THE ODESSA FILE (1974)
DIRECTOR: Ronald Neame
CAST: Jon Voight, Maximilian Schell, Mary Tamm, Maria Schell, Derek Jacobi, Klaus Löwitsch, Ernst Schröder, Noel Willman, Günter Meisner, Alexander Allerson, Kurt Meisel, Hannes Messemer, Shmuel Rodensky, Gunnar Möller, Til Kiwe
An effective thriller from the '70s that may be a little bit dated but can still hold interest and generate suspense. Based on Frederick Forsyth's best-selling novel of the same name, The Odessa File made good use of its on-location filming in Hamburg and Munich and a gloomy atmosphere. The premise is that an organization of former SS officers known as the Odessa are building chemical weapons to fire at Israel. There are a lot of familiar German faces here, but the star is blond, boyish American actor Jon Voight. He's Peter Miller, a young freelance Hamburg reporter whose quietly successful existence with his live-in girlfriend Sigi (British actress Mary Tamm) is shattered when a random event brings him into contact with the Odessa. Both Voight and Tamm were coached by dialogue director Osman Ragheb, and manage decent light German accents.
Hamburg, 1963: Miller has just stopped on the curb to listen to the announcement of President Kennedy's asssassination when an ambulance speeds by, and being the wily reporter that he is, he follows, finding a recent suicide, an elderly German Jew named Salomon Tauber. Among Tauber's few possessions is an old diary....which turns out to be a record of the ordeal of Tauber and his wife in the Riga Concentration Camp during WWII. For a reason which is not revealed until the end of the film, Miller becomes obsessed with locating the brutal SS Captain mentioned in the diary, Eduard Roschmann (Maximilian Schell), against the advice of Sigi, his mother (Maria Schell, Maximilian's sister) and his police chief friend, Karl (Gunnar Möller). As Miller delves more deeply into the mysterious disappearance of Roschmann, he realizes that there is an entire organization blocking the way to him and other Nazi war crminals, with connections in the police and the government, and puts himself and Sigi in increasing danger in his dogged search for the truth.
The Odessa File is a pretty faithful adaptation of the book, and while it stretches logic a little when the very youthful-looking Miller attempts to infiltrate a gathering of SS veterans and the musical score in particular is very 70-ish, it still works in many parts, and works very well in a few standout scenes. Voight is excellent as the determined Miller (although for some reason he seems to have a tendency to talk excessively loud), while Tamm is adequate if not particularly memorable as his worried girlfriend. Maria Schell has an excellent cameo early on, and her brother Maximilian does wonders with very limited screen time. Early on the film, we are shown a series of black and white flashbacks of a younger Tauber and SS Capt. Roschmann (Schell) in Riga, and while these scenes may not have the power and impact of more recent depictions such as War and Remembrance and Schindler's List, they do depict the petty cruelty which took place in the concentration camps. Herr Schell does not appear again until very late in the film, and when he finally does he is worth the wait, delivering essentially a monologue with passion and conviction as he tries to justify his past crimes and convince Miller of the glory of Nazi Germany, but underneath his righteous speechmaking he turns out be a bullying coward as he ends up pathetically attempting to blame the crimes at Riga on “others”. Schell makes a big impression with only a few minutes of screentime. The majority of the film follows Miller's journey across Germany and Austria in pursuit of Roschmann, and the often dangerous characters he encounters along the way. British actor Sir Derek Jacobi has a cameo as a timid identity forger, but he disappears after a couple scenes and we never really know what happens to him. Native German Klaus Löwitsch is effective but underused as a cold-blooded Odessa assassin, and the ever-sinister Günter Meisner has one scene as the guest speaker at an underground Nazi rally. Hannes Messemer and Kurt Meisel drop by briefly as Odessa bigwigs, and Noel Willman, Ernst Schröder, and Til Kiwe have slightly more substantial roles as three other former SS officers whom Miller must slip past on the way to Roschmann. Alexander Allerson has one brief scene as a doctor. Miller also elicits the help of legendary Nazi hunter and Holocaust survivor Simon Wiesenthal, played by lookalike Shmuel Rodensky (the real Wiesenthal, who only recently retired, served as a technical adviser for the film), and Israeli Intelligence agent David Porath (Peter Jeffrey), who uses Miller to get to Roschmann before the rockets can be launched at Israel.
Adding weight to the proceedings is the fact that, while Miller and several other characters are fictional, there really was an organization known as the Odessa, created by former SS officers to protect Nazi war criminals. Eduard Roschmann was an actual person, and after the release of the book and movie he was found murdered in South America, allegedly by the Odessa itself to stop the unwanted publicity. The Odessa File is, in my opinion, not a great film but a good one, and while it won't be enjoyed by everyone, it is certainly worth checking out.
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