The perfect killer
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The perfect killer |
| Original title | Dear Murderer |
| Country of production | United Kingdom |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1947 |
| length | 92 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Arthur Crabtree |
| script |
Muriel Box , Sydney Box , Peter Rogers |
| production | Betty E. Box |
| music | Benjamin Frankel |
| camera | Stephen Dade |
| cut | Gordon Hales |
| occupation | |
| |
The Perfect Killer is a 1947 film noir- style British detective film . Directed by Arthur Crabtree play Eric Portman and Greta Gynt . The film was based on the play "Dear Murderer" by St. John Legh Clowes .
action
When the English businessman Lee Warren returns from New York after eight months on business, he finds out that his despicable and devious wife Vivien has found a lover in the meantime. Lee finds out with whom his wife is cheating on him and puts the man, the elegant gentleman Richard, under massive pressure. He lets the competitor write a suicide note that Fenton believes that this suicide note to Vivien would only announce the initiation of both love affairs, and then he kills Fenton. The letter can also be interpreted as the announcement of a suicide, as it is laid out in its content. Then Warren arranges everything as if the murdered man actually killed himself.
Then Warren drives back home. There he has to find out on the same evening that the dead man was not his only rival. Vivien and Fenton had recently split up, and the infidelity caught a new lover named Jimmy Martin. This completely eliminates a motive for Fenton's alleged suicide, and Lee has to reschedule as quickly as possible. In no time at all, Warren returns to the murdered man's apartment and changes and drapes everything so that a suspicion of murder falls on Vivien's new lover, Jimmy.
Lee has done his criminal act so perfectly that the police actually fall for it and arrest Lee's rival, even if the investigative Inspector Penbury believes that Warren has a hand in it. Warren also wants to take revenge on his unfaithful wife and confesses to her at the moment of the naked truth that he murdered Fenton and then made sure that Jimmy fell under suspicion. She should suffer as much as he does. Vivien begs, Vivien pleads, she swears to her husband and confesses to him unbreakable loyalty for the future - all to save lover Martin, who is wrongly burning in prison, from the gallows. In fact, Lee Warren lets himself be charmed and in turn writes an ambiguous letter that on the one hand exoners Jimmy Martin and on the other hand can also be interpreted as a murder confession. Then she poisons Lee. When the police show up and discover the dead Lee, Inspector Penbury soon realizes that Vivien must be behind it. She is not up to the interrogation techniques and is arrested for murder.
Production notes
The Perfect Killer was written in 1946 and premiered in London on May 29, 1947. The film opened in Austria on January 30, 1948, in Germany on March 3, 1948.
Muir Mathieson was the musical director, Antony Darnborough was production assistant. George Provis oversaw the movie set made by John Elphick.
Reviews
The New York Times saw the film at its US premiere in May 1948 as a "new exercise in matters of polite murder."
The Viennese daily also judged from a moral point of view and found that the film lacked the "despicable human attitude" as well as the artistic line.
Austria's Die Furche mocked that it would happen with a “particularly fine blade”, and that this film showed the “high school of modern murder technique”.
Paimann's film lists saw the film as a "carefully worked through study of a jealousy criminal".
The lexicon of international films found the film to be an "intelligently crafted crime thriller."
Leonard Maltin saw the thriller as an "all too well-known 'perfect crime' melodrama".
Individual evidence
- ^ In the original: “a new exercise in polite murder”. The New York Times, May 8, 1948
- ^ Wiener daily newspaper January 31, 1948, p. 3
- ↑ Die Furche, February 7, 1948, p. 8
- ↑ The perfect killer in Paimann's film lists ( Memento of the original from January 3, 2018 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.
- ↑ The perfect killer. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed January 1, 2018 .
- ^ Leonard Maltin : Movie & Video Guide, 1996 edition, p. 313
Web links
- The perfect killer in the Internet Movie Database (English)