Now considered a cinema classic, Franklin J. Schaffner’s “Papillon” (1973) received a fairly lukewarm reception upon its release. Set in 1930’s, it pairs Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman as a pair of convicts trying to escape from a remote penal colony. Henry “Papillon” Charriere (McQueen) is a French burglar and safe cracking expert who gets falsely convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment in a remote penal colony called Devil’s Island in French Guiana. There he meets Louis Dega (Hoffman), a forger and embezzler who is hoping against hope that his wife will get him out of prison. Dega hires Papillon as his bodyguard and the two become fast friends. Papillon defends Dega from a sadistic prison guard and gets sent to solitary confinement because of it. Dega tries to smuggle extra rations of food to Papillon, but that makes things even worse when it is discovered. Papillon has his daily rations cut in half and spends his days in complete darkness. After two years Papillon is finally released from isolation, and he immediately starts hatching a plan of escape. They take on a prison orderly who wants to join their escape attempt and bribe a guard who promises to get them a boat. Dega breaks his ankle during the escape and the orderly is shot in a gun fight with soldiers, but Papillon manages to escape, kicking off an odyssey which will see him living with a native tribe, fleeing the authorities with the help of nuns, and ultimately going back to the Devil’s Island, where his desire for freedom never leaves him.
Jason Segel collects puppets
