Exodus

Exodus is a 1960 American epic historical drama film about the founding of the State of Israel. Produced and directed by Otto Preminger, the screenplay was adapted by Dalton Trumbo from the 1958 novel of the same name by Leon Uris. The film stars an ensemble cast including Paul Newman, Eva Marie Saint, Ralph Richardson, Peter Lawford, Lee J. Cobb, Sal Mineo, John Derek and George Maharis. The film's soundtrack music was written by Ernest Gold. Preminger openly hired screenwriter 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 US motion picture industry. Plot After the Second World War, Katherine "Kitty" Fremont, a widowed American nurse, is sightseeing in Cyprus following a tour of duty for the U.S. Public Health Service in Greece. Her guide mentions the Karaolos internment camp on Cyprus, where thousands of Jews—many of them Holocaust survivors—are detained by the British, who refuse them passage to Palestine. Kitty visits British General Sutherland, who knew her late husband. When Sutherland suggests she volunteer at the internment camp for a few days, Kitty declines, citing she would feel uncomfortable around Jews. She reconsiders shortly after one of the General's staff officers, Major Freddy Caldwell (Peter Lawford), makes an anti-Semitic remark. Haganah rebel Ari Ben Canaan, a decorated former captain in the Jewish Brigade of the British Army in the Second World War, obtains a cargo ship. He smuggles 611 Jews out of the camp and onto the ship for an illegal voyage to Mandatory Palestine. Military authorities discover the plan and blockade Famagusta harbor, preventing the ship's departure. 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 ship, rechristened the Exodus, to sail.