Prompted by author Frederick Forsyth's recent passing. This was director Ronald Neame's followup to The Poseidon Adventure (1972). Kenneth Ross and George Markstein adapted Forsyth's book from 1972 which I haven't read. Ross did better with the earlier The Day of the Jackal (1973) and that is the better movie. Andrew Lloyd Weber provided the soundtrack.
Jon Voigt, two years after Deliverance (1972), played a German journo freelancing in Hamburg who, on the night of Kennedy's murder (1963), chances upon a suicide that suggests members of the SS are still present in the area. Devoted but underdrawn squeeze Mary Tamm (memorably the first Romana in Tom Baker-era Doctor Who) works in a cabaret that is only shown from the street. In flashback we're shown the activities of "Butcher of Riga" Eduard Roschmann (Maximilian Schell, name changed to protect the guilty) so all that remains is the timing of his comeuppance. Too much of the plot depends on coincidence; this is not a well-made plan unfolding like clockwork. There's a framing story of Israel's conflict with Egypt and Mossad's activities in Europe.
Nora Sayre at the time: being the only star, Jon Voigt must be invincible.
