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Audience Rating: R (Restricted) Binding: VHS Tape EAN: 9780790732015 Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Special Edition, NTSC ISBN: 0790732017 Label: Warner Home Video Manufacturer: Warner Home Video Number Of Items: 1 Publisher: Warner Home Video Release Date: September 16, 1997 Running Time: 150 minutes Sales Rank: 8070 Studio: Warner Home Video Theatrical Release Date: December 16, 1973
Amazon.com essential video: Franklin J. Schaffner (Patton) directs this true story of Henri Charriere (better known as "Papillon" or "the butterfly"), a prisoner so determined to escape the notorious Devil's Island, he attempted it multiple times until he reached old age. Steve McQueen plays Charriere, and Dustin Hoffman is very good as the hero's anxious, defenseless friend. Based on Charriere's own memoir and uncompromisingly adapted by screenwriters Dalton Trumbo (Johnny Got His Gun) and Lorenzo Semple Jr. (Three Days of the Condor), the film is tough going (it is set, after all, on Devil's Island) but not gratuitously violent. There are sequences that stay with one for a long time, such as Papillon's brief stay at a leper colony and the long periods of starvation and solitary confinement he endures after each attempted flight. --Tom Keogh
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - One of the best movies EVER made.
If you like adventure movies, if you like movies that are excellently casted, if you like to root for the underdog... this movie is for you. In fact, if you are a living, breathing human being, this movie is for you. It is a wonderfully acted intriguing story... and is or should be in the ranks of must see movies like Casablanca or Seven Samurai. Do yourself a favor and at least rent this!
Rating: - PAPILON
For any STEVE McQEEN FANS out there this will make a fine addtion to your STEVE McQUEEN DVD COLLECTION I wish they will come out with a speacal edtion of this movie like they did with COOL HAND LUKE.
Rating: - Indomitable spirit
"Papillon" is the apparently true story of Henri Charriere, the only person to successfully escape from Devil's Island off French Guiana. There is little argument that the real Henri was not a felon; he seems to have spent the majority of his formative years (and later) in and out of various prisons. The premise in "Papillon", however, is that he was sent away at that time for a crime that he did not commit. Regardless of the truth, the story is gripping and plausible, and well worth the time, though the movie is about a half-hour too long.
Papillon is portrayed by Steve McQueen, in ... Read More
Rating: - McQueen excellent
McQueen carries film beautifully. One of his finest performances.
The real story behind the story is that Henri Charriere, who wrote the novel the movie is based on, "borrowed" heavily from what other convicts' lived through, and one in particular--the real Papillon, who died in France a couple of years back.
Don't get me wrong, Charriere did his share of time on Devil's Island, it's just that not everything that takes place in the film actually happened to him.
Author Gerard de Villiers delves into it in a book entitled A BUTTERFLY PINNED.
Rating: - no problems
I'm always worried about the condition I receive my product, but I was pleased with my purchase and I will most definitely do it again.
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