Saw the film last night with the missus - first time for her since it was released, for me since about 1980. Despite the unsatisfactory ending (could have used a bit more detail in the running text wrap-up about how McQueen landed up safely), the film contains several magical moments. The only detail I remember from last time - the meeting with the leper and the famous reply “I didn’t” to the question "How did you know my leprosy wasn’t contagious? - is still as powerful as ever. The whole scene with the lepers, in fact, is excellent - stays this side of sentimental.
But the standout scene for me was when Rustin the Dustbin had to have the gangrene (assumedly) cut from his leg. The medico wielding the knife (natty little fire they rigged up on board their little boat to sterilise it) was the homosexual inmate who had asked Steve McQueen if he could join them on their escape. As Steve holds Rustin after the cut has been made and soothes him, the look on the young man’s face speaks a thousand words, which might be distilled simply as: “I have waited all my life for such love as now I see these two men share”.
Super pair of jugs on the South American Indian bird who nurses Steve back to strength, before, I’d imagine, draining it all away again.
Henri Charriere (the Real Papillion) actually caught some flak over the leper scene in the book. People dismissded it as unlikely – one leper serves them food in a bowl, then says “Hey, where’s my finger?” , and they discover it stuck to the bowl. They thought he made that up. The cigar-smoking scene iasn’t in the book. The leopers had special bowls set aside for visitors to avoid contagion. It makes for a macho scene in the movie, though.
Thanks for that. Never read the book. It does make for a memorable scene, but still the feeling which it intends to convey, that of the mutual trust and respect of these two sets of outsiders for each other, remains very powerful. I hate films that set out to be accurate as a higher priority than telling a story or entertaining!
Thanks for that. Never read the book. It does make for a memorable scene, but still the feeling which it intends to convey, that of the mutual trust and respect of these two sets of outsiders for each other, remains very powerful. I hate films that set out to be accurate as a higher priority than telling a story or entertaining!
Now you have to watch the anti-Papillon, Popsy Pop, written and starring Henri Charriere himself:
It is truly wretched :D. I saw it on a TV late show with a friend and they were convinced, dead certain, that it had to have originally been Euro-porn of the Emanuelle variety from which all the porn had been cut out. Nope.