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    Home»Movies»Movies by Decade»Movies - 1970s
    Movies - 1970s Movies - C 2 Mins Read

    Catch-22 (1970)

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    18 years after the novel was published, Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 – a black comedy set in wartime Italy – hit the big screen. At one point, it looked as though it would be filmed by Stanley Kubrick, but the man at the helm of the $10 million Paramount production was Mike Nichols.

    Alan Arkin headed a starry cast as Captain Yossarian, the pacifist American Army Air Corps bomber pilot trapped in the coils of military double-think contained in the title and personified by Orson Welles’ monstrous General Dreedle.

    catch22_2The ‘catch-22’ of the title refers to a military snafu whereby Yossarian attempts to get out of the military by feigning insanity – however, completing the required paperwork for this proves him sane.

    No matter how crazy Yossarian behaves, the Army Air Corps is crazier.

    His superior officers are buffoons and his peers are maniacs, especially Milo Minderbinder (Jon Voight), a wheeler-dealer who soon has the entire war effort working for his personal profit.

    Shot at a cost of $18 million – with Mexico substituting for the Mediterranean – the film is mounted on a grand scale with at least a dozen B-25 planes enlisted to provide an appropriately grandiose bombing campaign.

    The picture represented a considerable technical triumph for Nichols, but he was only intermittently successful in transferring Heller’s bleakly surreal vision to the screen.

    David Watkin’s camerawork is brilliant, capturing the feel of the bright sunlight of the location. Second Unit Director John Jordan refused to wear a harness during a bomber scene. While giving a hand signal to another plane from the tail gunner position in the camera plane, he lost his grip and fell 4000 feet to his death.

    catch22_4Captain Yossarian
    Alan Arkin
    Colonel Cathcart
    Martin Balsam
    Major Danby
    Richard Benjamin
    Captain Nately
    Art Garfunkel
    Doc Daneeka
    Jack Gilford
    Lieutenant Colonel Korn
    Buck Henry
    Major Major
    Bob Newhart
    Chaplain Tappman
    Anthony Perkins
    Nurse Duckett
    Paula Prentiss
    Lieutenant Dobbs
    Martin Sheen
    Milo Minderbinder
    Jon Voight
    General Dreedle
    Orson Welles
    Captain Orr
    Bob Balaban
    Luciana
    Olimpia Carlisi
    Sergeant Towser
    Norman Fell
    Aarfy Aardvark
    Charles Grodin
    Colonel Moodus
    Austin Pendleton
    Captain McWatt
    Peter Bonerz
    General Dreedle’s WAC
    Susanne Benton

    Director
    Mike Nichols

    Video

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