The Odessa File

Jon Voight, as a diligent German free-lance journalist, and Maximilian Schell, as an ex-concentration camp commandant turned industrialist, stand out in this otherwise sluggish tale of Kennedy-era espionage and political double-dealing. Frederick Forsyth's thriller gets a more pedestrian treatment from Ronald Neame than his Day of the Jackal got from Fred Zinnemann, and the surprises increasingly fail to surprise. Neame has done better, if not particularly exciting, work with plays like The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and Tunes of Glory —but Voight has rarely been better (1974). By Don Druker