Main Cast: Jon Voight, Maximilian Schell, Maria Schell, Mary Tamm, Derek Jacobi
Release Year: 1974
Country: DE/UK/WG
Run Time: 128 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG
Plot
The Odessa File is set in Hamburg in the winter of 1963. Jon Voight plays Peter Miller, a German reporter who is investigating the whereabouts of missing Nazi war criminals. After reading the diary of a Holocaust survivor who has recently committed suicide, Miller goes on the trail of in-hiding SS officer Eduard Roschmann (Maximilian Schell). The reporter finds his investigation blocked by members of a secretive group called Odessa. With the help of Israeli activists, Miller persists in his search. Schell's sister Maria also appears in The Odessa File as Miller's mother, the widow of a German soldier. Based on a nailbiting novel by Frederick Forsyth, The Odessa File is highlighted by the exquisitely Teutonic score of Andrew Lloyd Webber. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
A taut, densely plotted thriller, The Odessa File belongs to the genre of political thrillers that became especially popular in the wake of World War II and the ensuing Cold War. Although screenwriters George Markstein and Kenneth Ross have taken a few liberties with the Frederick Forsyth novel upon which the film is based, they have done their work well. There are a few moments that don't quite work, most crucially the key moment that starts the whole ball rolling (it stretches credulity to believe that a policeman would hand over the important diary to a reporter, no real questions asked); but the plot is so interesting that most will be willing to overlook these few flaws. The film is also slow to get started, and director Ronald Neame's work throughout is competent and professional without being inspired or surprising. Fortunately, Jon Voight's stellar performance provides enough fireworks to make up for Neame's understated approach. Voight's intense, but appealing, characterization is rock solid and provides easy and crucial viewer identification. He picks the audience up and puts it in his pocket early on, and never lets it out. The star gets valuable support from Maximilian Schell's evil-personified villain, the kind of character that, in lesser hands, would come across as laughably one-dimensional, but that Schell makes entirely believable. The interplay between these two powerful actors is marvelous, and provides a powerful climax. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
Shmuel Rodensky - Simon Wiesenthal; Martin Brandt - Marx; Werner Bruhns - Magazine Publisher Hoffmann; Hans Caninberg - Dr. Ferdinand Schultz; Alexander Golling - Colonel; Peter Jeffrey - David Porath; Towje Kleiner - Solomon Tauber; Klaus Löwitsch - Gustav MacKensen; Georg Marischka - Lawyer; Kurt Meisel - Oster; Günter Meisner - Gen. Greifer; Hannes Messemer - Gen. Glocks; Garfield Morgan - Israeli General; Elisabeth Neumann-Viertel - Frau Wenzer; Ernst Schroeder - Werner Deilman; Cyril Shaps - Tauber; Günter Strack - Police Official Kunik; Noel Willman - Franz Bayer; Hans Wyprächtiger - Landlord; Heinz Ehrenfreund - Shapira; Joachim D. Mues - Wehrmacht Captain; Til Kiwe - Medal Shop Proprietor; Gunnar Moeller - Karl Braun
Credit
Monika Bauert - Costume Designer, Colin Brewer - First Assistant Director, Ronald Neame - Director, Ralph Kemplen - Editor, Andrew Lloyd Webber - Composer (Music Score), Andre Heller - Songwriter, Rolf Zehetbauer - Production Designer, Oswald Morris - Cinematographer, John R. Sloan - Producer, John Woolf - Producer, Gordon K. McCallum - Sound/Sound Designer, Derek Ball - Sound/Sound Designer, Kenneth Ross - Screenwriter, George Markstein - Screenwriter, Frederick Forsyth - Book Author, Tim Rice - Lyricist
The plot begins on November 22, 1963, the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Peter Miller, a young German reporter, happens to see an ambulance on a highway. He chases the ambulance and discovers it is en route to pick up the body of an elderly JewishHolocaust survivor who had committed suicide, leaving behind no family. The reporter obtains the diary of the man, which contains information on his life in the World War II camps, and the names of members of the SS who ran the camp. Miller is startled to read in it that an SS officer, Eduard Roschmann, had in anger fatally shot a fellow officer whose description and rare military decorations matched those of Miller's father, who was killed in the war. Now determined to hunt Roschmann down and get revenge, Miller dares to go undercover to join and infiltrate the ODESSA and find Roschmann.
