The Second Man (1963)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The second man |
| Original title | The Running Man |
| Country of production | United Kingdom |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1963 |
| length | 104 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Carol Reed |
| script | John Mortimer |
| production | Carol Reed |
| music | William Alwyn |
| camera | Robert Krasker |
| cut | Bert Bates |
| occupation | |
| |
The second man is a 1962 British thriller about an expensive insurance fraud. Directed by Carol Reed , it stars Laurence Harvey , Lee Remick and Alan Bates . The novel The Ballad of the Running Man provided Shelley Smith.
action
Stella Black is deeply saddened. The young woman has recently been widowed and lives out her grief in public. Her husband Rex died a few months ago when he crashed his glider over the open sea. However, his body was never found. This arouses the suspicion of the insurance company with which Rex had taken out his life insurance. Stella has to play her role credibly, because only she knows that Rex is still alive and has been hiding under the name Erskine in a small English guesthouse by the sea for three months. Rex and Stella hope to ease the insurance company by £ 50,000. Now that the funeral is over, Rex has secretly returned to his Stella house. Rex has one more reason, besides disdainful greed, why he absolutely wants to facilitate the Excelsior Insurance Company, where he took out his life insurance: He was extremely annoyed that the Excelsior did not pay out the £ 20,000 insured sum last year to which the businessman believed he was entitled after the crash of his transport plane during a bad weather flight from England to Hamburg. The fact is, however, that at the time of the crash, the insurance policy was no longer valid because Rex had failed to pay the final premium. That ruined his business.
Since the death of their client is an extraordinarily high sum insured, the Excelsior Insurance hires its claims investigator Stephen Maddox to do an on-site investigation in order to be able to rule out insurance fraud in any case. Maddox turns up unexpectedly at Stella's house to discuss details and almost stumbled upon Rex. Maddox also wants to be able to rule out that Rex's death was a suicide as a result of the bankruptcy, because in that case the Excelsior would not have to pay. Rex has already planned the following steps meticulously: He wants to fly to Paris first, while Stella transfers the (hopefully) paid out money to a bank account in Málaga, Spain . In an ad in the Daily Telegraph , she is supposed to use a code set to signal that everything went as planned. Three days later, so is the plan, Rex and Stella want to meet in the southeastern Spanish coastal city. In Malaga, Rex can steal the passport of a drunken Australian sheep farmer named Jim Jerome, so that he can finally assume a new identity. His appearance resembles the passport photo of the Australian, and he also takes on an Australian accent.
As discussed, Stella flies to the Spanish city three days after receiving the insurance sum and meets Rex alias Jim, who has already built up a local circle of friends here in order to perfect the camouflage. Everyone buys the Australian sheep farmer from him. Stella is introduced to "Jim's" acquaintances as a casual friend whom he knows from business trips to London. The money that arrives on site from England is exchanged for bank bills that can be used to pay anywhere in the world. The couple is slowly beginning to get into a crisis: Rex begins to throw the money out with full hands and, in Stella's opinion, behaves much too conspicuously. Otherwise, she thinks, he's going through a change of character, but not one for the better. At least Stella likes Rex's idea of committing another insurance fraud to get even more money. Now Rex plans to monetize his death a second time - this time as Jim Jerome. Jerome will surely have taken out life insurance too.
A disaster looms when Stella meets Stephen Maddox again in Malaga, who claims he is here on a vacation trip. He invites her to dinner, but this situation seems too hot for Stella, which is why she refuses. While Stella believes in a coincidence, all the alarm lights go on at Rex. He firmly believes that Maddox has arrived on behalf of the Excelsior and is trying to convict Stella of insurance fraud. This leads to a dispute between the couple. You decide to leave Malaga for a week and wait in a small Spanish town for the Spanish bank to transfer the money transferred from England into bank bills. But Maddox tracks them down there too. Due to the optical transformation of the now blond and bearded Rex alias Jim Jerome, Maddox cannot identify Rex as the same, but he finds it strange that this Australian suddenly drives the car that Stella had previously driven. Stella introduces Rex Maddox as "Jim Jerome". Rex is now entering into a risky game. He wants him and Stella to stay close to the insurance detective to find out how much Maddox already knows, or at least suspects. Since Rex fears that Maddox could become suspicious if "Jim" and Stella are too close, he tries to convince Stella to continue to pretend that the relationship between him and her is only superficial. This is definitely against the grain of Stella, because she really just wants to be with her husband.
Stella and Rex discover that Maddox, who hardly leaves their side, asks a lot of questions about both of them and their lives. He immediately notes down your answers. When Maddox then also shoots alleged vacation photos of the two, which Rex assumes that he will then immediately send them to his employer in England, Rex goes decidedly too far. As if by chance, he drops Maddox's camera into the water. Rex asks his wife to take a look at Stephen's little notebook, where he has written down all of the notes on Stella and "Jim Jerome". Stella's double play leads to the fact that in her overwhelming demand not to forget her husband's double identities, she almost blurts out to Stephen that Jim and Rex are one and the same person. When Stella fulfills her husband's order and breaks into Stephen's hotel room to look for and read his notebook, she is surprised by Maddox. She switches at lightning speed and pretends to have been waiting for her compatriot to seduce him. In fact, it comes to extremes between the two. After sex, Stephen admits to Stella that he no longer works for the insurance company and that he just jots down thoughts in his little notebook that went through his head while on vacation. To prove it, Maddox shows her the booklet. Stella is very relieved and is now actually gossiping about Rex and "Jim", but can cover up her slip of the tongue to some extent.
Rex, who was in Malaga to clear up financial matters, returns to the small town where he had left Stella with Maddox. The allegedly former insurance detective suggests that he had seen through the insurance fraud of the Black couple, without expressly claiming this. Stephen gets too hot and explains to Stella that under the circumstances he abandoned his plan to commit another insurance fraud. Both plan to leave the place very early the next morning and go to Gibraltar. With this change of plan, Stella no longer feels it necessary to inform Rex of what she has found out about Stephen. The next morning Stephen discovers Stella's precious earrings in bed that Stella had lost while making love. Looking out the window of his hotel, Maddox sees Rex and Stella continue with the car. He runs after them to give Stella back her earrings. This embarrasses Stella, who thinks Maddox ran after her out of love, because of course Rex is unaware that she cheated on him with Stephen. Rex, who doesn't suspect the context and believes that Maddox is still after him because Stella didn't tell him that his notebook contains completely harmless notes, invites Maddox to have a drink further up in the mountains. Stephen Maddox follows the couple in his own car. Rex now wants to get rid of the annoying pursuer once and for all and tries to push Maddox's vehicle away with his car so that it falls over a cliff into the depths. In fact, Maddox gets off the road and Stella is appalled by what her husband has just done. But Maddox gets away with the horror again. Two Spanish road workers witnessed the incident and managed to save Maddox. Stephen believes that Rex pushed him off the path out of jealousy because he believes that Stella told "Jim" about tête-à-tête with him.
Rex drives with Stella, who doesn't want to calm down anymore, towards Gibraltar. At the border there is a long line of cars in front of them. The police checked every vehicle carefully, because the officers were now aware of "Jim" s attempted killing. While the vehicle is stuck in a traffic jam, Stella jumps out of the car with the bank bills and disappears into the crowd. Rex doesn't want to let her escape and drives behind in the car. People jump right and left to avoid being run over. In a church where he ran after her, Rex can finally hold on to Stella. He tries to snatch the bank bills from her. Stella yells at him that he can never turn them into money, as they would surely be wanted because of the attack on Stephen. Maddox also has her precious earrings. Furious with jealousy, Rex tries to strangle Stella, but pauses at the last moment when he realizes what he is doing. In the face of this turbulence, the police appear, arrest Stella and chase after Rex, who tries to escape. At the police station, Stella sees to her surprise that Stephen is still alive. The latter refrains from filing a complaint because he still believes that "Jim's" action was an act of jealousy.
Rex escaped to an airfield in his vehicle. He wants to steal a small plane there in order to escape alone. In fact, he gets his hands on one and rises. Over the open sea, he has to realize that the plane's fuel line is defective and that he is losing massive amounts of kerosene. And so happens exactly what has had a significant impact on his life twice: He falls again over the water. But Rex is rescued and pulled out of the sea. He is badly injured when he is taken back to mainland Spain, where the police and Stella are already waiting. Even when Rex is dying, Stella sticks to the version that her acquaintance is an Australian sheep farmer named Jim Jerome, whom she hardly knows. Meanwhile, Rex whispers to her that Stephen had never been after him and had long since changed jobs. All of his efforts, Stella makes clear to her dying husband, were completely superfluous.
Production notes, publication
The second man , a relatively unknown side work of Reed, was filmed on location in Spain (exterior shoots, see photo on the right) and in the Irish Ardmore Studios (interior shoots) in the summer of 1962 and premiered on August 1, 1963. The German premiere took place on September 13 of the same year. The second man was shown for the first time on German television in the ARD program late on Saturday evening of February 26, 1972 .
The film structures were designed by John Stoll . Ron Grainer composed the theme music, Muir Mathieson conducted. Maurice Binder designed the title sequence.
Reviews
In the Lexicon of International Films it says: "The film produced by Carol Reed is staged in a stylish manner, but its script lacks substance for a full-length feature film."
"Entertaining but not exciting enough."
Halliwell's Film Guide found the film "a flabby, expensive thriller".
Individual evidence
- ↑ The second man. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed February 21, 2019 .
- ^ Leslie Halliwell : Halliwell's Film Guide, Seventh Edition, New York 1989, p. 872
Web links
- The second man in the Internet Movie Database (English)