A gripping puzzle of pursuit and escape

After The Day of the Jackal (1973), The Odessa File (1974) was the second Frederick Forsyth novel to be adapted for the big screen; Fred Zinnemann's The Day of the Jackal (1973). The year is 1963, and Egypt has amassed an arsenal of rockets aimed toward Israel. It needs only a missile guidance system, which is in fact being developed in Germany by scientists associated with Odessa, a secret society of former SS officers from Hitler's regime. When an elderly Jewish man named Solomon Tauber commits suicide, reporter Peter Miller (Jon Voight) gets hold of his diary. It recounts Tauber's horrific experiences in the Riga concentration camp, particularly the cruelty of Eduard Roschmann, commandant and SS captain. A friend of Tauber tells Miller that Roschmann is still alive under a different name, so Miller goes on a quest to locate him. With the help of Israeli intelligence, he assumes the identity of a recently deceased ex-Nazi and attempts to infiltrate Odessa's carefully protected ranks, both to bring Roschmann to justice and to protect Israel from the impending missile threat.
(background and synopsis from TCM)

Miller's girlfriend Sigi, (Mary Tamm) after taking a shower...

The term ODESSA stands for "Organisation der ehemaligen SS Angehorigen", which translates to: Organization of the former SS members. Eduard Roschmann was a real-life wanted war criminal living in South America. He became even more wanted after the book and movie, and he turned up dead, rumoured to have been killed by Odessa to stop the search for him that the media had begun.

(background and synopsis from TCM)

Double Cross

While Lee Marvin goes about his business in the foreground, in a scene from John Boorman's neo-noir, Point Blank (1967), a naked (Angie Dickinson) gets dressed in the background.

After taking part in the robbery of a large shipment of cash being transferred by helicopter on deserted Alcatraz, a man known as Walker is shot and left for dead by his partner Mal Reese, who then runs off with Walker's faithless wife, Lynne. Two years later, while on a guided tour around the island, Walker is stopped by a stranger, Yost, who offers to help him recover his share of the money by leading him to both Lynne and the criminal organization to which Reese now belongs. After Lynne has killed herself in despair, Walker takes up with her sister, Chris, who helps get him into Reese's heavily-guarded penthouse. As Walker threatens him, Reese plunges from a terrace to his death. Still determined to get his money, Walker continues to hunt down other members of the organization in Los Angeles... With location scenes filmed at Alcatraz Prison and in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

(synopsis and background from TCM)

The name is Chapman, Eddie Chapman!

A glimpse of nudity as suave Eddie Chapman (Christopher Plummer) shares a bed with an unidentified starlet from Terence Young's hugely enjoyable WWII spy thriller, Triple Cross (1966), a French - UK co-production. Although set during the Second World War, the movie feels a bit like the early Bond pictures, not surprisingly when one considers that Young directed Dr. No (1962), From Russia with Love (1963) and Thunderball (1965) and the film also features Mr. Goldfinger himself, the incomparable Gert Fröbe.

British safecracker Eddie Chapman is arrested during the early part of World War II for robbing a movie theater and imprisoned on the Isle of Jersey. When the Germans occupy the island, he contacts two members of German Intelligence, Colonel Steinhager and The Countess, and offers himself, for a price, as a spy. His offer accepted, Eddie receives espionage training from Baron von Grunen, and after passing a loyalty test, he is parachuted into England. Once there, he volunteers to work for British Intelligence in exchange for a full pardon. When the British stage a fake explosion of an aircraft factory which is photographed by German reconnaissance planes, Eddie is credited for the sabotage and returned to Paris to be awarded the German Iron Cross. Then, as the Allies approach Paris, Eddie is sent back to England to report on the accuracy of Hitler's rocket attacks on London. Instead, he radios false reports and diverts the rockets into unpopulated areas. Now a hero in both countries, Eddie celebrates the war's end in a London pub. As he sips his beer, the temptations of his former life return to him and he surreptitiously eyes the tavern safe.

(synopsis from TCM)

Given his past exploits, Chapman, strangely enough, was still living when Triple Cross was being filmed, and Young badly wanted him as his technical advisor. However, French authorities wouldn't allow Chapman into the country because, for reasons that were never really ascertained, he had once kidnapped the sultan of Morocco.

(background from TCM)

The savage story of a city stripped naked!

A rather unexpected glimpse of full frontal female nudity in Don Siegel's 1968 hardboiled cop thriller Madigan. At this point of the decade this was still quite uncommon, particularly for an American mainstream movie. As the tagline suggested: "If detective Madigan kept his eyes on the killer instead of the broad..."

In New York City's Spanish Harlem, police detectives Dan Madigan and Rocco Bonaro break into a sleazy apartment and arrest Barney Benesch, a hoodlum wanted for questioning by a Brooklyn precinct. Momentarily distracted by Benesch's nude girl friend, the two detectives are outwitted by Benesch, who escapes with their guns. When it is discovered that Benesch was wanted for homicide, Madigan and Bonaro are reprimanded by Police Commissioner Anthony X. Russell. Irritated by the fact that Madigan and Bonaro broke the rules by working for another precinct, Russell gives the two men 72 hours to arrest Benesch...

(synopsis from TCM)


A tough cop movie made with almost documentary realism, Madigan was based on a novel by Richard Dougherty called The Commissioner. The screenplay, originally titled Friday, Saturday, Sunday, was adapted by two writers who had been blacklisted in the 1950s: Howard Rodman (here credited under the pseudonym Henri Simoun), and Abraham Polonsky. The film would end up a big hit and one of Siegel's own favorites, but it was far from an easy shoot. Serious clashes between Siegel and producer Frank Rosenberg marred the production. Rosenberg was a studio veteran who considered himself the boss of the project; as far as Siegel was concerned, once the cameras rolled, Siegel was boss. The most significant clash came over the location for the action-packed ending. Most of the picture had been shot on location in New York, but for the finale the company moved to Los Angeles. New York was getting to be too dangerous: Widmark and Guardino's car had been attacked by a gang in Harlem, and the prop man had been mugged. Rosenberg picked a location in L.A. that Siegel found to be unimaginative and virtually unusable. Siegel himself then discovered a location that was perfect and looked very much like New York, but Rosenberg still insisted that his choice be used. Siegel went over Rosenberg's head to Lew Wasserman, the head of Universal. He made his case, showed photos of both locations, and Wasserman agreed that Siegel's choice was best.

(background  from TCM)