Murphy's War

Murphy's War
DVD cover
Directed by	Peter Yates
Produced by	Michael Deeley
Written by	Max Catto (novel) Stirling Silliphant
Starring	Peter O'Toole Siân Phillips Philippe Noiret Horst Janson
Cinematography	Douglas Slocombe
Editing by	John Glen Frank P. Keller
Studio	Hemdale Michael Deeley-Peter Yates Films
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Running time	107 minutes
Language	English and German

For the novel by Gary Paulsen, see Murphy's War (novel)

Murphy's War is a 1971 war film starring Peter O'Toole. It was directed by Peter Yates.

Plot

In the closing days of World War II, an Irishman Murphy (Peter O'Toole) is the sole survivor of the crew of a merchant ship, Mount Kyle, which has been sunk by a German U-Boat, which then machine-gunned the survivors in the water. Murphy makes it ashore (to a missionary settlement on the Orinoco in Venezuela) where he is treated by a pacifist Quaker doctor, Dr Hayden (Siân Phillips).

When he discovers the U-Boat is hiding further up river, under the cover of the jungle, he sets about obsessively plotting his revenge to sink it by any means, including using the Grumman J2F Duck (a floatplane) from the Mount Kyle. The floatplane had been recovered, the wounded pilot later being shot dead in his hospital bed by the U-boat captain, in order to preserve the secret of its location and, presumably, its action in shooting survivors in the water.

Murphy learns how to fly the plane in the most daring way, getting it out on the choppy waters of the river and discovering how the controls work by trial and error. This extensive flying scene involves lots of shots of the floatplane veering sharply to avoid buildings, the jungle and stalling.

Murphy soon finds the U-boat's hiding place and attempts to bomb it using home-made Molotov cocktail bombs, an attempt which fails. Meanwhile, word has come that Germany has surrendered; however, Murphy is obsessed with revenge and makes plans to ram the U-boat with a floating crane owned by the friendly Frenchman Louis, played by respected French actor Philippe Noiret. This also fails as the U-boat dives under him. However, the dived U-boat becomes stuck in a mud bank. Murphy uses the crane to recover a torpedo fired earlier from the U-boat and drops it on the trapped crew, killing them. However, Murphy is also doomed: the explosion from the torpedo causes the crane jib to pin him to the deck as the floating crane sinks to the river bed.

Cast

• Peter O'Toole as Murphy
• Siân Phillips as Dr. Hayden
• Philippe Noiret as Louis Brezon
• Horst Janson as Commander Lauchs, German Submarine Captain
• John Hallam as Lieutenant Ellis, Seaplane Pilot from RNMS Mount Kyle
• Ingo Mogendorf as Lieutenant Voght, Submarine Executive Officer

Equipment

The U-boat was played by a Venezuelan submarine, the former USS Tilefish. The floating crane was a former World War II tank landing craft. The Grumman OA-12 Duck aeroplane used in this film has been restored and is on display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio.^[1] In the original book the aircraft was a Fairey Swordfish.

Production notes

As well as filming in the regions of the Orinoco River in Venezuela, there was a stint of location filming in Malta for scenes depicting the burning of the merchant ship, after it has been torpedoed by the U-boat. For these particular scenes O'Toole was called upon to swim through water afire with oil and with explosives going off right and left of him. "I used to do all my own stunts when I first started" he said. "I made it a principle. Everything in Lawrence of Arabia I did myself. But after suffering a paralysed hand, a bad back, broken ankle and countless knocks, I decided never again. It was stupid. Films employ stunt men. They can do these things far better than I. I refused to do any more stunts. [Then] I thought, well, just one more time. So I talked myself into it. In Venezuela I even fly a seaplane. If you want to see a picture of sheer terror have a look at the shots of me when I first fly that seaplane." For that sequence a camera was strapped to the wing of the aircraft.^[2] The director, Peter Yates, said he was particularly interested in "the way in which three people - Murphy, a doctor and a Frenchman left in the backwash of war - are really brought together by circumstance and how each character plays on the other and makes them do things that they wish they hadn't and things they sometimes feel proud of."

Several Peace Corps volunteers serving in towns near the Orinoco River were recruited to play Nazi submariners. The volunteers donated their daily wages to the Venezuelan school districts or other organizations with whom they were working at the time.

Filming began on February 23, 1970, and was completed in Malta on July 5.

References

1. ^ "Grumman OA-12 Duck". National Museum of the United States Air Force. http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=359. 
2. ^ Photoplay Film Monthly February 1971

External links

• Murphy's War at the Internet Movie Database
• Murphy's War at AllRovi