| The Odessa File | |
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Movie poster by Bill Gold Illustration by Howard Terpning |
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| Directed by | Ronald Neame |
| Produced by | John Woolf |
| Written by | Kenneth Ross George Markstein |
| Based on | The Odessa File by Frederick Forsyth |
| Starring | Jon Voight Maximilian Schell Maria Schell |
| Music by | Andrew Lloyd Webber |
| Cinematography | Oswald Morris |
| Editing by | Ralph Kemplen |
| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
| Release date(s) | 18 October 1974 |
| Running time | 130 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom Germany |
| Language | English |
The Odessa File is a 1974 film adaptation of the thriller novel by Frederick Forsyth, about a struggle between a young German reporter and the ODESSA, an organization for ex-Nazis. The film stars Jon Voight and was directed by Ronald Neame, with a score by Andrew Lloyd Webber.
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The plot opens on November 22, 1963, the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Peter Miller, a young German freelance reporter, pulls to the curb to listen to a radio report of the assassination. As a result he happens to be stopped at a traffic signal as an ambulance passes by on a highway. He chases the ambulance and discovers it is en route to pick up the body of an elderly Jewish Holocaust survivor who had committed suicide, leaving behind no family. The reporter obtains the diary of the man, which contains information on his life in the World War II Riga Ghetto, and the name of the SS officer who ran the camp, Eduard Roschmann. Determined to hunt Roschmann down, Miller dares to go undercover to join and infiltrate the ODESSA and find Roschmann, who now runs a high tech company which plans to send radio gyroscopes and biochemical warheads to Egypt to use against Israel. The word ODESSA mentioned in the film is an acronym, which translated from the German, means the Organization for former Members of the SS.
The movie's theme song was "Christmas Dream", sung by Perry Como.
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