Movie Review – the Man in the Glass Booth
I haven’t seen this since I was 12, I think? I saw it on TV. I was getting a glass of iced tea and going past the den. My parents were watching something, so I went to my chair in the den to see if it was anything good. Pretty much the story of my childhood right there. Usually I went back upstairs after about six minutes.
I didn’t move for the next hour. I only saw the movie from the kidnapping through the end.
It left a massive impression on me. I can’t emphasize how much.
Forward to today.
I was watching all of my prodigious collection of war movies, including the highly fictional “Battle of the Bulge” movie, which consisted of entirely fictional characters from start to end. Robert Shaw was in it, and of course, I’m a movie trivia nerd – I went looking to find out information on Robert Shaw and his opinion on the movie Jaws.
Why? Robert Shaw was a writer. He wrote several short stories, a few novels, some of his own dialog in Jaws (the USS Indianapolis Scene and the vivid “lifeless eyes, like a dolls’ eyes…”) and a play.
A broadway play.
The Man in the Glass Booth.
I of course told my wife who loves trivia also. She’d never heard of the Man in The Glass Booth. So, I explained it this way – “it’s a highly offensive movie about a man who is either a Holocaust survivor or the commandant of the concentration camp in hiding. You don’t know for sure until the end.”
To my surprise, she bought the movie for me as a present.
Maximillian Schell plays the lead character, Goldman/Dorf. You’re not sure if he’s Adolph Dorf or Mr. Goldman the entire movie. Now, I’ve seen the ending when I was 12, and some of the scenes that are building up the tension become unbearable. Goldman/Dorf is unbelievably offensive throughout the entire movie, and you are left unsure if he is mentally unstable or just an evil man throughout the movie. I caution you that no matter what your beliefs, viewpoints, religion or politics are, this movie will offend you. Goldman/Dorf spends much of the movie engaged in rapid fire speeches on subjects ranging from clothing, America, politics, racial issues, war, and many other things. Don’t complain to me if you watch the movie and your feelings are hurt – I warned you. You are guaranteed to be offended.
Goldman/Dorf spends much of his time on the roof, paranoid and obsessing about people being after him. He lives on the roof apartment on 5th and 57’th street, Manhattan. As the director describes, “He seems to own the world.” Overwhelming wealth, to the point he keeps two million in cash on hand in a cardboard box with a newspaper from 1964 and a poem he wrote.
Through most of Act 1, Goldman/Dorf recklessly swings around on the roof looking down through a telescope at the street below. You literally are in the edge of your seat, afraid he’s going to fall over the roof. During Act 2, he even during a breakdown throws his shoes off the roof, and lays backwards across the very edge of the roof. It’s probably several hundred feet to the street below.
The movie establishes early on his love for his deceased ex-wife (the opening scene shows him dusting off her urn), and a mysterious locked room that Goldman/Dorf holds the keys to at all times. You just know that Goldman/Dorf seems to extoll his Jewish heritage, and then at the next instant criticize them. The support character Cohn gets offended by Goldman’s diatribes about the Jewish people. The thing that really surprised me was that Robert Shaw puts Yiddish/English phrases in Goldman/Dorf’s dialog that are authentic – like the scene where Cohn reveals his family was from Lithuania, and Goldman/Dorf shouts “Litvak!” He then goes into a rant about the different ethnic divisions of Jews, and uses the word “Lantzman”, a word which means someone from your own home town or shtetl, and in America Jews will sometimes refer to other Jews of that group as being “Lanzman”. I know I’ve used that word talking to another Galitzianer.
The movie is painful and riveting. Despite the offensiveness of many of the speeches that Goldman/Dorf makes, you are drawn to watching the movie closely, because you’re not entirely sure exactly what’s going on for approximately 50% of the movie, and once you know what’s going on – you still don’t know what’s going on!
It is not until the last ten minutes of the movie that you finally know.
And then you really understand how truly great this movie was.
Robert Shaw demanded his name be removed from the credits when he found out that it was going to be altered from his original novel/Broadway play. The novel and play were more “intellectual”. The director felt to project on a movie screen, it needed emotional impact, so it was given to a writer who apparently made as few changes as possible. Robert Shaw attended the screening of it and found his fears were unwarranted. He then called the producer and asked his name be placed upon it, but it was too late.
This movie is very emotionally painful to watch, and truly great It’s a shame Shaw didn’t write more novels like this. Maximillian Schell found this role exceptionally difficult to portray, as in essence he’s portraying two different men at the same time. He pulled off a portrayal so good that he was nominated for an Oscar.
Movies about the Holocaust are very difficult for me emotionally, but this ranks up there as one of the best, with “Schindler’s List” and “Remember”.
