Sorcerer

1977
PG
2h 1m

IMDb RATING

7.7/10

30K

YOUR RATING

POPULARITY

Play trailer2:53

Jungle Adventure Road Trip Adventure Drama Thriller

Four unfortunate men from different parts of the globe agree to risk their lives transporting gallons of nitroglycerin across dangerous Latin American jungle.Four unfortunate men from different parts of the globe agree to risk their lives transporting gallons of nitroglycerin across dangerous Latin American jungle.Four unfortunate men from different parts of the globe agree to risk their lives transporting gallons of nitroglycerin across dangerous Latin American jungle.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

7.7/10

30K

YOUR RATING

POPULARITY

3,176

812

See production info at IMDbPro

Nominated for 1 Oscar
- 3 nominations total

'Carlos'
(as Fredrick Ledebur)

Chico Martínez

Bobby Del Rios
(as Chico Martinez)

Joe Spinell

Spider

Rosario Almontes

Agrippa

Richard Holley

Billy White

Anne-Marie Deschodt

Blanche
(as Anne Marie Descott)

Jean-Luc Bideau

Pascal

Jacques François

Lefevre
(as Jacques Francois)

André Falcon

Guillot

Gerard Murphy

Donnelly

Desmond Crofton

Boyle

Director
- William Friedkin
Writers
All cast & crew
Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Fritz Lang Interviewed by William Friedkin

Storyline

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Did you know

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Trivia
Besides internal on-set conflicts, William Friedkin said that approximately fifty people "had to leave the film for either injury or gangrene," as well as food poisoning and malaria. In The Friedkin Connection he added that "almost half the crew went into the hospital or had to be sent home." Friedkin himself lost fifty pounds (23 kg) and was stricken with malaria, which was diagnosed after the film's premiere.

Goofs
During the tree sequence, after the dynamite is lifted out of the wooden crate, it is kicked to the side and (apparently) falls off the tree.

Weeping dynamite is leaking out the nitroglycerin as a liquid which will readily soak through untreated materials such as the wooden case, shelves upon which they sit and so on. Old stocks of dynamite usually require destroying the entire building in which they are found for safety.

However, as illustrated in this scene, and earlier in the film when the boxes are being inspected, each wooden box has a lining of what appears to be some sort of treated paper, which the film shows to be watertight. When it is inspected early in the film, the worker places his hand within this paper barrier to get nitroglycerin on his fingers, and at the felled tree, this wrapping is not soaked through and is in fact strong enough to support the weight of the dynamite and liquid inside. Kassem uses a sharp stick to poke a hole in it, whereupon liquid nitroglycerin begins to flow out.

Quotes
Scanlon: [Nilo has been shot] What're you gonna do with all that money, you hump? Talk to me! What're you gonna do?
Nilo: Get... laid! Best whore in Managua!
Scanlon: Two whores! Two best whores in Managua!
Nilo: You do it. For me.

Crazy credits
The only opening credits at the beginning of the film are the studios' names followed by the film's graffiti style font title. Although by the late 1990's it was quite common to not have credits at the beginning of a film, in 1977 it was very unusual.

Alternate versions
The European version of the film was re-edited and shortened by CIC, the European distributor, without director William Friedkin's permission. The prologue sequences set in New York, Paris, Vera Cruz and Israel that show what happened to the main characters and why they had to flee to South America, were changed to flashbacks running throughout the film.

Connections
Featured in Sneak Previews: Take 2: Overlooked Classics: Great Movies of the 70's That Nearly Everybody Missed (1980)

Soundtracks
Spheres (Movement 3)
Performed by Keith Jarrett
Used under license from Polydor Incorporated and through the courtesy of ECM Records

User reviews206

Review

Featured review

8/10

Ruinously Expensive Remake That Disappeared in a Puff of Smoke

When he was casting 'The French Connection', director William Friedkin had wanted an actor who had impressed him in a couple of films by Luis Bunuel with the initials 'F.R.' to play 'Frog One'. Unfortunately, instead of Francesco Rabal he got Fernando Rey!

Friedkin later rectified that error by employing him in this film; but 'Sorcerer' seems a title almost calculated to alienate audiences who had come to see the next film by the director of 'The Exorcist'. Anyone who knew it was a new version of the novel by Georges Arnaud on which the classic thriller 'The Wages of Fear' (1953) was based were likely to be similarly confounded by the lengthy (and bloody) preamble set in Jerusalem, Paris and New Jersey before finally arriving in South America and then hitting the road.

The original took a long time to get moving too, but this new version is strangely uninvolving despite looking great, atmospherically scored by Tangerine Dream and conveying only too graphically on screen what hard work it must have been to shoot.