Arab Pressure Halts Showing of ‘the Odessa File’ Film

The Austrian performance of the film “The Odessa File,” has been postponed due to Arab pressure, the director of the Jewish Documentation Center, Simon Wiesenthal, said today. The film, a version of Frederick Forsythe’s novel, shows the attempts of a post-war Nazi criminal organization to annihilate the State of Israel with the help of Arab governments. “The film is strictly anti-fascist,” Wiesenthal said. “It is thrilling, but with a moral end.”

The first night of the film had been scheduled for January, but suddenly film posters vanished and the program of the Gartenbau movie house was changed. A spokesman for the cinema said the film would probably be shown at the end of this month. He did not give a reason for the delay. Wiesenthal, the Nazi hunter, also is involved in the film. His part is played by Shmuel Rodensky. Arab diplomats have rejected charges they had intervened against the showing of the film.