Exodus (1960 film)

Exodus is a 1960 epic film on the creation of Israel 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.

The film is based initially on events surrounding the ship Exodus in Cyprus in 1947 and then on events in Palestine during the founding of the modern state of Israel in 1948.Nurse Katherine Kitty Fremont Eva Marie Saint 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 Paul Newman, a Haganah rebel who previously was a 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 find out that the refugees are in a ship in the harbor of Famagusta, they blockade it. The refugees stage a hunger strike, during which the camps doctor dies, and Ari threatens to blow up the ship and the refugees. The British relent and allow the Exodus safe passage. ........

Source: Wikipedia