The Odessa File

Director: Ronald Neame Ronald Neame

Overview

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.

Product Details

Release Date:	05/15/2012
UPC:	0014381800258
Original Release:	1974
Source:	Image Entertainment
Sound:	[stereo]
Time:	2:08:00

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Jon Voight	Peter Miller
Maximilian Schell	Eduard Roschmann
Maria Schell	Frau Miller
Mary Tamm	Sigi
Derek Jacobi	Klaus Wenzer
Shmuel Rodensky	Simon Wiesenthal
Werner Bruhns	Magazine Publisher Hoffmann
Georg Marischka	Lawyer
Joachim D. Mues	Wehrmacht Captain
Elisabeth Neumann-Viertel	Frau Wenzer
Peter Jeffrey	David Porath
Klaus Löwitsch	Gustav MacKensen
Hannes Messemer	Gen. Glocks
Garfield Morgan	Israeli General
Ernst Schroeder	Werner Deilman
Noel Willman	Franz Bayer
Hans Caninberg	Dr. Ferdinand Schultz
Heinz Ehrenfreund	Shapira
Alexander Golling	Colonel
Towje Kleiner	Solomon Tauber
Günter Meisner	Gen. Greifer
Til Kiwe	Medal Shop Proprietor
Cyril Shaps	Tauber
Gunnar Moeller	Karl Braun
Martin Brandt	Marx
Kurt Meisel	Oster
Günter Strack	Police Official Kunik
Hans Wyprächtiger	Landlord

Technical Credits

George Markstein

Kenneth Ross

Ronald Neame	Director
Derek Ball	Sound/Sound Designer
Monika Bauert	Costumes/Costume Designer
Colin Brewer	Asst. Director
Andre Heller	Songwriter
Ralph Kemplen	Editor
George Markstein	Screenwriter
Gordon K. McCallum	Sound/Sound Designer
Oswald Morris	Cinematographer
Kenneth Ross	Screenwriter
John R. Sloan	Producer
Andrew Lloyd Webber	Score Composer
John Woolf	Producer
Rolf Zehetbauer	Production Designer

Editorial Reviews

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.

All Movie Guide - Craig Butler