A War You Likely Never Heard Of

Unless you lived near the Orinoco River Delta in late 1969 and early 1970.

I am referring to Murphy’s War, one of the most difficult films Peter O’Toole ever made. And that’s saying something, given his exertions in Lawrence of Arabia and Lord Jim.

Michael Deeley (The Deer Hunter) and Peter Yates (Bullitt), producer and director, respectively, had spent months across the vast, virgin Orinoco River Delta searching and agreeing on location sites. One of the sites selected was Santo Tomé de Guayana, known in my childhood as the Castillos de Guayana.

Incidentally, this is the area of the incident which led to Sir Walter Raleigh’s execution upon his return to England in the 17th Century.

As a teenager I’d heard rumors about the filming of a movie starring Peter O’Toole, even [eagerly] eavesdropping on a camp worker who spoke with a pilot who flew “someone” looking for filming locations. But no one seemed to know much more than such snippets.

Then I was gone to school while the actual filming took place and by the time I returned for the summer of 1970, filming had wrapped up and conversations turned to the recently inaugurated Pan American 747 jets, the exploits of Pete Maravich, the Chicago 7 trial, The Beatles‘ release of Let It Be and their break-up, Apollo 13, Vietnam War protests, and, about Midnight Cowboy winning the best picture Oscar.

I did read about the critics dismissing, if not outright despising Murphy’s War; so I suppose I figured it simply had turned out to be a badly made film and forgot about it.

Or I thought I had forgotten about it.

That film, which I never made a point of seeing, and which slipped from institutional memory almost overnight, kept creeping back into my consciousness every time I visited Venezuela, especially when in Puerto Ordaz and San Félix.

A few months back, my wife and youngest children indulged me and, over several weeks, we watched Lawrence of Arabia, Lord Jim, The Night of the Generals, and My Favorite Year. Then I decided to risk whatever goodwill I had left with my loved ones by suggesting we watch Murphy’s War.

From the opening credits I knew I was going to enjoy this film. And I did. Not only that, but my family liked it as well.

Yes: it is an adventure film. But it has three, perhaps four, major characters which you see developing over the course of the film until its shattering climax. These three men, and one woman, who was a Quaker missionary doctor, will stay with the attentive viewer long after “The End” appears on the screen.

The primary location site was the aforementioned Los Castillos de Guayana, which I had visited at least twice in my childhood.

However, there was one additional character, the fifth character, which almost overwhelms and dominates, yet, counterintuitively, doesn’t get in the way, but without which, the movie would have lost much of its long-lasting impact. That character is The Orinoco River Delta over which O’Toole’s character flies in search of his wartime enemy submarine — the Orinoco River handled a submarine lent by the Venezuelan navy for the picture. Those shots of the river and its meandering tributaries within the vast, interminable Venezuelan vibrant green jungle are unforgettable. They make the movie at least as much as its renowned actors do.

As O’Toole and Pillippe Noiret build and patch back the damaged seaplane the viewer is pulled into the auspicious, tentative friendship building between those two characters. The viewer is also sympathetic with the Quaker doctor who, as she begins to realize the compelling urge to vengeance in Murphy’s heart, urges restraint and pleads with Noiret, who has served her for seven years, to desist his assistance.

But it is the Orinoco which is always in the background and, at times, in the foreground. It is the Orinoco over which Murphy flies and zig-zags; on which Murphy and Noiret sail in their quest; on the shores of which the doctor attends to her patients and looks on in horror as the German submarine crew comes ashore; under which the submarine sails.

I’ve not seen any CGI coming anywhere near replicating the reality of the cinematography which regales us in Murphy’s War.

And, watching the picture, one sees that the harshness and great difficulties of the filming are quite obvious, even before reading production notes which state just that. The budget included the purchase of an old Irish ferry boat which was adapted to house the actors and crew but which could not sail to the set, therefore, flat bottom craft were used and the team actually had to row at times every day from the ferry to that day’s set. Eventually, several of the actors hired a plane to fly them to Puerto Ordaz on weekends to stay in more “civilized” quarters for the nights.

One of the crew members spoke for many when he said the filming was like having a picnic on Vesuvius. Boiling hot and humid. However, others also said that it was a “happy” set. They assumed it was because the difficulties made everyone desire to work together and help each other out, etc.

Why was this film so overtly rejected by the literati? Perhaps the timing of its release was unfortunate: anti-war protesters when the war in Vietnam was at its apogee. Maybe the faux intelligentsia’s grip on art had something to do with it. After all, this was the year of Midnight Cowboy, originally an “X” rated release. Whatever Murphy’s War may be, “X” is not one of them.

I really do not know why it was so ill received. What I do know is that for decades critics have been far from audiences and light years away from Main Street. Had it not been for the trashing of the movie, it would have been better received, I think. Nevertheless, it has become one of those films whose worth is appreciated many years after its premier. After all, It’s A Wonderful Life was also not received well until many years later and it is now a Christmas “classic”.

One final thing about the star of the movie: he is yet another example of a man succumbing to the lure of Venezuela.

We’ve noted that Sir Walter Raleigh was attracted to Venezuela, even to the point of his own death. Jimmy Angel, the daredevil discoverer of the fabled Angel Falls, was so struck and pulled by that land that as he lay dying in Panama, he requested his ashes be taken back to Auyantepui, the site of the falls named after him.

And now we have the late actor, Peter O’Toole, who was bitten by “the Venezuelan Bug”, as he put it. He said the southeast section of that country, the section bordered on the north by the location sites of Murphy’s War and towards the south by Angel Falls, is “the most beautiful and exciting place I have ever seen…. There are mountains that are flat and straight-edged, like someone built them. All colours. Some red, some blue, some brown. And rivers, too, rivers of blue and one the natives call Río Coca-Cola because it’s that colour. And the clouds come out of nowhere, and suddenly it is black. And then they open, like a curtain, and there is another mountain you haven’t seen before!”

Well said, Mr. O’Toole.

After filming, Peter O’Toole and his wife, Sián Phillips, who also acted in Murphy’s War, explored the southeast section of Venezuela, eventually taking a helicopter to Angel Falls. Photo from IMDB

Atop Angel Falls. You can see O’Toole as he carefully crawls towards the edge, while his wife picks flowers well away from that edge. Photo from IMDB.