The House on Garibaldi Street

The House on Garibaldi Street (1979)

Genres - Drama, Thriller  |   Sub-Genres - Political Thriller, Unglamorized Spy Film  |   Run Time - 98 min.  |   Countries - United States  |   MPAA Rating - NR
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Review by Mike Cummings

This 1979 television production recounts events leading to the capture of Adolf Eichmann at a house on Garibaldi Street in the San Fernando district of Buenos Aires, Argentina, on May 11, 1960. Because Eichmann had supervised Nazi extermination of six million Jews during World War II, he was the chief target of Israeli Nazi hunters after the war. The film depicts the secret operation to track down and kidnap Eichmann after Israel's Central Institute for Intelligence and Security, known as Mossad, receives a tip claiming that the Nazi criminal is living in Buenos Aires under the assumed name of Ricardo Klement. Although the film received mixed reviews, its documentary approach enhances realism and suspense. The camera follows Mossad chief Isser Harel (Martin Balsam) and his agents on their trip from Israel to Argentina and ultimately to the very residence of Eichmann (Alfred Burke) after his son Nicholaus (Simon Shepherd), who sometimes openly uses the Eichmann family name, attracts the attention of the agents. The cast is strong, pairing veteran American and British actors, and the South American setting appears authentic even though director Peter Collinson filmed the production mainly in Spain. Both the film and the work on which scriptwriter Steve Shagan based it -- Harel's 1975 book of the same name (published in more than 20 languages and selling more than a million copies) -- generated renewed interest in the last decade of the 20th century, after Harel declared that famed Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal lied when he said he played a key role in the capture of Eichmann.