Agatha, stop killing!

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Movie
Original title Agatha, stop killing!
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1960
length 98 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Dietrich Haugk
script Eva Anger ,
Franz Geiger ,
Karl Peter Gillmann ,
Stefan Gommermann ,
Dietrich Haugk ,
Franz Marischka ,
Franz M. Schilder ,
Wolfgang Schnitzler ,
Hans Schweikart ,
Gottfried Wegeleben ,
Hugo Wiener
production Film construction production GmbH, Munich
( Hans Abich )
music Hans-Martin Majewski
camera Günther Senftleben
cut Anneliese Schönnebeck
occupation

Agatha, stop killing! is a crime comedy that was shot in black and white in 1960 in the Bavaria Studios in Munich . Directed by Dietrich Haugk .

action

Dr. Peter Brent is a young lawyer. He is defending a wife charged with attempting the murder of her husband. She had threatened her husband with secateurs. Dr. Brent attributes the intent of the accused to an “inner compulsion” which is said to have arisen from the excessive reading of detective novels to which his client was “helplessly at the mercy”. Dr. Brent has brought some pocket thrillers with him as examples, addressing the prosecutor, who in earlier trials has also often referred to such literature as " filth and trash ". Brent quotes titles and authors and clings to a writer whom he suspects that her “entire inner workings consist of a single horror cabinet”. He would like to know "which empty old maid is hidden behind the pseudonym Agatha Scott". Little did he suspect that this particular author is sitting in the courtroom with her secretary Edgar Karter and is watching the trial. When Brent even calls them "abnormal", Scott and Karter leave the room.

Agatha Scott speaks in Dr. Brent's office. Without giving her name, she confesses to him that she was involved in a murder. Peter Brent is very taken with the mysterious young, very feminine woman and promises to help her. Agatha finds out that Peter Brent has never read one of her novels. Before Brent can discuss the next steps with her, Edgar Karter calls. Agatha hastily leaves the office to meet him. Peter hurries after her and sees her getting into a taxi with Edgar. He takes up the chase with his car.

In the car, Agatha and Edgar make further murder plans. The taxi driver is horrified and immediately drops them off at the police headquarters . While Agatha clears up the mistake, because the conversations in the taxi were nothing more than drafts of further detective novels, the taxi driver proudly gives the journalists present an interview about the alleged murder plot of the two. When Dr. Brent arrives to support his supposed client, he has to realize that it is the crime writer Agatha Scott, whom he has so ostracized and who is now courted by the press. The next day the story of the mix-up appeared in the morning papers and Brent was ridiculed by his colleagues in court for having been tricked by the attractive and successful author. Now he wants to catch up on reading her works by having his secretary in the office read them to her. However, that does not convince him of Agatha's talent. He is just about to mock the writer's style again when she calls and wants to apologize. Peter Brent cannot avoid accusing her of writing “exaggerated stories” and that that is “just not normal for a real woman”. He wants to dissuade her from continuing to write novels. Agatha hangs up the phone indignantly.

While she is dictating her latest trivial novel to her secretary Edgar , Agatha asks him if he thinks her style is too exaggerated. Edgar, who, as his father's heir , had ruined his publishing house by publishing volumes of modern poetry , cannot, however, afford open criticism of his boss and her writing. A bouquet of flowers and a letter from Dr. Brent a. In his letter, he invites Agatha to his remote country house in Moorland. If, as a “weak defenseless woman”, she should not dare to venture into the lonely area alone, she is allowed to bring her secretary Edgar Karter with her to accompany her.

Ultimately, Agatha agrees to accept the invitation to Moorland. The secretary Dr. Brents advises her to travel by train. At the breakpoint she is supposed to be met by an employee Dr. Brents to be picked up.

Preparations are being made for Agatha and Edgar's arrival. Brent's secretary hires the somewhat clumsy and idiosyncratic actor Thomas Lorenzen. Dr. Brent orders 7 coffins on his estate. One of them is to be delivered by train at a certain point in time. It becomes clear that Dr. Brent Agatha tries to scare Scott with a fictitious crime to keep her from writing any further.

In the meantime, however, a real murderer, the insane violin virtuoso Philip, who escaped from an asylum, is wandering around the Moorland area. When he meets the actor Lorenzen, who is on his way through the forest to Peter Brent's property with a violin case, of all things, the game that Brent had planned so well becomes reality: Philip attacks Lorenzen and knocks him down in order to exchange his institutional drill for his clothes. A horse and cart runs over Lorenzen's violin, which has broken down on the way.

Agatha and Edgar have arrived at the Moorland stop. They are surprised that no one has come to pick them up. In the meantime, Edgar is supposed to take over a coffin that was transported to the same train for Dr. Brent has been delivered. A policeman informs the two of them that it is not advisable to walk to the estate because of the violin killer who had jumped. Then the farm servant shows up with his horse and cart. Before that he had quickly put on an eye patch, probably to look even more sinister. Edgar and the coachman load the coffin onto the wagon and set off through the moor.

At a bridge over a drainage ditch, some beams break and the wagon gets stuck. Later it turns out that the beams had been sawed. The driver wants to stay with his horse and sends Agatha and Edgar to see Dr. Brent's estate to get help. To protect them he only gives them his revolver. The two of them set off without shoes. Soon they find out that they are lost. Completely exhausted, they hear cries for help. They meet the violin killer, who is also stuck in the moor. Edgar carries the violinist, who has since passed out, on his shoulder until they finally reach the estate. There they will be met by Dr. Brents bloodhounds received. Because of an alleged short circuit, there is no electric light in the house. Torches and candles give the property a somber look.

At the manor, the servants are convinced that the man pulled out of the moor must be Thomas Lorenzen. However, he doesn't know anything about the actor Lorenzen and plays his own game. When they are shown to their rooms, a servant informs Agatha and Edgar that Peter Brent has already gone to bed. In the distance they hear a woman's voice excitedly shouting “that this time too it is murder” when something happens to someone. None of the servants cares about the shouting. Suddenly a woman in white scurries across the corridor. When Agatha asks who the lady is, she only learns that she belongs to the house. When he is alone with Agatha, Edgar expresses the suspicion that the murder that the female voice spoke of could be against him. In the meantime, the servant is taking care of the violin murderer Philip, whom he believes to be the actor Lorenzen. Philip is intrigued by an Amati who is a heirloom of the Brents.

Edgar suspects that the murder that the female voice spoke of might involve him.

background

In an entertaining way, not only crime films like the one based on Edgar Wallace are parodied, but the structure of crime novels in the style of Agatha Christie is also questioned. All of this happens with the cinematic means of the time, with which the Wallace and Christie films came up. Creepy country estates, strange characters who live there, and foggy landscapes were the ingredients for many thrillers such as The Frog with the Mask (1959) based on Edgar Wallace. In Witness for the Prosecution (1957) according to Agatha Christie, a court case is presented in which the attorney and defense attorney must first appear as a detective in order to solve the case.

After heroines , also with Johanna von Kocian, his wife at the time in the lead role, was Agatha, stop killing! the second feature film directed by Dietrich Haugk. The film was shot from October 20, 1960 to November 1960 in the Bavaria -Atelier Munich-Geiselgasteig. The costumes came from Charlotte Flemming , who had also worked on The Frog with the Mask and Heroines . The film architect and set painter Bruno Monden and the architect and set designer Franz Bi , who had previously set up a number of films together, were responsible for the further equipment .

Agatha, stop killing! was premiered on December 22nd, 1960 in the Gloria-Palast Frankfurt, the theatrical release in the GDR followed almost a year later.

criticism

When the film was released, Agatha, stop killing! Due to its parodic and ironic scenes, the FSK released it for thrillers and crime novels from the age of 12, contrary to the customs of the time. The media educator Erich Wasem , a representative of conservation education , said, however, that children and young people at this age are too carried away by the gruesome portrayal in the film and are not able to "use irony to find a distance from what is happening on the screen."

Der Spiegel wrote about the work of eleven, some of them well-known, screenwriters: “But even this massive use of hard-working pens does not dispel the skepticism that is appropriate about German comedies, crime films and especially crime fiction films.” The Spiegel critic advised director Dietrich at the time Haugk, "to let the filming be". The Protestant film observer concludes that the film is a "unsuccessful horror comedy by a crime writer".

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Erich Wasem: The horror film. - A conclusion 1963. Jugend Film Fernsehen, 1, pp. 33–57, 1963, p. 42
  2. ↑ a b Agatha, stop killing (Germany). The Spiegel print edition 4/1961 of January 18, 1961, at Spiegel Online, accessed on November 28, 2014
  3. ↑ Evangelical Press Association Munich, Review No. 3/1961

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