The Odessa File ★★★½

THRILLER The Odessa File, released in 1974, was another attempted star-making vehicle for Jon Voight.

The American actor had made Midnight Cowboy and Deliverance but these were serious films.

The Odessa File, based on a Frederick Forsyth best-selling novel, was overall more of an entertainment piece.

Voight returned to serious cinema in 1978, winning an Oscar for his role as a paraplegic Vietnam War veteran.

There were other attempts to make Voight more bankable but ultimately he has had a long and successful career as a character actor, rather than headlining star.

He is serviceable in The Odessa File’s lead role of German freelance journalist Peter Miller.

It’s 22 November 1963 in Hamburg and Peter pulls his car over to listen to the live news report of US President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. An ambulance passes with siren going and Peter follows to the scene of an old man’s death in an apartment building.

Because the man has apparently committed suicide and left no family the police allow Peter to look at his diary.

Peter learns from the diary that Salomon Tauber was a Jewish Holocaust survivor. The diary also reveals details of all the crimes committed under the orders of Nazi camp commandant information Eduard Roschmann, including the murder of a highly decorated Wehrmacht officer.

Much to his wife’s concern, Peter becomes obsessed with investigating the diary’s authenticity, including the claim that Roschmann may still be alive and hiding somewhere in Germany.

Peter’s efforts bring him to the attention of a group of neo-Nazis with high-level business and political connections, known as the Odessa, who are intent on creating a new order, and the Israeli Mossad agents trying to infiltrate the group.

As you would expect for a Forsyth-penned story, it is engrossing, intelligent and contains a number of  suspenseful sequences and interesting twists.

Maximilian Schell is good as Roschmann but it feels like we don’t see enough of his character in the film.

The music score is a little too intrusive at key moments and some of the action sequences fell a little clunking edited, but overall The Odessa File is a very entertaining watch.