70s Rewind: Ronald Neame's THE ODESSA FILE

It doesn't have the immediacy of Page One: Inside The New York Times, Andrew Rossi's compelling documentary that opened in limited U.S. release recently, nor the political relevance of All the President's Men, Alan J. Pakula's drama that served as a journalistic call to arms for thousands of young people in 1976. But The Odessa File has something that those other films do not:

Nazis.

Directed by Ronald Neame and released in October 1974, The Odessa File is adapted from a best-selling 1972 novel by Frederick Forsyth that is based, according to the author, on O.D.E.S.S.A., the name of a real-life organization that began smuggling members of the SS out of Germany during the final days of World War II. The story is set in the early 60s. Freelance journalist Peter Miller (Jon Voight), who describes himself as "just a reporter with a nose for a story," follows wailing sirens to a building and sees a dead body carried out by the authorities. Spotting a good friend who's a detective, Miller presses for information and is told that an old man committed suicide: "It's only worth two lines in the newspaper."

The next day, the friend hands Miller a memoir that reveals the old man to be a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust. The memoir details atrocities committed in the Riga (Latvia) ghetto, converted into a concentration camp, under the iron fist of Captain Eduard Roschmann (Maximiliann Schell) and claims that Roschmann is still alive, a beneficiary of the clandestine O.D.E.S.S.A. organization.

Miller thinks the story is good, and will be even better if he can find Roschmann and uncover his new identity. But, as a magazine editor tells him when he reject's Miller's pitch, the German people no longer wish to hear about Nazi atrocities. The press has been filled with such stories ever since the war ended. It's late November 1963; JFK has just been assassinated, and that is what is on everyone's minds. Miller is not deterred. Over the protests of his detective friend, his girlfriend Sigi (Mary Tamm), and his mother (Maria Schell), he pursues an investigation on his own dime.

Miller is aware that he and Sigi represent the hopes of a new, post-war, post-Nazi generation for Germany, a generation that doesn't want to be shackled unfairly to the past. While he doesn't feel any residual guilt for the actions of his countrymen, he begins to realize that he was not fully aware of the extent of those actions. In trying to dissuade him, his mother cautiously revealed a precious few hints of life under Nazi rule, but was reluctant to go into any details. His reporter's curiosity appears to drive him forward.

Frederick Forsyth's novel painstakingly details the investigation, reflecting Forsyth's experience as a reporter in Europe, including three years for Reuters and three more for the BBC. While reporting in Biafra, he quit the BBC and went freelance, later writing a book-length account of the conflict there. He then turned to fiction, and his first effort was the best-selling The Day of the Jackal, the basis for the film by Fred Zinneman. The Odessa File was his second novel.

The book makes liberal use of real-life characters such as Eduard Roschmann, Simon Wiesenthal, and the leaders of Israeli intelligence agencies. The screenplay, credited to Kenneth Ross and George Markstein, jettisons almost all of the material concerning the reasons for the Israeli government's interest in Miller's investigation, which, unfortunately, makes their involvement in the film appear to be centered entirely on catching a mass murderer, rather than their greater interest in uncovering those engaged in developing a secret rocket system that could enable Egypt to defeat Israel in battle.

While all the details and sub-plots make for a very engaging read, the script provides a sleeker, more manageable star vehicle for director Neame to pilot. And it is very much a star vehicle, with Voight on a roll. He received an Academy Award nomination for 1969's Midnight Cowboy, survived the disastrous Catch-22, and then gave three memorable performances in a row: Deliverance, The All-American Boy, and Conrack. Coming Home was several years in the future; The Odessa File represented the actor in a mainstream role, but one that allowed him to display righteous integrity.

And Ronald Name kept him on track. Neame was coming off marshaling an all-star cast in The Poseidon Adventure, to huge box office results, and so he had his own cachet within the industry. Producer John Woolf had previously shepherded The Day of the Jackal to success, so he had a good handle with the material. Veteran Oswald Morris, a longtime collaborator with John Huston, served as director of photography; Ralph Kemplen, who was nominated for The Day of the Jackal, was the editor; Andrew Lloyd Webber composed his first score for a feature film.

With all that quality talent behind the camera, Voight is able to shine in a manner that isn't showy. He displays oodles of quiet, probing intelligence with little more than a firm set to his chin. (I did keep wondering, though, how he could keep all the information he gathered in his head, without taking notes.) Schell, whose career was dotted with films about Nazis, including his Academy Award-winning turn in Judgment at Nuremberg, gives an impassioned, somewhat terrifying speech of self-justification near the end that's disturbingly real. The actor would be nominated for another Oscar for his portrayal of another accused Nazi war criminal in The Man in the Glass Booth.

Hollywood studios had turned away from making Holocaust films by the mid-60s; the more relaxed air of the early 70s allowed for a big screen studio production of Cabaret, as well as the more scandalous-minded Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS. Between those two, The Odessa File, produced by companies in the UK and West Germany, walked a respectful line that, nonetheless, occupied thriller territory.

By today's standards, it's a low-key thriller, made more exciting with an attempted murder at a subway station, a silent excursion into a print shop, and added peril for Miller's girlfriend Sigi, all inventions for the film version. But it works, in its own quiet, grim, and determined way.

Miller prizes the truth above all, no matter where it may lead him. He's an imperfect example for present-day journalists, though, especially this week, when it's become clear that some reporters in the UK felt illegal phone hacking was within their rights in search of a story. The ends do not justify the means.

Or do they? In the case of The Odessa File, Miller ends up in a confrontation with unrepentant evil. What do you do then?

The film was released on Region 1 DVD by Sony in 2000, but that edition is now out of print. It received a Region 2 release on DVD from UFA in 2004, which is still available from Amazon.co.uk and other sellers.