 Based on Pat Conroy's autobiographical novel "The Water Is Wide", Voight portrayed the title character, an idealistic young schoolteacher sent to teach underprivileged black children on a remote South Carolina island.The same year he appeared in "The Odessa File", based on Frederick Forsyth's thriller, as Peter Miller, a young German journalist who discovers a conspiracy to protect former Nazis still operating within Germany.This film first teamed him with the actor-director Maximilian Schell, who acted out a character named and based on the "Butcher of Riga" Eduard Roschmann, and for whom Voight would appear in 1976's "End of the Game", a psychological thriller based on a story by Swiss novelist and playwright Friedrich Dürrenmatt.