The find in the new building

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Movie
Original title The find in the new building
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1915
length approx. 96 (both parts together) minutes
Rod
Director Richard Oswald
script Richard Oswald
production Julius Greenbaum
occupation

The find in the new building is a two-part, German silent detective film from 1915 by Richard Oswald with Erich Kaiser-Titz in the leading role.

action

Part one: the fingernail

A man's body is found in the basement of a new building. The name and origin of the deceased can be quickly determined: it is a certain Stuart Wolf from Texas. A case for master detective Engelbert Fox. He rushes over and initially has two clues: a ring that was found on the dead person and the word "revenge" that was scratched into the cellar wall with a fingernail. Fox first tries to get on the trail of the perpetrator via the ring. He advertises in the newspaper that this ring should be found and that the owner should contact him. In fact, an old woman appears who claims that the ring belongs to her. Fox hands it over to her and skilfully swings himself onto the rear axle of the cab, with which the old woman finally drives away again. Fox assumes - rightly, as it should later turn out - that the perpetrator is behind this mask of an old woman.

Fox does not notice that during the journey the old woman breaks through the floor of the cab, falls on the ground and lets the cab drive over her without the master detective noticing. Since the suspect escaped him in this way, Fox searches the last home, a boarding house, of the murdered Mr. Wolf in order to find more leads. He is told on site that Wolf recently behaved very badly. He approached the pensioner's daughter inappropriately and was therefore unceremoniously thrown out by her brother. Wolf then allegedly moved into the hotel where a friend named Josua Riese resides - the giant who once recommended this guesthouse to Wolf as well. Fox then went to this hotel and discovered a second dead person there: it was a giant, and in his death room, the hotel room, the word “revenge” was carved into the wall in the same way.

Given the word is high on the wall, Engelbert Fox assumes it must be a major culprit. In addition, the detective tries to reconstruct the condition of the fingernail used by means of the shape of the incision. With a clumsy and successful trick, Fox is now trying to track down the perpetrator. He's holding a competition in his house that the tallest man in town could win. The prize is a live suckling pig . In fact, several men appear, of which Fox considers a cab driver named Jonathan Morro to be most likely to be the killer. Fox has him arrested, but the giant breaks free and rushes off with his cab. A wild chase over hill and dale ensues, but the suspect escapes again. However, Engelbert Fox uses the taxi number to determine the driver's name and address. The police surround the hut, but before they can strike, the accommodation set on fire by Morro is on fire. As he is dying, he is pulled out of the smoking ruins. His last words are: "I am dying satisfied because the wolf and the giant who stole my bride from me 20 years ago in Texas are dead."

Part Two: Confessions of a Murderer

The dead Morro has left a diary for posterity, which Fox is now beginning to study intensively. Texas, twenty years earlier: Jonathan Morro is a fun-loving young man who earns his living as a cowboy in the Wild West. He is in love with a girl whose father has settled in the nearby tent city. The two sheriffs of the city, Wolf and Riese, also have their eyes on the pretty little girl and even dared to try a game of dice to find out which of them should get the girl. Wolf won the dice, but neither Morro nor the girl or her father want to submit to this absurd decision, and Wolf is refused the young lady's hand. Thereupon the two sheriffs take the law into their own hands, attack the tent city and try to eliminate the competitor Morro by kidnapping him and throwing him into a deep shaft.

This was once the connection piece to a river, so Morro can first dig himself free, then swim free in the river. He returns to the tent city, overcomes the guards set up by Wolf and Giant and kidnaps father and daughter in order to bring them to safety from the villainous lawmen. But he quickly has the captors on his heels, and in an unobserved moment when Morro is looking for food and wants to shoot game, wolf and giant strike. The father is killed, the girl kidnapped. The little one does not want to bow to the two criminals with the sheriff's star and takes poison in order to voluntarily part from her life. When Morro has to weep his dead friend, he swears cruel revenge on her corpse. He leaves the USA and returns to Europe, where he builds a new life as a cab driver. His long-term goal of taking revenge on the two men who stole his dearest from him, however, has remained unwavering over the years.

Now, one day, while carrying out his plan of revenge, great coincidence comes towards him. He is in front of the pension with his cab just at the moment when Wolf, who is on a visit to Europe, is shown in front of the door by the brother of the pensioner's daughter who has been molested by Wolf. He and his buddy Giant had recently left America to start a new life in good old Europe. Morro invites the drunk into his cab and loads him into the basement of the new building. There he forces him to swallow a poison pill. Shortly before, he squeezed out the hotel address Rieses from Wolf. Jonathan Morro then goes there and also kills Giant. He left the words "Rache" on the wall of both dead, later found by Engelbert Fox. This closes the diary entries.

Production notes

The find in the new building was made in the Greenbaum film studio in Berlin-Weißensee and passed the film censorship in August (first part) or presumably September 1915 (second part) and was probably premiered shortly afterwards. Each part had three files, together, The find in the new building was 1,756 meters long.

criticism

“The structure of this two-part film work, of which each part consists of three acts and can be seen as a completely independent and self-contained film image, is just as original as it is interesting. (...) In the first part the viewer does not know the motive of the mysterious act, in the second part it is resolved in such a way that the detective finds a diary with the dead murderer in which he describes his life story and the reasons for which caused him to commit his bloody act. The content of the diary is reproduced in the moving film image and closes where the plot of the first part actually begins. (...) Both the first and the second part of this detective novel ... is first class in its work and rich in exciting moments. "

- Cinematographische Rundschau of September 12, 1915. P. 34 f.

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