The night of the twelve

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
Original title The night of the twelve
Country of production German Empire
original language German
Publishing year 1949
length 92 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Hans Schweikart
script Paul May , Fred Andreas
production Gerhard Staab (production group)
music Norbert Schultze
camera Franz Koch
cut Ludolf Grisebach
occupation

The Night of the Twelve is a 1944 German crime film by Hans Schweikart . Ferdinand Marian plays the leading role . The story is based on the novel "Shiva and the Night of the Twelve" (1943) by Felicitas von Reznicek.

action

Leo Lanski is an unscrupulous criminal. He enjoys a carefree life in which he promises marriage to women and cuts them down by the grain. On his birthday countless greeting cards from his hitherto unsuspecting potential victims arrive. Among them is the very rich woman von Droste. The middle-aged widowed lady informed Leo in her letter that she would make him his main heir in the event of her death. However, Lanski does not want to wait that long, especially since he had already pumped Ms. von Droste's 20,000 marks, which he would supposedly need for a planned company foundation. Lanski plans his assassination attempt precisely and does not want to leave anything to chance. He's already come up with an alibi, and that's Lily Kruse, another of Lanski's friends. She is supposed to pick him up from the train station in Fürstenberg, so that he appears not very mobile on site. But Lanski has already come here on a motorcycle in order to be able to commit the murder of Frau von Droste unnoticed in terms of time.

As announced, Leo Lanski appears at the older lady. Adele von Droste is given a glass of sparkling wine into which Lanski has mixed sleeping powder. Then he says goodbye to her. The innocent lady is already soundly asleep when Leo says goodbye to her loudly at the front door. Neighbor Schliemann notices this and tells Lanski the time when asked. The criminal now has his first witness that Mrs von Droste must have been wide awake at the time of Lanski's departure. When he arrives at the train station, the marriage impostor flirts violently with the ticket seller, who will later also remember him. A purchased ticket is intended to insinuate that Lanski left the crime scene in Fürstenberg by train. However, Lanski rushes back to the house on his motorcycle, gains entry unnoticed and carries the sleeping wife von Droste to the cellar stairs. There he plunges her into the depths, so that her demise must seem like the unfortunate consequence of a fall. Lanski secretly abseils out of the villa, but does not notice that he is being watched by neighbor Schliemann again.

When Lanski called the Droste house the next day, he already had the police on the line. He is informed of the terrible death of the old lady, whereupon Lanski travels to Fürstenberg again. Leo Lanski now has to find out from another acquaintance, the notary secretary Erika Petzold, that Ms. von Droste had not yet signed her announced change of will. Should Lanski have murdered the rich widow in vain? To make matters worse, the criminal police are intensively investigating the cellar fall, as there are considerable doubts that Ms. von Droste is said to have died through her own fault. A coincidence leads to Lanski's trail. The police in the form of criminal investigators Rohrbach, Jost and Heinze became aware of him when they found a fuel receipt for a traffic offense, which proves that he must have been near the Droste property at the time of death. You also come across the numerous other ladies who have fallen into Lanski's clutches, but none of the women he has attracted is ready to testify against the ice-cold charmer.

Mr Schliemann, who is certain that he saw Lanski abseiling out of the Droste house on the night of the crime, tries to blackmail the murderer. Schliemann demands 15,000 marks in hush money, which Lanski has to procure for him in the next two weeks, otherwise he will go to the police. Driven into a corner in this way, Leopold Lanski plans to kill the divorced Hella Steffens, the ex of a general manager. Lanski found out about Ms. Steffens through a correspondence between Lily Kruse and the well-established, wealthy lady and also knows that she owns valuable jewelry. The criminal is planning another murder and wants to use sleeping pills again. Arriving at Steffens' apartment, Lanski realizes too late that the police are already there. Leo Lanski is arrested. In no time at all, he confesses that he was there when Frau von Droste unfortunately fell down the cellar stairs and could not do anything for her death. But the testimony of his landlady, Mrs. Siebel, and the rope seller whose fiber traces were found on the window frame of the Droste house convict Leo Lanski as a murderer. Blackmailer Schliemann doesn't get away with it either.

Production notes

Filming began in late September 1944 and was completed by the end of the year. The film was shot in the Hostiwar studios in Prague immediately after Schweikart had finished filming The Law of Love there. At the end of the war in 1945 the film was in music synchronization. The premiere took place on January 7, 1949 in Frankfurt am Main. The Berlin premiere was on October 13 of the same year in the western part of the city.

Production group leader Gerhard Staab probably also worked here as production and production manager. Herbert Hochreiter designed the film structures, Johann Dupke the costumes. Screenwriter Werner Jacobs also worked here as assistant director and editor. Emil Specht was concerned about the tone.

The author of the template wrote the script without naming it and received 10,000 Reichsmarks for it. She had to take into account the desired change by the Reich Criminal Police Office. The Night of the Twelve was, after Shiva and the Gallows Flower , the penultimate crime film of the Third Reich.

criticism

The film service found: "A coolly staged crime film based on authentic cases."

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Boguslaw Drewniak: The German Film 1938–1945 . A complete overview. Düsseldorf 1987, p. 430 f.
  2. ↑ The Night of the Twelve. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed January 1, 2020 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 

Web links