Amazon.com Essentials:
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
