The Odessa File (1974)

Very well executed

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

A true classic from my youth, both the book and the movie. Watching the movie again in 2018, it holds up well but it's hard not to imagine a bit of modern film technique touch-ups here and there. I only have a couple of criticisms of this fine film that I enjoyed thoroughly each time I have seen it. It's just corny to see a movie about Germany yet hear barely a word of German, and even worse, have everyone speaking English with phony German accents. It would have added tremendously to the verisimilitude of the movie had some of the speeches been spoken in German. I think that filmmakers underestimate the intelligence of viewer when they do this, either that or they know the audience well enough to understand that most slobs don't want to listen to a foreign language.The music is pretty awful throughout the film. It's like the borrowed most of the music from a porn flick. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the story and it's one that towers above most of the rubbish of most films of this genre. Today it's all about how many people you can kill inside of idiot plots that all seem basically the same.

THE ODESSA FILE is a low-key spy thriller of the 1970s, going for gritty realism rather than Bond-style thrills and spills. It has a little in common with THE IPCRESS FILE and much in common with the Nazi-hunting movies of the later '70s such as THE BOYS FROM BRAZIL and MARATHON MAN. Jon Voight is an unusual choice for the German journalist protagonist but he makes a good fist of the job and is remarkably convincing.The story sees Voight's steely reporter hunting for members of the secret Odessa gang, populated by former Nazis evading justice. This tale was taken from the headlines, based on a novel by Frederick Forsyth, and it also happened to be true; Odessa really did exist. The story that follows is overlong at times but generally compelling, especially when Voight's cover is blown in the latter stages and the peril builds increasingly. There's some nicely-drawn character work and one protracted fight scene which director Ronald Neame handles very well.

(Some Spoilers) The Israeli Mossad is determined to stop Egyptian President Nasser from developing a missile guidance system that will have his land based missiles hit Isreal loaded with bubonic-plague and strontium 90 and end up finishing the job what the late Adolph Hitler and the Nazis started out to do! "The Final Solution" to the Jewish or now in 1963 Israeli question.It's young German freelance reporter Peter Miller, Jon Voight, who unknowingly gets involved in all this by being at the scene of the suicide of Jewish holocaust survivor Solomon Tauber, Towje Kleiner, and ending up getting a hold of his diary. Miller who smells a good story in Tauber's tragic death gets immersed in his diary to the point that he's determined to track down and bring to justice the man who in fact was responsible not for the deaths of thousands of Jewish concentration camp inmates but after almost 20 years that of Tauber himself! SS Captain Eduard Roschmann, Maximilian Schell. Miller finds out from Tauber's good friend and fellow concentration camp survivor Marx, Martin Brandt, that what lead to his suicide is that Tauber spotted Roschmann in Hamburg just a month before his death which, with him escaping justice for his crimes, drove him to kill himself!Traveling to Vienna to talk to famed Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal, Samuel Rodevsky, Peter finds out that there's this secret organization that's committed to protect fugitive Nazi SS war criminals like Rochmann called the "Odessa". Infiltrate the Odessa and find a list of its members, who now have new identities, and you'll break it's world wide criminal operations wide open Wiesenthal tells Mller. But in doing that you'll end up putting not only your life but the lives of your friends and family members in mortal danger! You start to wonder why is Miller so obsessed in wanting to capture Roschmann in that Nazi war criminals on the loose is nothing new to him in that the problem has been around since the collapses of Nazi Germany in the spring of 1945. There's a small item in Tuber's diary dated October 11, 1944 that caught Miller's eye that in fact had really nothing to do with Rochmann's many crimes at the Riga concentration camp. But it does has to do with something or someone very close to Peter Miller who's now determined more then ever to bring it to final closure with Captain Roschmann along with it!***SPOILERS*** Miller going undercover, with the help of the Israeli Mossad, and joining the Odessa as a 40 year old ex-SS execution squad sergeant soon uncovers where the Odessa file, having the identities of former SS fugitives now in Germany, is but puts his life on the line in getting it. Finding the secret printing and photographic lab run by mama's boy Klaus Wenzer, Derek Jacobi, that Odessa uses to print false identification papers for it's clients Miller is confronted by Gustav, Kalus Lowitsch, the #1 hit-man for Odessa. After finally dispatching Gustav,in a knock down and drag out slug-fest, Miller find in Wenzer's safe the Odessa File and those in it including the notorious and on the loose Eduard Roschmann! It's then that everything in the movie comes together in that Roschmann is now using the name of Josef Kiefel the owner of Kiefel Electronics to do his dirty work! Kiefel Electronics is the very German electronic company that's now producing the guidance system for Nasser's missiles! the big surprise and jaw dropping ending in the film is when Miller finally confronts Roschmann at his castle mansion in Heidelberg and brings out the real reason that he's been after him all this time and wants him to face justice for his crimes! At first arrogant and combative,even with Miller pointing a gun at him, Roschmann breaks down like a baby knowing that the crimes that he committed on concentration camps inmates during the war wasn't what lead to his being exposed and soon to be either brought to justice or shot by young Peter Miller. It was something very very personal and German that even his SS comrades in arms or on the loose wouldn't agree with him on!

"The Odessa File" is a riveting piece of history that will hold your attention as it illustrates man's constant inhumanity. Its concentration camp scenes almost rival those in "Schindler's List."Jon Voight, as usual, is an intelligent actor who fits the part of a reporter with a German background, perfectly. However, it is Maximilian Schell's performance as the concentration camp commander that is positively chilling.You will learn from this movie but, those with a heart and soul will be discouraged about they do learn.This film is a must-see history-come-alive item.