MOVIEmeter
SEE RANK
Down 1,300 this week

The Odessa File (1974)

6.9
Your rating:
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 -/10 X  
Ratings: 6.9/10 from 5,083 users  
Reviews: 44 user | 20 critic

After reading the diary of an elderly Jewish man who committed suicide, freelance journalist Peter Miller begins to investigate the alleged sighting of a former SS-Captain who commanded a ... See full summary »

Director:

Writers:

(novel), (screenplay), 1 more credit »
Watch Trailer
0Check in
0Share...

User Lists

Related lists from IMDb users

a list of 2364 titles created 4 months ago
 
a list of 10000 titles created 2 months ago
 
a list of 1623 titles created 4 months ago
 
a list of 405 titles created 02 Jan 2011
 
a list of 20 titles created 11 months ago
 

Connect with IMDb


Share this Rating

Title: The Odessa File (1974)

The Odessa File (1974) on IMDb 6.9/10

Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below.

Take The Quiz!

Test your knowledge of The Odessa File.

Videos

Photos

Learn more

People who liked this also liked... 

Thriller
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.8/10 X  

A professional assassin codenamed "Jackal" plots to kill Charles de Gaulle, the President of France.

Director: Fred Zinnemann
Stars: Edward Fox, Terence Alexander, Michel Auclair
Marathon Man (1976)
Thriller
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.6/10 X  

A graduate history student is unwittingly caught in the middle of an international conspiracy involving stolen diamonds, an exiled Nazi war criminal, and a rogue government agent.

Director: John Schlesinger
Stars: Dustin Hoffman, Laurence Olivier, Roy Scheider
Drama | Thriller
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.3/10 X  

A reporter finds what appears to be a cover-up of safety hazards at a nuclear power plant.

Director: James Bridges
Stars: Jane Fonda, Jack Lemmon, Michael Douglas
Drama
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.6/10 X  

British agent Alec Leamas refuses to come in from the cold war during the 1960s, choosing to face another mission, which may prove to be his final one.

Director: Martin Ritt
Stars: Richard Burton, Claire Bloom, Oskar Werner
Taxi Driver (1976)
Crime | Drama
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8.5/10 X  

A mentally unstable Vietnam war veteran works as a nighttime taxi driver in New York City where the perceived decadence and sleaze feeds his urge to violently lash out, attempting to save a teenage prostitute in the process.

Director: Martin Scorsese
Stars: Albert Brooks, Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster
Drama | Thriller
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8.5/10 X  

In 1984 East Berlin, an agent of the secret police, conducting surveillance on a writer and his lover, finds himself becoming increasingly absorbed by their lives.

Director: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
Stars: Martina Gedeck, Ulrich Mühe, Sebastian Koch
The Firm (1993)
Drama | Mystery | Thriller
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6.7/10 X  

A young lawyer joins a prestigous law firm only to discover that it has a sinister dark side.

Director: Sydney Pollack
Stars: Tom Cruise, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Gene Hackman
Drama | History | Thriller
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6.7/10 X  

The tumultuous early history of the Central Intelligence Agency is viewed through the prism of one man's life.

Director: Robert De Niro
Stars: Matt Damon, Angelina Jolie, Alec Baldwin
Straw Dogs (1971)
Drama | Thriller
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.6/10 X  

A young American and his English wife come to rural England and face increasingly vicious local harassment.

Director: Sam Peckinpah
Stars: Dustin Hoffman, Susan George, Peter Vaughan
Drama | Thriller
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6.8/10 X  

A married man's one night stand comes back to haunt him when that lover begins to stalk him and his family.

Director: Adrian Lyne
Stars: Michael Douglas, Glenn Close, Anne Archer
Drama | Thriller
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6.7/10 X  

The true story of a disillusioned military contractor employee and his drug pusher childhood friend who became walk-in spies for the Soviet Union.

Director: John Schlesinger
Stars: Timothy Hutton, Sean Penn, Pat Hingle
Syriana (2005)
Drama | Thriller
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7/10 X  

A politically-charged epic about the state of the oil industry in the hands of those personally involved and affected by it.

Director: Stephen Gaghan
Stars: Kayvan Novak, George Clooney, Matt Damon
Edit

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
...
...
Eduard Roschmann
...
Frau Miller
...
Sigi
...
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 (as Schmuel Rodensky)
Ernst Schröder ...
Werner Deilman
Günter Strack ...
Kunik (as Gunter Strack)
Noel Willman ...
Franz Bayer
Martin Brandt ...
Marx
Edit

Storyline

After reading the diary of an elderly Jewish man who committed suicide, freelance journalist Peter Miller begins to investigate the alleged sighting of a former SS-Captain who commanded a concentration camp during World War II. Miller eventually finds himself involved with the powerful organization of former SS members, called ODESSA, as well as with the Israeli secret service. Miller probes deeper and eventually discovers a link between the SS-Captain, ODESSA, and his own family. Written by Anthony Hughes <husnock31@hotmail.com>

Plot Summary | Add Synopsis

Taglines:

From the smash suspense novel of the year. See more »


Certificate:

PG | See all certifications »

Parents Guide:

 »
Edit

Details

Country:

|

Language:

|

Release Date:

18 October 1974 (USA)  »

Also Known As:

Akta Odessy  »

Company Credits

Show detailed on  »

Technical Specs

Runtime:

Sound Mix:

Color:

(Eastmancolor)| (flashback scenes)

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1
See  »
Edit

Did You Know?

Trivia

Eduard Roschmann was a real-life wanted war criminal living in South America. He became even more wanted after the book and movie, and he turned up dead, rumoured to have been killed by Odessa to stop the search for him that the media had begun. See more »

Goofs

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. See more »

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.
See more »

Connections

Referenced in The Passions of Carol (1975) See more »

Soundtracks

"Christmas Dream"
Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber
Lyrics by Tim Rice and André Heller (as Andre Heller)
Sung by Perry Como
See more »

Frequently Asked Questions

This FAQ is empty. Add the first question.

User Reviews

 
Marred only by one thing
11 August 2007 | by (New Jersey) – See all my reviews

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.


18 of 23 people found this review helpful.  Was this review helpful to you?

Message Boards

Recent Posts
'The twist is what got me' annuskavdpol
Implausible moments cellery
'He was dead before he hit the ground' bobo-29
Possible missing scene? christianne3
Any similar movies??? martynbaggs
German music madsaru72
Discuss The Odessa File (1974) on the IMDb message boards »

Contribute to This Page

Create a character page for:
?