Laurence Olivier as Dr. Christian Szell Comments

Though his health was poor and, heaven knows, he didn't need
the money, the 20th century's great classical actor just
kept working throughout the 70s, ornamenting his
Shakespearean resume with movie turns as Nazis and
Nazi-hunters. This time he's on Hitler's side, playing an
evil doctor who, in New York 30 years after the war, needs
to extract a piece of information from an innocent grad
student (Dustin Hoffman). Only one way to do that: painful
dentistry. Olivier's repeated question "Is it
safe?", posed as he places an instrument of torture in
the strapped-down Hoffman's mouth, became the decade's
catchphrase for pain.