The Odessa File (1974, Movie) – 7/10 review

Producer: John Woolf Writer (Original Novel): Frederick Forsyth Jon Voight: Peter Miller Maximilian Schell: Eduard Roschmann Director: Ronald Neame Advisor Documentary: Simon Wiesenthal Writer (Screenplay): Kenneth Ross Writer (Screenplay): George Markstein

Odessa File, The (1974) Odessa, a secret society borne from the SS, is putting the finishing touches to a plan to exterminate Israel using biological weapons. Meanwhile, Peter Miller, a reporter in Berlin, receives the diary of an elderly Jew who committed suicide and is compelled to track down former concentration camp commandant and SS officer Eduard Roschmann. 7/10 Largely low-key thriller that is consistently interesting and thrilling when it needs to be. This is a good reminder of how thrillers used to be and you know that a contemporary remake would include gratuitous nudity (one of the characters is a stripper, sorry, dancer), violence (Jon Voight gets badly beaten up in-between scenes and one bad guy falls to his death off-camera) and the creation of the burning scar would be explicitly depicted. As this production demonstrates, none of that is needed yet the audience still understands what happened and comprehends and believes the seriousness of the situation. Instead, contemporary filmmakers mistake violence for thrills, sexual swear words for seriousness and seemingly cannot make anything without at least one scene in an exotic dancing establishment. We, the audience, are worse off for it. This movie contains unpleasant scenes, violence and mild non-sexual nudity. Classified PG by BBFC. Parental Guidance.