The scarf

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Movie
Original title The scarf
The neckerchief logo 001.svg
Country of production Federal Republic of Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1962
length 217 minutes
Age rating FSK 6 (2008), 12 (before)
Rod
Director Hans Quest , Manfred Brückner (assistant director)
script Francis Durbridge , Marianne de Barde
production Wilhelm Semmelroth ( West German Broadcasting Cologne )
music Hans Jonsson
camera Bruno Stephan , Karl-Heinz Werner , Paul Ellmerer , Rüdiger Walch
cut Alexandra Anatra , Monika Pancke
occupation

Das Halstuch is a six-part television game by the British author Francis Durbridge , which WDR produced in 1961 and broadcast for the first time on German television in January 1962.

The series even surpassed the success of the first two Durbridge six-part films The Other and It's Time . At the time, it was the biggest street sweeper on German television and is still considered a prime example of successful television productions today.

action

In the small town of Littleshaw near London , a young woman is found dead who has been strangled with a scarf. The local police inspector Harry Yates takes over the investigation. The deceased is identified by the wealthy landowner Alistair Goodman as Faye Collins, the sister of the handicapped musician Edward Collins, who was waiting for her the night before. Marian Hastings, Goodman's fiancée, claims to have seen Faye Collins with a man she does not know the night before she was murdered. A few days later, she recognized the man in a newspaper photo: It was the London publisher Clifton Morris. Gerald Quincey, a violin student of Edward Collins, finds in his violin case the bandana with which Faye was murdered. When Yates visits Clifton Morris and shows him the scarf, he recognizes it as his, but denies having anything to do with the crime.

The painter John Hopedean visits Inspector Yates and reports on several threatening letters that he claims to have received after the murder. A short time later, Morris receives a call from showgirl Kim Marshall, who wants to sell him a letter and a tape recording for £ 18,000 that clearly connect him to Faye Collins and incriminate him. He has now made contact with journalist Diana Winston, who is willing to give him an alibi for the murder evening. The next evening, the police found the body of the strangled Diana Winston in his apartment. Since he was observed by the police at the time in question, he is not considered a perpetrator.

When Clifton Morris visits Edward Collins about a book he has loaned Faye, Collins threatens him with a revolver. Since Collins is briefly distracted by the ringing of the phone, the publisher can knock him down. Inspector Yates visits Kim Marshall at the nightclub Finale , but she denies having anything to do with the blackmail, as Clifton Morris is her new boyfriend. Yates, who sees it through, warns the girl and reminds her what happened to Faye Collins and Diana Winston. It was only when Marian Hastings was shot in front of her fashion salon that she was scared. She confesses to Yates that she only contacted Morris on behalf of Marian Hastings.

Yates, who wants to bring Morris to a testimony, has Sergeant Jeffries call him in his presence and inform him that Edward Collins died as a result of a scuffle in his apartment. The desperate Morris then asks his former classmate Vicar Nigel Matthews, who is also friends with Yates, to come to him. He admits his connection to Faye Collins, but has nothing to do with her murder. When the Vicar tells Edward Collins is alive, Morris is relieved to cooperate with the police and pretends to be extortionate. Then Marian Hastings shows up and sells him letters and tapes. But instead of staying out of it from now on, as the inspector asked him to do, Morris followed Marian Hastings in his car. He discovers her car in front of an abandoned barn; Inside, Marian Hastings is handing over the extorted money to the painter John Hopedeane. As it turns out in the dialogue between the two, they had an affair a year ago when the drunk Marian killed a woman and committed a hit-and-run. Hopedeane blackmailed her with this knowledge of the perpetrator to support him in his diabolical plan: In order to blackmail Clifton Morris, he strangled Faye Collins; he also strangled Diana Winston, for she could have relieved Morris; and when Marian Hastings threatens that she will no longer play the dirty game, he wants to strangle her too. But then the newly arrived Clifton Morris throws himself in between; Hopedean tries to escape, but is arrested by the police in front of the building.

Dates of the first broadcast

  • Part 1: Wednesday January 3, 1962
  • Part 2: Friday 5th January 1962
  • Part 3: Sunday 7th January 1962
  • Part 4: Wednesday January 10, 1962
  • Part 5: Saturday, January 13, 1962
  • Part 6: Wednesday 17th January 1962

The six-part series was later repeated several times - also as a three-part series - on ARD , the third television program , Eins Plus and EinsFestival . The film is also available on video cassette and DVD.

Recording technology

The television game "Das Halstuch" was recorded for the first time using the Ampex method. The camera images were recorded on magnetic tapes ( MAZ ) that could not be cut. The entire process of the individual settings had to be carefully rehearsed beforehand. The camera pans and lens changes also had to be carried out precisely, since in the event of a mistake you had to start over. Between the shots there are either about two-second dark pauses or exterior shots that were shot on film.

backgrounds

The script largely stuck to the novel. However, the action time was moved from January to June, as Faye Collins' body was found in Durbridge's novel on a loaded harvesting vehicle. In contrast to the series, the beginning of the novel reports on the illness and recovery of Edward Collins, who suffered from a severe form of polio .

For cost reasons, the field shoots for the series did not take place in the UK . In the search for a suitable location in the Federal Republic of Germany, which should serve as a backdrop for the fictional location Littleshaw in the proper style, they struck gold in Wülfrath in North Rhine-Westphalia . The district of Düssel in particular served as the setting for British country life. For example, the shots of the corpse were filmed in the inner courtyard of the Düssel moated castle .

The film was broadcast in six parts that were between 35 and 40 minutes long. Episodes 1–5 ended with a cliffhanger , an exciting or surprising scene. At the end of the first episode, Gerald Quincey discovers the scarf with which Faye Collins was murdered in his violin case. The second episode ends with the landowner Goodman dropping off a lighter at Yates' house that belongs to Morris and was found near the crime scene. At the end of the third part, Clifton Morris returns to his apartment and finds the police there, who recently discovered the body of journalist Diana Winston. When Kim Marshall enters her dressing room in the finale and is greeted there by Inspector Yates with the words "Hello darling", the fourth part ends. In the penultimate episode, the doorbell rings in Clifton Morris' apartment. When he opens the door, Vicar Nigel Matthews stands in front of him and greets him with the words: "Evening Terry, I think you are expecting me."

The composer Hans Jönsson , who also wrote the music for the Paul Temple radio plays, was responsible for the background music . He had already used many of the motifs used in Paul Temple and the Lawrence case .

Effects

In January 1962, the Federal Republic of Germany found itself in a state of emergency, and the whole nation was concerned with the question of the identity of the kerchief murderer. Theaters, cinemas, adult education centers and other public institutions remained practically empty on the six evenings on the broadcast, and election campaign events of the political parties also found no interest. Even the night shifts in many factories have been shut down. Those who did not have a television at the time would visit neighbors, friends or relatives that were equipped with them, or go to a pub with a television. The quasi-deserted streets have coined the term " street sweeper " for a particularly successful production since the first Durbridge six-part car in 1959 .

The audience rating was 89 percent. The second program , a forerunner of the later third television programs, found only a few viewers. The television program advisory board judged the situation: “German cultural life has been brought to a standstill” , and the television newspaper Funk Uhr wrote a year later: “A game dominated the headlines of the largest newspapers” .

On January 16, 1962 one day before the airing of the last neckerchief episode, appeared in the Berlin tabloid The evening following the Berlin cabaret artist Wolfgang Neuss switched newspaper advertisement for its just begun movie Comrade Munchausen : "advice for tomorrow (Wednesday evening): Not to Stay at home, because what the heck: The bandana killer is Dieter Borsche …… So: Wednesday evening to the cinema! A cinema fan (Comrade Münchhausen) ” . Originally intended to attract more viewers to the cinemas, this action caused a real scandal: Neuss received death threats and the Bild newspaper described him as a traitor to the fatherland in an article. Up until his death in 1989 Neuss stated that he only guessed the murderer correctly, but there were also indications that Neuss' mother and Borsche's wife were visiting the same pedicure in Berlin and that the strictly confidential information could have been passed on.

Further adaptations

In 2010, WDR and Der Audio Verlag published a radio play that took over the original dialogues from the television play and replaced the scenic events of the plot, which were not visible to the listener, with interludes spoken by Friedhelm Ptok . The adaptation for the radio play came from Vera Teichman and Andreas Jungwirth , directed by Harald Krewer .

The Durbridge template was also implemented in other countries for television, first in 1959 under the title The Scarf for the BBC in England, also in 1962 under the title Halsduken for Swedish television and in 1963 under the title La Sciarpa for Italian television and became filmed with it as often as the novel Melissa by Durbridge.

media

  • Das Halstuch , EuroVideo - EAN 4009750182536 (all parts cut together to form a complete film), VHS video, 206 minutes
  • Das Halstuch , DVD (FSK 12), WDR, 2002
  • Das Halstuch , radio play with original dialogues from the television play supplemented by interim texts read by Friedhelm Ptok , 3 CD, 198 minutes, Der Audio Verlag , 2010, ISBN 978-3-89813-967-0

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Funk Uhr 2/1963
  2. ^ Christian Gödecke, Broder-Jürgen Trede: German TV street sweepers - everybody watch! , SPIEGEL online, January 16, 2012 (the third picture in the article photo series shows the original "Der Abend" newspaper ad by Wolfgang Neuss)