The Last Witness (1960)

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Movie
Original title the last witness
The last witness 1960 Logo 001.svg
Country of production Federal Republic of Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1960
length 102 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Wolfgang Staudte
script RA Stemmle ,
Thomas Keck
production Kurt Ulrich
music Werner Eisbrenner
camera Ekkehard Kyrath
cut Wolfgang Wehrum
occupation

The Last Witness is a German crime film that was made in 1960 under the direction of Wolfgang Staudte . In addition to Martin Held and Hanns Lothar, the main roles are cast with Ellen Schwiers and Jürgen Goslar .

The black and white film, based on Maximilian Vernberg's “crime report” of the same name, opened in German cinemas on December 30, 1960.

action

Werner Rameil, director of the Impex works, receives a call from Hamburg in a hotel room in Berlin . His lover Ingrid Bernhardy tells him in horror that their baby has been strangled with a belt. The completely desperate woman is looking for her former boyfriend, the young doctor Dr. Heinz Stephan, on. The two rush to Ingrid's apartment, where there is a battle of words. Ingrid Bernhardy, who Heinz Stephan left because of the affair with Werner Rameil, unceremoniously packs her suitcase to travel to Berlin. The lawyer Dr. Beyer arrives with the criminal police . Criminal Inspector Gerhuf and Criminal Secretary Wenzel search the apartments of Ingrid Bernhardy and Heinz Stephan. Due to some letters and questionable photos, the two are temporarily arrested.

Werner Rameil has now arrived in Hamburg. In order to keep his name out of the picture and to protect his marriage, his lawyer Dr. Beyer to do nothing for his mistress. When Rameil is interrogated by Inspector Gerhuf, he admits the affair with Ingrid. Since his marriage remained childless, he expressly wanted the child to be born and supported Ingrid financially. However, he had no intention of separating from his wife and marrying his lover. When Ingrid is questioned by the investigating judge , her dubious past life comes up. The investigations also revealed that the birth of the child was not reported to the authorities. Ingrid Bernhardy and Dr. Stephan remain imprisoned as the main suspect.

Ingrid turns to the lawyer Dr. Fox, who appears in the women's prison weeks later due to other appointments. At the short meeting, Fox agreed to help the young woman in return for a deposit of 3,000 marks. Dr. Stephan now takes the help of a lawyer. This comes across some details that the criminal police have not yet considered. Ingrid, on the other hand, becomes entangled in further contradictions during a questioning by District Judge Ricker, the examining magistrate responsible . In addition, a letter to Rameil was discovered that Ingrid tried to smuggle out of prison. While the guilty party seems to have already been identified for the judge, for the lawyer Dr. Fox a race against time. Although he initially has no clues and is not entirely convinced of Ingrid's innocence, he does his own research.

The wake-up list of the Berlin hotel porter confirms Rameil's alibi, according to which he was not in Hamburg during the time of the crime. For Ingrid Bernhardy, the situation is becoming increasingly hopeless. District judge Ricker denies Dr. Fox the file inspection . Heinz Stephan, for whose alibi a witness was found, is released from custody. Using a trick, Fox obtained a copy of the estate papers of a certain Gerhard Danielsen, the founder of Impex-Werke and Rameil's father-in-law. It shows that in the event of a divorce, Rameil would not retain any shares in the company. On the evening before the main hearing , Gerda Rameil confessed to her husband that she knew about the affair with Ingrid Bernhardy and about the child. Fox's assessor Ebeling also considers her suspicious.

Contrary to an objection by Dr. In the main hearing, Fox is initially concerned with Ingrid's intimate letters and photos, which the jury should use to get an idea of ​​the immoral past life of the accused. When taking evidence , Fox can refute an incriminating testimony from Ingrid's gymnastics teacher. Then Dr. Stephan as a witness. The young doctor raises serious allegations against the court and the investigators because he had to give up his job in the hospital after almost three months of pre-trial detention. However, the prosecutor blames Ingrid's incriminating statements. During a break in negotiations, Fox instructs his assessor to fly to Berlin in order to obtain important information from a hotel porter. Rameil asks his wife to be present as a spectator in the courtroom while he testifies.

As the trial continues, Dr. Fox interviewed. With the help of his assessor, the lawyer came across contradictions in Rameil's alibi that had not previously been adequately examined by either the criminal police or the judiciary. On the day of the murder, Rameil canceled the wake-up call from the hotel porter in Berlin, which was later used as evidence. He then flew to Hamburg, where he had about an hour to fly back to carry out the murder. Then he flew back to Berlin and met with his business partners. Faced with the facts, Rameil is arrested in the courtroom. Ingrid Bernhardy, who believed in her lover's innocence to the end, is released from prison.

History of origin

Background and script

Since the second half of the 1950s, director Wolfgang Staudte has made several films for the Berlin film producer Kurt Ulrich . Among them was the extremely successful satire Rosen for the Public Prosecutor (1959). Staudte and Ulrich's next collaboration was also topical, but it was to be staged as a serious crime and court film.

The script was based on the sequel “Kriminalbericht”, The Last Witness by Maximilian Vernberg , published in the Hamburger Abendblatt from the end of 1959 . It criticized a number of the provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure and the practice of the preliminary investigation . Vernberg judged the interrogation methods of the criminal police and the examining magistrate to be superficial and degrading. In it, the author also described the depressing milieu of pre-trial detention , “which, due to its primitive circumstances, makes those affected unable to think and concentrate”. The court's prejudice towards the accused was also criticized, as the latter had led an immoral example. In 1961, after the premiere of the film, Vernberg's work was published by Ullstein Taschenbücher-Verlag (volume 830).

The screenwriters RA Stemmle and Thomas Keck created a balanced screenplay in which, in addition to the elements of the submission that are critical of the judiciary, the Whodunit principle, which is important for film dramaturgy, was not neglected.

production

The entrance of the Hamburg criminal justice building shown in the film

The film, which was produced in the widescreen format 1: 1.66, was shot in the autumn of 1960 in West Berlin and Hamburg . The outdoor shots were taken on Kurfürstendamm , in the Moabit correctional facility and in front of the Hamburg Justice Forum . The studio recordings were shot in the CCC-Film studios in Berlin-Haselhorst . The film constructions came from Hanns H. Kuhnert . Trude Ulrich was responsible for the costumes. The production line had Heinz Willeg taken.

reception

publication

The last witness was released on December 13, 1960 by the FSK from the age of 16 and was released in German cinemas on December 30, 1960. The tightrope walk to produce an artistically important and at the same time audience-effective film was a success. In addition to favorable reviews, producer Kurt Ulrich landed an above-average success at the box office with the work. In the polls carried out by the trade journal Filmecho / Filmwoche at the time , in which the cinema visitors rated current films on a scale from 1 (excellent) to 7 (very bad), The Last Witness received a grade of 2.3. For comparison: The films also published in 1960 The Avenger (2.8), The Haunted Castle in Spessart (2.0) and The Black Sheep (2.5).

In addition, the film could also be marketed abroad and ran there under the following titles, among others:

The film was first broadcast on German television on August 30, 1965 on ZDF . While it was initially shown there in the intended widescreen format (1: 1.66), it was later also shown in an open matte version ( 4: 3 ), in which the microphones used during the shoot were visible in several places. On August 7, 2015, Alive's The Last Witness was released on DVD as part of the “Jewels of Film History” series.

Reviews

"Wolfgang Staudte, German film provocateur (' The Subject ', 'Roses for the Public Prosecutor', ' Kirmes '), this time targeted the German judiciary as part of a generally mild criminal case. His film polemicises, not without convincing arguments, against the treatment of prisoners on remand in this country, who are given the same gloomy world of cells as those already convicted as guilty. Thanks to the participation of stage actors such as Martin Held, Hanns Lothar and Werner Hinz, Staudte's film, which is more focused on solid suspense than on cinematographic sophistication, rises above the national German cinema average. "

- Der Spiegel , January 1961

“Wolfgang Staudte, who wants to force people to think, albeit often in protest against him, has once more, but this time in a more moderate manner than usual and supported by highly qualified actors (Martin Held, Hanns Lothar), a fanfare against the weaknesses of the usual investigation methods and blown the inadequacies of modern judicial processes. But this film is less to be seen as a startling message than as a particularly haunting example of the successful solution to a difficult case (a woman is accused of child murder), which should not be considered symptomatic. "

- Die Zeit , January 1961

"[...] with a gripping incident for reform of detention and criminal procedure a lance is broken; from impressive actors under precise direction. "

- Paimann's film lists , March 1961

"[...]" The Last Witness "[is] not an important one, but it is a particularly skilful and well-balanced film that could serve as a role model for young directors."

- De Telegraaf , June 1961

“Offensive in the argument, but not always convincing, staged with impressive actors. Although the film has lost some of its explosiveness due to changed principles in criminal proceedings and the penal system, it is just as interesting as a contemporary document and remarkable as a crime film. "

- Lexicon of international film

Awards

The German Film and Media Assessment (FBW) awarded the film the title “particularly valuable”.

At the presentation of the German Film Prize in 1961, Blandine Ebinger ( best female supporting role ) and Hanns Lothar ( best male supporting role ) each received a gold film volume for their performance in The Last Witness .

In addition, the film took part in the XIV Cannes International Film Festival in the competition for the Palme d'Or in 1961 , but was not awarded.

literature

  • Maximilian Vernberg: The Last Witness . tape 830 . Ullstein Taschenbücher-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1961, DNB  455234752 , p. 157 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 102 minutes for cinema projection (24 images / second), 98 minutes for television playback (25 images / second), film length: 2793 meters
  2. ↑ Abendblatt novel “The Last Witness” is filmed . In: Hamburger Abendblatt . November 19, 1960, p. 25 ( Abendblatt.de [PDF; 1.9 MB ]).
  3. ^ Hans Joachim Schneider : Detective novel . In: Alexander Elster and Rudolf Sieverts (eds.): Concise dictionary of criminology . 2nd Edition. tape 2 . de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1977, ISBN 3-11-007107-X , p. 56 .
  4. ↑ Maximilian Vernberg: The Last Witness ( Memento of the original from January 16, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at Trivialitas - Forum for Popular Culture @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / trivialitas.piranho.de
  5. ^ Het Vrije Volk : Dutch newspaper advertisement for the film . June 8, 1961 (accessed December 29, 2013)
  6. ↑ The Last Witness DVD (cover picture from left to right: Ellen Schwiers, Hanns Lothar, Jürgen Goslar, Harald Juhnke).
  7. ^ Film: New in Germany . In: Der Spiegel . No. 3 , 1961, pp. 53 ( online ).
  8. ↑ Movies of the Week . In: Die Zeit , No. 4/1961
  9. ↑ The last witness . In: Paimann's film lists . No. 2614 , March 12, 1961 ( Reizfeld.net ). Reizfeld.net ( Memento of the original from February 18, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / nano.reizfeld.net
  10. ↑ Knap geregisseerde film van Staudte in Arnhem . In: De Telegraaf , June 8, 1961; Retrieved December 29, 2013
  11. ↑ The last witness. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  12. ↑ Winner of the German Film Prize 1961 ( Memento of the original from January 16, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at deutsche-filmakademie.de; Retrieved December 29, 2013 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.deutsche-filmakademie.de
  13. ↑ Participant at the Cannes International Film Festival in 1961 ( Memento of the original from September 10, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at festival-cannes.fr; Retrieved December 29, 2013 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.festival-cannes.fr