The Odessa File (1974)

Director:

Ronald Neame

Writers:

Frederick Forsyth (novel)
Kenneth Ross (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

18 October 1974 (USA)

Genre:

Thriller | Drama

Tagline:

A gripping puzzle of pursuit and escape

Plot:

After reading the diary of an elderly Jewish man who committed suicide, freelance journalist Peter Miller...

Plot Keywords:

Diary | Suicide | SS | Germany | Journalist

Cast

Jon Voight	...	Peter Miller
Maximilian Schell	...	Eduard Roschmann
Maria Schell	...	Frau Miller
Mary Tamm	...	Sigi
Derek Jacobi	...	Klaus Wenzer
Peter Jeffrey	...	David Porath
Klaus Löwitsch	...	Gustav Mackensen
Kurt Meisel	...	Alfred Oster
Hannes Messemer	...	General Glücks
Garfield Morgan	...	Israeli General
Shmuel Rodensky	...	Simon Wiesenthal
Ernst Schröder	...	Werner Deilman
Günter Strack	...	Kunik (also as Gunter Strack)
Noel Willman	...	Franz Bayer
Martin Brandt	...	Marx

Also Known As:

Der Fall Odessa (West Germany)
Die Akte Odessa (West Germany)
The O.D.E.S.S.A. File (UK) (alternative spelling)

Runtime:

130 min | Germany:120 min

Country:

UK | West Germany

Language:

German | English

Color:

Black and White | Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Iceland:16 | Australia:PG (TV rating) | South Korea:12 (DVD rating) (2005) | Australia:M | Finland:K-16 | Norway:16 (1975) | Singapore:PG | Sweden:15 | UK:A (original rating) | UK:PG (video rating) (1988) | USA:PG | West Germany:12

Filming Locations:

Alter Elbtunnel, St. Pauli, Hamburg, Germany

Company:

John Woolf Productions

Trivia:

The book Soon to be A Major Motion Picture says Helmut Griem was cast as the male lead at one stage.

Goofs:

Anachronisms: The action starts in 1963, in the day when President Kennedy was killed. The ambulance that brings Salomon Tauber's body to the hospital is a Volkswagen Kombi model 1967 or newer. The 1963 model had a split windshield.

Quotes:

[Miller is trying to sell his editor a story based on the diary]
Hoffmann: No one wants to read about Jews.
Peter Miller: They were GERMANS!
Hoffmann: They were German Jews.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Dallas: The Odessa File (#14.8)" (1990)

Soundtrack:

Christmas Dream

Marred only by one thing

Sometime between 1979 and today, filmmakers have lost the ability to tell a suspenseful story, to flesh out characters, so that today we see more style than substance, more gore and mayhem than plot development.

The Day of the Jackal, Marathon Man, Eye of the Needle, The Boys From Brazil and others will be labeled boring by many here because they must wait for something to happen. A typical example from Odessa is the reunion scene. Voight infiltrates the meeting of old German soldiers, make that old devoted Nazis, gathering in a beer hall. He snaps a photo of the speaker, shouting what sounds like the words of the pre-war Deutschland uber Alles. One man comes and begins his eviction from the hall. In the next scene we see him nursing his wounds, which are far more serious than the pushes we see. Tell me that today we would not witness a brutal beating punch by punch, kick by kick.

Films then used violence to advance the plot, such as the "Is it safe?" interrogation in Marathon Man. Seventies films are no shorter than today's masterpieces, but so much more intricate plot is compressed into their time frame.

Three Days of the Jackal is a perfect telling of a Forsyth book; we never become involved with the characters but watch in fascination. Here we follow Miller (Voight) giving us a horse in the race. I have reservations about the final confrontation with Schell and Miller's motivations but I have none about the story in general.

Only in the score does Odessa fall short; the music sounds almost if it was added as an afterthought and does nothing to enhance moods or foreshadow scenes. Worse, the score seems the beginning of a pattern that continues to this day where in some scenes the music is the main character. Only the bier-hall singing of the old Nazis sounds appropriate.

I rated the film 8 of 10.