An Enemy of the People is a 1978 American drama film directed by George Schaefer and based on Arthur Miller's 1950 adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's 1882 play.
The film stars Steve McQueen in the lead role of scientist Thomas Stockmann, Charles Durning as his brother Peter, and Bibi Andersson as his wife Catherine.
He writes an article for the local newspaper, the Messenger, exposing the contamination, but the staff is intimidated into stopping its publication by Stockmann's brother Peter, the town mayor.
Thomas calls a public meeting to make his case, but his strong personality, combined with his brother organizing hecklers to shout at and mock him, result in the townspeople viewing him as a self-important buffoon who cares nothing for the town's welfare.
The once well-respected Stockmann family become pariahs: Thomas is blacklisted from further employment in town, his daughter Petra loses her job as a teacher, and rocks are thrown through the windows of their home.
Bored with inactivity, but unwilling to lower his demands for mainstream work, McQueen took an unbilled role as a stunt rider in the B movie Dixie Dynamite for $175 per week.
He used his own Solar Productions company for the film through First Artists, and was credited as executive producer, taking a much smaller salary to get the studio and distributor Warner Bros. interested.
The film sat on the shelf for a year before it was given a tentative release in college towns in March 1978; it performed poorly and was quickly withdrawn.
[8] McQueen promoted the movie with an hour lecture at UCLA titled "The Genius of Ibsen",[citation needed] but the slated October 1978 national release was canceled.
[10]McQueen moved back to more familiar territory for his next (and, ultimately, final) two films, the Western, Tom Horn, and the action movie, The Hunter.
Even after its short cinema run, An Enemy of the People film remained highly obscure, not being released on home media until 2009, when Warner Bros. issued it on DVD through its burn-to-demand digital distribution arm.
In a negative review, Nigel Andrews of the Financial Times wrote, "McQueen manages at once to look totally out of place and to give the best performance in the film.
in Variety said that "director George Schaefer does his best to eliminate the usual dull blocking of filmed plays, but he's hamstrung by the obvious miscasting of McQueen...The imbalance wouldn't be so pronounced were Charles Durning not so magnificent in the role of the harshly realistic brother.
[12] Janet Maslin of The New York Times, writing about the film in 1981, after McQueen had died, was equally unsparing: Here is an atypical, not very successful performance by an actor who was never less than interesting, even when his work was as misguided as it is here.
Even his appearance, which is uncharacteristically hirsute and blank, helps make the film more of a curiosity than a failure.... Like most of the cast, ... Mr. McQueen is very American here, and very uncomfortable with his dialogue.
It wouldn't have been surprising to find a movie star of Mr. McQueen's stature experimenting quietly with such prestigious but unlikely material in a workshop production on the stage somewhere.