The Odessa File (film)
| The Odessa File | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | Ronald Neame |
| Produced by | John Woolf |
| Written by | Kenneth Ross George Markstein |
| Based on | The Odessa File 1972 novel by Frederick Forsyth |
| Starring | Jon Voight Maximilian Schell Maria Schell |
| Music by | Andrew Lloyd Webber |
| Cinematography | Oswald Morris |
| Edited by | Ralph Kemplen |
| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 130 min. |
| Country | United Kingdom West Germany |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $6 million (North American rentals)[1] |
The Odessa File is an Anglo-German 1974 espionage thriller film, adaptation of the novel The Odessa File by Frederick Forsyth, about a reporter's investigation of a neo-Nazi political-industrial network in post-Second World War West Germany. The film stars Jon Voight, Maximilian Schell and Maria Schell and was directed by Ronald Neame, with a score by Andrew Lloyd Webber. It was the only film which the Schell siblings made together.
Plot[edit]
On 22 November 1963, the day of the John F. Kennedy assassination in Dallas, Peter Miller, a young freelance reporter in Hamburg, West Germany, pulls over to the curb to listen to a radio report of the event. As a result, he happens to be stopped at a traffic signal as an ambulance passes by on a highway.
He follows the ambulance and discovers it is en route to pick up the body of an elderly Jewish Holocaust 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 Riga Ghetto during WW II, including the name of the SS officer who ran the camp, Eduard Roschmann.
Determined to hunt Roschmann down, Miller consults with Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal who informs him about ODESSA, a secret organisation for former members of the SS. With this information, Miller then dares to go undercover, using an assumed name and forged papers showing him as an SS veteran. He joins and infiltrates the ODESSA and finds Roschmann, who now runs a high-tech company which plans to send radio gyroscopes and biochemical warheads to Egypt to use against Israel.
Miller eventually finds Roschmann and confronts him at gunpoint, revealing that the diary included a passage about Roschmann murdering a fellow German officer during the war – the unique details of which confirm that it was Miller’s father. Miller intends to hand Roschmann to the authorities, but kills him when the Nazi shoots him. The detailed ODESSA files are used to arrest numerous Nazi war criminals, and Roschmann’s factory mysteriously burns to the ground before any rockets are delivered to Egypt.
Cast[edit]
- Jon Voight as Peter Miller
- Maximilian Schell as Eduard Roschmann
- Maria Schell as Frau Miller
- Mary Tamm as Sigi
- Derek Jacobi as Klaus Wenzer
- Peter Jeffrey as David Porath
- Klaus Löwitsch as Gustav Mackensen
- Kurt Meisel as Alfred Oster
- Günter Meisner as General Greifer
- Hannes Messemer as General Richard Glücks
- Garfield Morgan as Israeli Defence Force General
- Shmuel Rodensky as Simon Wiesenthal
- Ernst Schröder as Werner Deilman
- Günter Strack as Kunik
- Noel Willman as Franz Bayer
- Martin Brandt as Marx
Production[edit]
Filming was done on location in Hamburg, Germany; Salzburg, Austria; Heidelberg, Germany; Munich, Germany; at Pinewood Studios, England; and the Bavaria Filmstudios in Grünwald, Bavaria, Germany. It was filmed with Panavision equipment, produced with Eastmancolor technologies.
The film's title song, "Christmas Dream", is sung by Perry Como and the London Boy Singers.
Reception[edit]
Nora Sayre of the New York Times said, "The film makes its points methodically, almost academically. It also drags because there are many unnecessary transitional passages, devoted to moving the characters from one situation to another. Almost every occurrence is predictable."[2]
Groggy Dundee in Nothing is Written praised the actors, "Jon Voight does well, making Miller a credible and compelling protagonist. Maximilian Schell is excellent in what amounts to an extended cameo." However, he criticises the filmmakers for simplifying Forsyth's novel and dulling its anti-Nazi message.[3]
References[edit]
- Jump up ^ "All-time Film Rental Champs", Variety, 7 January 1976 p 46
- Jump up ^ Sayre, Nora (19 October 1974). "Neame's 'Odessa File': Thriller About Secret SS".
- Jump up ^ Dundee, Groggy (17 July 2010). "The Odessa File".
External links[edit]
- The Odessa File on IMDb
- The Odessa File at AllMovie
- The Odessa File at the TCM Movie Database
- The Odessa File at the American Film Institute Catalog
- The Odessa File at Rotten Tomatoes
- The Odessa File in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
- 1974 films
- English-language films
- 1970s independent films
- 1970s spy films
- 1970s thriller films
- British films
- British independent films
- British political films
- British spy films
- British thriller drama films
- British thriller films
- Columbia Pictures films
- Films about journalists
- Films about Nazi hunters
- Films about the Mossad
- Films based on British novels
- Films based on thriller novels
- Films based on works by Frederick Forsyth
- Films directed by Ronald Neame
- Films set in 1963
- Films set in 1964
- Films set in Hamburg
- Films set in Munich
- Films set in Salzburg
- Films set in Vienna
- Films shot in Austria
- Films shot in England
- Films shot in Germany
- Films shot in Hamburg
- Holocaust films
- Political thriller films
- Spy thriller films
- West German films
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