The title may seem a little odd at first, you may stumble upon it expecting to see muscled guys from Sao Paulo in swimming trunks...

I jest of course, this is an excellent film, it starts off what you'd expect from a Nazi hunger film, but as it develops it gets darker and darker, the story becomes apparent after a while, you're able to put the jigsaw pieces together, and see the whole picture.

It's well paced, dramatic, and packed with action, some of it is actually pretty violent, the conclusion even now is really rather shocking.

Peck and Olivier shine through, Peck in particular the acting is outstanding, I couldn't believe just how many famous faces kept on popping up, Prunella Scales, Michael Gough, all small parts, but clearly wanted to be a part of it.

No wonder it was nominated for three Oscars. 9/10.

"The Boys from Brazil" is admittedly an improbable movie, but chilling nonetheless. American college student Barry Kohler (Steve Guttenberg) finds Nazi doctor Josef Mengele (Gregory Peck) hiding out in South America. Kohler tries to report Mengele's diabolical plans (for a Fourth Reich) to Nazi hunter Ezra Liebermann (Laurence Olivier*),but Mengele murders him. The rest of the movie shows Liebermann investigating the mysterious deaths of several men around the world, all of whom had sons who look exactly the same. The climax comes when Liebermann and Mengele finally meet.

As is apparently always the case with Ira Levin's stories ("Rosemary's Baby" and "The Stepford Wives"),everything seems to be normal at first, until some point where you realize that there is clearly something unseemly going on. It may be an outlandish concept, but the whole movie is quite intense once you realize what Mengele and his cronies are planning.

*Interestingly, Laurence Olivier had played a Nazi in "Marathon Man" two years earlier.

This film was certainly NOT the best thing made in the 70s, nor was it among Gregory Peck's finest moments, to say the least!! This was a very silly film that despite everything still managed to be very entertaining in a "turn off you brain and just enjoy it" way. The plot is dumb, I'll admit, but there's just something about this movie that is intriguing.

Peck plays Dr. Mengele and he's been a busy maniac all these years since the war. He apparently has cloned Hitler and placed all these potentially evil babies in foster families around the world. The plan is to have the babies' childhoods be as similar to the originals as possible, so when the boys reach a certain age, Mengele kills their fathers so that the boys lose their father at the same age Hitler did. Much of the film consists of watching Peck do this evil deed to various families.

Somewhere along the way, Laurence Olivier finds out about the Mengele plan from a young reporter. Olivier plays a Nazi hunter and at first he thinks the story is crap. But, once he realizes the plan is true, he springs to action.

In the end, Peck is visiting one of the little Hitlers when Olivier arrives for a final showdown. The way this is resolved--in particular, the way Adolf, Jr. reacts is priceless and the movie concludes.

I think that aside from the kooky plot, one of the big reasons I like the film because it looks like Peck and Olivier are having a contest to see which one is the greatest ham in film history! Peck wins it by a nose for his totally ridiculous German madman imitation--I just loved the silly makeup!