The Odessa File (1974) remains a film I fondly embrace because it's the kind of production that no longer exists....a big budget, high profile studio adaptation of a best-selling thriller novel.....and top-lining a freshly minted young star in the prime of his career.
And it's hard to resist any movie that involves hunting down and killing off Nazi war criminals....always a guaranteed crowd pleaser, (except maybe for Trump's MAGA mob who see them as role models and 'very good people'.....)
First thing we love......the only Nazi-hunting movie that kicks off with the old crooner Perry Como warbling a cheerful catchy Christmas song written by Andrew Lloyd Webber.....(who, in a rare task for him, also wrote the film's music score.)
Next plus.....a young Jon Voight as Peter Miller, a freelance journalist who's given the diary of an elderly concentration camp survivor who just committed suicide. The old man's horrific memories, depicted in flashbacks, show the atrocities of the camp's commander, S.S. Captain Roschmann (Maximillian Schell), who not only slaughters Jewish prisoners but in a fit of temper even murders a decorated German army officer who dared to cross him.
Believing Roschmann's still alive and well, Miller embarks on a dangerous investigative hunt for him. This puts the nervy young reporter directly in the crosshairs of O.D.E.S.S.A., a mafia for ex-Nazis still panting for world domination and extermination of Israel.
Miller's harrowing quest gets him beaten up at an ODESSA rally, then barely dodging their assassins. Along the way, he also can't help crossing paths with agents of the Israeli secret service MOSSAD, who enlist him in as an undercover agent.....all of this leading up to Miller's finale confrontation with Roschmann and a startling twist revelation.
British director Ronald Neame, fresh off his success wrangling Irwin Allen's blockbuster "The Poseidon Adventure", smoothly handles all the suspense and action with a steady, professional hand. Though not particularly known for propulsive action, Neame turns Miller's desperate battle with a formidable Nazi thug into a well staged Hitchcockian duel.
Jon Voight, sporting a credible Germanic accent, provides the required intensity and likability to make an audience care about what happens to him.....and he's more than equal to task of a dramatic showdown with an Academy Award winning veteran like Schell.
"The Odessa File" does its best to stay firmly rooted in reality......(Roschmann was indeed a real life war criminal in hiding, later found dead after release of the book and film, and there's a scene that introduces real life Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal, played by Israeli actor Shmuel Rodensky). It stays grounded in the era's current events, as it has ODESSA planning to gift Egypt's President. Nasser with a missile guidance system to aid in his 1967 war on Israel (the war Israel won in less than week.....)
So in this movie, you won't find the gaudy, bloody, over-the-top, downright bizarre theatrics of 'Nazis among us' films like "The Boys From Brazil" or "Marathon Man". Strictly a meat-and-potatoes sturdily built thriller.......but in this new age of over-hyped, overrated cinematic sludge, that's still a good thing. 4 stars (****).
And don't blame me if from time to time, you hum Perry Como's Christmas song in the shower........that damn Andrew Lloyd Webber........
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