenty, truly breathtaking scenery and authentic filming locations, and great roles for respectable veteran actors Anthony Quinn, James Mason, and Christopher Lee. The gorgeous Kay Lenz gives a strong performance and brightens up the screen with toplessness, Euro-cult actors Michael Longsdale and Marcel Bozzuffi are impressive as resistance fighters, and Malcolm McDowell ... well, his contribution to the film is so essential that I'll dedicate an entire paragraph to him later.
Basque sheep herder Quinn is approached by the resistance to help escort an American scientist, who wrote mean things about The Third Reich, to Spain via a route over an icy and rough Pyrenees' Mountain. To make the mission even more impossible, the scientist insists that his entire family takes the trip, including his weak and ailing wife, and the Nazis sent their most psychotic and megalomaniacal hunter after them; - Captain Von Berkow.
Should anyone still hesitate to seek out "The Passage", then do it, even if it was for Malcolm McDowell alone! His Nazi-bloodhound depiction is enormously over-the-top, but simultaneously he also manages to embody all the madness, cruelty, inhumanity, corruption, and depravity of the Nazi ideology in one single character. Von Berkow makes a hobby out of torturing people during interrogations, rapes and kills without showing the slightest sign of remorse, considers himself superior to everyone, and hides behind his swastika-symbol to feast all his perverted fantasies. There are numerous of fantastic (and excessively violent) sequences in "The Passage", including the shocking execution of gypsy-leader Christopher Lee and the bloody battle at the Spanish border post, but every scene with the mad-raving McDowell is a highlight on itself.