The Odessa File (1974) – Lost in adaptation

Director: Ronald Neame .

Script: George Markstein (also an excellent spy fiction writer)

Cast: Jon Voight, Maximilian Schell, Mary Tamm

Israel has always considered itself to be facing existential threats from everywhere. Historically the state of Israel seemed at its most fragile from its declaration of independence in 1948 till the 1967 Seven-Day War.

Gamal Abdul Nasser, who came to power with the 1952 Egyptian revolution, consistently threatened to blow up Israel with his new German-designed rockets. This was not an empty threat, as Nasser had a great source of help. West German scientists who had been forbidden by post-WW2 rules quietly shifted to Egypt and worked there due to better conditions and pay. Soon news of this filtered back to the Israelis, and they were shocked to discover that the rockets’ warheads were basically “dirty warheads” made of radioactive materials. All these Germans had been helped by an organisation under various names – Der Spinne, Der Org, The Kameradeshaft but became famous in the popular imagination as Odessa, thanks to the 1972 bestseller by Frederick Forsyth.

Forsyth once again wrote a gripping thriller that adroitly fused fact to a basic “quest” story. So much so that readers could not distinguish fact from fiction.

However, in the film, we can soon sense the difference between the two due to the somewhat lazy storytelling by Ronald Neame, whose immediate, earlier film had been the super hit “disaster film” The Poseidon Adventure (1972). George Markstein, a spy fiction writer and creator of the impressive TV series The Prisoner, was the scriptwriter. Yet, it somehow didn’t have the punch that Markstein had in his books and TV series.

Like the book, the film was set in Hamburg in 1963. Freelance journalist Peter Miller (Jon Voight) is given the diary of a Jewish concentration camp survivor Solomon Tauber who had committed suicide in present-day Hamburg. Soon Miller is engrossed and even entrapped by the story so much that he decides to search for the commandant Eduard Roschmann (Maximilian Schell).

Miller starts investigating and soon runs into various obstacles. Further Israeli intelligence wants to infiltrate Miller into Odessa, the organisation of former SS members, solely concerned with rehabilitating its members without their Nazi past into German life as respectable citizens.

Miller approaches Simon Weisenthal, the Vienna-based famous Nazi hunter, who soon reveals to him why its difficult if not impossible to catch ex Nazis who have been integrated into West German society under new or different names.

That, as they say, is the story.

The part about Nazi scientists working in Egypt is true. Mossad, the Israeli Secret Service, carried out a “black” targeted assassination program against the scientists. One of the Israeli agents was caught in Switzerland but was quietly deported back lest the details start leaking.

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There are very few thrills and chills, one of them being Miller’s near accidental death under the wheels of the Hamburg metro while watched by his girlfriend Sigi (Mary Tamm). He is pushed by an unseen, unknown man who wants him to stop his inquiry.

His mother also doesn’t want to talk about “those dreadful years”. Everyone wants to forget the past and move on while Miller is the only one bent upon digging it up

The scenes where Miller masquerades as an ex-SS man Kolb are some of the best in the film as “Kolb” undergoes a lengthy “interrogation” at the hands of the man who is a known Odessa member.  The final confrontation between Miller and Roschmann is also a bit of a letdown

The film is dull due to Jon Voight’s somewhat indifferent performance. He doesn’t seem to be the driven man Forsyth’s book makes him out to be. The Odessa File is a slow-paced thriller that could have done better with a tighter script and writing. It also messes with history in showing Miller “killing” Roschmann while, in real life, he survived to die sometime in the mid-1970s.

The film is available for free on this website (some ads) https://bit.ly/3JxMi4z and on Amazon Prime (India) at additional charges https://bit.ly/3LcjoYU

Real History/ Historical background – 5 out of 5

Script – 3 out of 5

Story – 4 out of 5

Direction – 3 out of 5

Overall Rating – 3.8 out of 5