#george markstein

The Prisoner

Review: The Odessa File

[Originally published in Movietone News 37, November 1974]

Even as an adaptation of an un-book bestseller, it’s amazing what a non-event The Odessa File is. I may owe Fred Zinnemann, director of the previous Frederick Forsyth adaptation (Day of the Jackal) an apology, or at least a reconsideration. Meanwhile, the film version of Forsyth’s second book manages to botch up or overlook the few…

Markstein’s Office. (17/05/15)

I was very much intrigued to learn that the famous opening sequence of the P arriving in his Lotus, parking the car, walking down the dark, narrow corridor, and delivering his resignation was filmed entirely within the - tightly-spaced - confines of the entrance to the Park Lane Car Park underneath Marble Arch.

By a happy coincidence, the location is clearly identified in the original footage: as the P approaches the double doors marked “way out,” the sign on the ceiling reads “Slow Ahead for Park Lane” (1). We see him push (2) through those doors (and into the corridor beyond), but when he enters what is supposedly his superior's office (at the other end of the corridor), he has in fact turned around and is charging back into the parking garage (3, 4).

And as if by magic, the area has been transformed into the claustrophobic little room we know so well and which contains, crucially, a large desk and George Markstein behind it - where just moments ago we see the P climb from his Lotus (6). Note that the doors have to be pulled open from the corridor side (3). The “way out” is now hidden under a black coating, but the brick-and-metal frame around the door remains visible - as does the vertical pipe behind the P (4), which is still in place today (5).