The snorkel
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The snorkel |
| Original title | The snorkel |
| Country of production | United Kingdom |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1958 |
| length | 92 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Guy Green |
| script |
Peter Myers Jimmy Sangster based on a story by Anthony Dawson |
| production | Michael Carreras |
| music | Francis Chagrin |
| camera | Jack Asher |
| cut | James Needs |
| occupation | |
| |
The Snorkel is a British thriller from 1958 directed by Guy Green . Peter van Eyck plays a clever wife murderer who believes he has come up with the plan for the perfect murder.
action
British writer Paul Decker wants to get rid of his wife Madge, he is planning the perfect murder. To this end, he draws up a meticulous plan that he considers perfect, since one could never come up with him as the perpetrator. He takes a lot of time for the preparations, leaving nothing to chance. In the end, there should be no other option for the police investigators than to establish suicide.
Decker and his wife live in a home-style furnished house in Italy. One evening he begins to seal off all the openings, joints and slits in the apartment piece by piece with adhesive tape, so that not the slightest draft from outside to inside or vice versa can get on. Then he attaches two rubber hoses to a snorkel, which he slips over his face. The approximately three-meter-long hoses that extend outside the house should enable him to breathe oxygen. His hiding place is below the floor where Decker goes. There he wants to spend the next few hours snorkeling while gas from the lighting system flows into the room and kills his wife, lying prone on the couch and under anesthesia. In fact, the plan succeeds, and Madge is found lying lifeless on the couch by the maid the next morning. The police are brought in, and while Paul is still very close to the scene of the crime, the criminal investigation team confirms, as the villain foresaw: This death is a suicide because nobody could have got into the house because everything was sealed from the inside.
Madge's teenage daughter Candy from her first marriage is not at all convinced of the suicide theory. Right from the start she distrusted her slippery stepfather. At the time of her mother's death, Candy was out with her dog Toto, a spaniel , and her travel companion Jean Edwards, Candy's governess, so to speak. She informs the police about her suspicions. But the Italian police do not take their wild theories seriously, because Paul Decker even has an alibi: At the time, he was in neighboring France to devote himself entirely to his new book, withdrawn from everything. Candy is persistent, she is sure that Paul must have murdered her mother. Even when Paul shows her his passport, which proves the border crossing, she does not deviate from her theory of murder. She is also convinced that Paul murdered her biological father a few years earlier in a boat accident. Governess Jean is not much help to her, because gradually she begins to succumb to the charm of the wife-murderer, and so Candy remains completely on her own with her suspicions.
With her murder suspicion and the tenacity with which Candy chases Paul, she soon puts herself in great danger, because Paul now wants to kill Candy too. However, the first to be eliminated is the dog Toto, because immediately after the murder he almost found the secret trap door in the floor, and later he sniffs out the snorkel in the hotel cupboard. When Paul, Jean and Candy go on a picnic trip to the Mediterranean, the 13-year-old girl swims out alone. Paul thinks this would be a good opportunity to get rid of Candy too, so he claims Candy is in need and swims after her. While Jean from afar believes that Paul wants to save Candy, the latter pulls her down into the depths. The attack fails because Jean has also swum and Paul has to abandon his attempted murder.
Paul is tired of Candy's submission and stalking and disappears across the border to a hotel on the French side. There he plans his last blow: at night he secretly returns across the sea. He pretends to be a police officer on the phone and asks Candy to come back to the family house. There he has already prepared the death room. He lies and stuns those who have arrived. While he waits for the fruits of his deed in his floor hatch with the gas taps open, Candy is saved by the housekeeper and another friend. Paul, on the other hand, falls victim to his own trap, as the hiding place under the floor is accidentally blocked by a heavy cabinet that has been moved.
In the last scene, Candy informs the police about the imprisoned murderer. However, it is not clear whether this can still be saved or whether it has already suffocated.
Production notes
The snorkel was mainly created in the film studios of England and in the Villa della Pergola in Alassio , Italy . The world premiere took place in May 1958 during an Atlantic crossing of Queen Elizabeth. The official British launch was on May 7, 1958, the German premiere took place on July 22, 1958.
John Stoll designed the film structures. Anthony Nelson Keys took over the production management, John Hollingsworth had the musical direction.
For the 13-year-old Mandy Miller , who was once a child star in British films in the early 1950s, the part of the steadfast Candy was the last role in a movie. She then only played for television and retired into private life in 1963.
Reviews
The film received very mixed reviews. Here are three examples:
The New York Times stated: "Hammer Films has evidently acquired expertise in making films that don't stand out in anything, but are nonetheless more engaging than the usual low-budget films (...) Anyone who wonders how to use a simple scuba diver snorkel for this purpose, watch this movie. And you should think about it: it's a pretty stupid way of trying to get rid of someone like that ”.
Halliwell's Film Guide characterized the film as follows: "Poor thriller that stays longer than is welcome".
"Solid and exciting crime thriller from the British thriller and horror workshop Hammer."
Web links
- The snorkel in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ New York Times, September 18, 1958
- ^ Leslie Halliwell : Halliwell's Film Guide, Seventh Edition, New York 1989, p. 933
- ↑ The snorkel. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed August 28, 2018 .