Exodus

Theatrical release film poster by Saul Bass

Directed by Otto Preminger

Produced by Otto Preminger

Screenplay by Dalton Trumbo

Based on Exodus
by Leon Uris

Starring Paul Newman

Eva Marie Saint
Ralph Richardson
Peter Lawford
Sal Mineo
Jill Haworth
 Lee J. Cobb
John Derek

Music by Ernest Gold

Cinematography Sam Leavitt

Edited by Louis R. Loeffler

Production Carlyle-Alpina, S.A.

company

Distributed by United Artists

Release date  December 16, 1960

Running time 208 minutes

Country United States

Language English

Budget $4.5 million[1]

Box office $8,700,000 (US/ Canada)[2]

$20 million (worldwide)[1]

Eva Marie Saint, Paul Newman, and Peter Lawford

Exodus is a 1960 American epic film on the founding of the modern State of Israel. It was made by
Alpha and Carlyle Productions and distributed by United Artists. Produced and directed by Otto
Preminger, the film was based on the 1958 novel Exodus by Leon Uris. The screenplay was written
by Dalton Trumbo. The film features an ensemble cast, and its celebrated soundtrack music was
written by Ernest Gold.
Often characterized as a "Zionist epic",[3][4] the film has been identified by many commentators as
having been enormously influential in stimulating Zionism and support for Israel in the United
States.[5][6][7] While Preminger's film softened the anti-British and anti-Arabsentiment of the novel, the
film remains contentious for its depiction of the Arab–Israeli conflict. Preminger openly hired
screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, who had been on the Hollywood blacklist for over a decade for being a
communist and forced to work under assumed names. Together with Spartacus, also written by
Trumbo, Exodus is credited with ending the practice of Blacklisting in the motion picture industry.

Plot summary[edit]
Nurse Katherine "Kitty" Fremont is an American volunteer at the Karaolos internment camp
on Cyprus, where thousands of Jews—Holocaust survivors—are being held by the British, who will
not let them go to Palestine. They anxiously wait for the day they will be liberated.
Ari Ben Canaan, a Haganah rebel who had been a decorated captain in the Jewish Brigade of
the British Army in the Second World War, obtains a cargo ship and smuggles 611 Jewish inmates
out of the camp for an illegal voyage to Mandate Palestine before being discovered by military
authorities. When the British learn the refugees are in a ship in the harbor of Famagusta,
they blockade the harbor and prevent it from sailing. The refugees stage a hunger strike, during
which the camp's doctor dies, and Ari threatens to blow up the ship and the refugees. The British
relent and allow the Exodus safe passage.
Kitty has grown very fond of Karen Hansen Clement, a young Danish-Jewish girl searching for the
father from whom she was separated during the war. She has taken up the Zionist cause, much to
the chagrin of Kitty, who had hoped to adopt Karen and take her to America to begin a new life.
During this time, opposition to the partition of Palestine into Arab and Jewish states is heating up.
Karen's young beau Dov Landau proclaims his desire to join the Irgun, a radical Zionist resistance
group. Dov goes to an address given him by an Irgun recruiter, only to be caught in a police trap.
After he is released, he is contacted by members of the Irgun and is interviewed by Ari Ben
Canaan's uncle Akiva, who is the head of the Irgun. Before swearing Dov in, Akiva forces the boy to
confess that he was a Sonderkommando in Auschwitz, and that he was sodomized by Nazis. Due to
his activities, Akiva has been disowned by Ari's father, Barak, who heads the mainstream Jewish
Agency trying to create a Jewish state through political and diplomatic means. He fears that the
Irgun will derail his efforts, especially as the British have put a price on Akiva's head.
Karen has gone to live at Gan Dafna, a fictional Jewish kibbutz near Mount Tabor near
the moshav where Ari was raised.[8] Kitty and Ari have fallen in love, but Kitty pulls back, feeling like
an outsider after meeting Ari's family and learning of his previous love: Dafna, a young woman
kidnapped, tortured, and murdered by Arabs, who is the namesake of the Gan Dafna kibbutz.
Leaving Kitty, Ari promises to help find Karen's father. Dr. Clement is eventually found in a mental
hospital in Jerusalem. He is in a dissociative state, withdrawn to a degree that borders on the
vegetative. Because of the horrors he experienced in a concentration camp, he has completely
disconnected from the outside world. He does not recognize Karen, who is devastated.
When the Irgun bombs the King David Hotel in an act of terrorism resulting in dozens of fatalities,
Akiva is arrested, imprisoned in Acrefortress, and sentenced to hang. Seeking to save Akiva's life, as
well as to free the Haganah and Irgun fighters imprisoned by the British, Ari organizes an escape
plan for the prisoners. Dov, who eluded the soldiers who captured Akiva, turns himself in so he can
use his knowledge of explosives to facilitate the Acre Prison break.
All goes according to plan. Hundreds of prisoners, including Akiva, escape from the prison. Akiva is
mortally wounded by British soldiers while evading a roadblock set up to catch the escapees. Ari is
also badly wounded. He makes his way to Gan Dafna, where Dr. Lieberman, head of the village,
removes a bullet from his right lung. With the British on Ari's trail, he is taken to Abu Yesha, an Arab
village near Gan Dafna, where his lifelong friend, Taha, is the mukhtar. Kitty goes with him and
provides postoperative treatment that saves his life. The romance between Ari and Kitty is rekindled
as a result. Meanwhile, Dr. Lieberman is arrested by the British when they learn the camp has stored
illegal weapons within the children's village.
An independent Israel is now in plain view, but Arab nationals commanded by Mohammad Amin al-
Husayni, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, plot to attack Gan Dafna and massacre the Jews, including
the children. Ari receives prior warning of this attack from Taha, even as Taha reluctantly decides he
must join the Grand Mufti in fighting the establishment of Israel. Ben Canaan spirits the younger
children to safety in a nighttime evacuation as a small detachment of Palmach troops arrives to
reinforce the defenses of Gan Dafna.
Karen, ecstatic over the prospect of the new nation, finds Dov (who was on patrol outside Gan
Dafna) and proclaims her love for him. Dov assures her that they will marry as soon as the war is
over. As Karen returns to Gan Dafna, she is ambushed and murdered by a gang of Arab thugs. Dov
discovers her lifeless body the following morning.
The same day, the body of Taha is found hanging in his village, killed by ex-Nazis working for the
Grand Mufti. A Star of David is carved on his body. A swastika and a sign saying "Jude" is written on
the walls of the village, indicating the Arabs' hatred of the Jews.
Karen and Taha are buried together in one grave. At the burial ceremony, Ari swears on their bodies
that someday, Jews and Arabs will live together and share the land in peace; not only in death, but
also in life. While the others each add a shovelful of dirt to the grave, Dov angrily steps on the shovel
and leaves, refusing to accept Karen's death. The movie ends with Ari, Kitty, Dov, and a Palmach
contingent boarding trucks, heading off to battle.