The death list

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Movie
German title The death list
Original title The List of Adrian Messenger
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1963
length 98 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director John Huston
script Anthony Veiller
production Edward Lewis
music Jerry Goldsmith
camera Joseph MacDonald
Ted Scaife
cut Terry O. Morse
occupation

as well as in guest roles not mentioned by name:

The Death List is a 1962 American crime thriller with mystery elements by John Huston . In addition to the main actor Kirk Douglas , who embodies four different characters as a murderer in strong masks, other Hollywood stars play guest roles, also in masks. George C. Scott has another leading role as a retired British agent who tries to uncover the background of a mysterious series of murders.

action

A man in eerie mask murders several people: Right at the beginning of the film he manipulates an elevator in such a way that a certain John M. Devitt falls into the depths. In the mask of a vicar, the murderer seeks out his next victim, who resides in the magnificent country estate of the old Marquis of Gleneyre. When the creepy killer arrives there, the rulers are about to embark on a large-scale fox hunt. At the same time, the writer Adrian Messenger, whose name has not yet been crossed out, is also on the death list of the serial killer, is staying on Gleneyre. On Gleneyre , that messenger discusses his theory with his friend Anthony Gethryn, a former MI5 agent, that the murders disguised as "accidents", in which Devitt was also the victim, are a series of very targeted attacks. Messenger hopes for help from Gethryn in solving this series of murders by giving him his own list. On it is a number of names of men whose whereabouts Gethryn should find out for him. Finally, Messenger also fell victim to an assassination attempt when a bomb exploded on his plane - stowed in a suitcase that the vicar standing behind Messenger at the check-in counter had left there without getting on the plane himself. Messenger was on the way to gather more evidence for his thesis.

The plane crashes over the sea, and Messenger saves himself exhausted and injured on a bulky item floating on the water. The dying person confides his secret to a surviving fellow traveler, a certain Raoul Le Borg. But neither Le Borg, who was Gethryn's contact with the French Resistance during World War II , nor Gethryn himself can make sense of Messenger's cryptic last words. Gethryn goes to his former boss Sir Wilfrid Lucas with Messenger's search list and explains to him what he found out: namely that six of the ten people named here - not counting Messenger - are already dead. Each of these deceased had died since 1958 through very strange circumstances. Gethryn tries to track down the eerie series of murders and therefore makes contact with the survivor of the plane crash, his old comrade Le Borg. When he wants to visit him at the bedside, Lady Jocelyn Bruttenholm is also present. She is the daughter-in-law of the old Marquis and at the same time a cousin of Adrian Messengers. Gethryn and Lady Jocelyn also know each other. When Le Borg is able to leave the sickbed, both men immediately go to Messenger's apartment. There they meet Lady Jocelyn again. When she arrived, she met an elderly bald man who pretended to be Mr. Pythian, allegedly a neighbor of the messenger who was taking care of his cat. In truth, however, it is the murderer in a new disguise, who has just stolen a treacherous script from Messengers, which could have led Gethryn and Le Borg on his track. When leaving Messenger's apartment complex, that ominous Pythian meets the newly arrived World War II veterans, who, however, take no notice of him. Pythian escapes in the taxi that Gethryn and Le Borg took to get here.

Together, Gethryn and Le Borg gradually discover the mysterious case while looking through Messengers documents and photographs. But they come too late when they want to visit the messenger typist to ask them about the content of changed or stolen documents. Gethryn breaks the door to her apartment. He, Le Borg and Lady Jocelyn find the woman falling out of her bed - dead. Someone had turned on the gas and faked her suicide. Jim Slattery, who sits in a wheelchair, also falls for the scary serial killer to the opera. Gethryn had spoken to him shortly before, and he was posing as his own brother then. The murdered people, it turns out, were all men who had been interned in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp in Burma during World War II . A visit to the widow of one of the former internees in Burma, Mrs. Karoudjian, is extremely helpful. Gethryn and Le Borg receive important information from her for the first time. In Burma, a Canadian sergeant is said to have betrayed his comrade when he told the Japanese about a planned escape attempt. But this Canadian is neither on this list nor has he ever been threatened. So far, victims have always been those he betrayed. Why should the Canadian commit these murders? Gethryn combines correctly: If this Canadian did not murder because he had a reason to do so in the past, then only because he wanted to cover up something in the future and remove witnesses to his former betrayal. But this would only make sense if this man wanted to play an important role in the future, for example in politics or society. When an MI5 employee said they had found the Canadian's name - his name was George Brougham - Gethryn, Le Borg and Sir Wilfrid combine that Brougham, pronounced like Broom (the English word for "broom"), in context with the Gleneyre fortune. Suddenly Lady Jocelyn's son, the young Derek Bruttenholm, as heir to the old Marquis, appears in great danger.

When another fox hunt is pending on Gleneyre, a stranger appears on horseback whom no one has known yet. It's George Brougham, without any masking. When he was the first to reach the fox posed by the pack of dogs, he officially introduced himself as his nephew to the Marquis of Gleneyre, who came a little later. On the same evening, George Brougham was sitting at the family table, watched suspiciously by Anthony Gethryn and Raoul Le Borg, while young Derek was completely unsuspecting. A little later, Brougham leaves again under a pretext. The fox hunt is due to resume the next day, and Gethryn is given the honor of leading the cavalry. Gethryn suspects that Brougham could use the hunt to kill him, as he knows that Gethryn is right on his heels through his research. In fact, Brougham returns in the dark, catches a fox, puts it in a sack and uses it to move a scent trail through the landscape that the dogs are supposed to follow the next day. Behind one of the obstacles that the horses have to jump over, he builds an agricultural implement with sharp tines, a hay tedder, hidden by a wall, which is supposed to become a deadly trap for the relatives. But it turns out differently. Gethryn has brought in the best bloodhound to find fox tracks on several people standing around in the field - mostly protesters against the fox hunt. In fact, the dog exposes Brougham, who is once again heavily masked among other people. He tries to flee, gets on Derek's horse and rides away. The horse gets stuck in a wall if it fails to jump, and Brougham flies over the wall into the middle of the tines of the tedder, which one of the farmers had recently moved from its original location. In the agony of death, Brougham tears off his mask for the last time.

Production notes

The world premiere of the film took place in the USA on May 29, 1963. Die Totenliste started in Germany on August 30, 1963 .

The production cost was around three million dollars. The film was shot in Ireland in 1962 (fox hunts) and in London (at Scotland Yard and in Whitehall , City of Westminster ).

In the last film sequence, all the guest stars - in addition to Douglas (who shows all of his masks again), Tony Curtis , Robert Mitchum , Burt Lancaster and Frank Sinatra - take off their masks in front of the camera.

The film structures were designed by Alexander Golitzen and implemented by Stephen Grimes . For the excellent masking of the stars Douglas, Mitchum, Curtis, Lancaster and Sinatra, who turn the film into an exciting who-is-who puzzle right up to the end, the make- up artists David Grayson, Nick Marcellino and Dick drew under the direction of John Chambers Westmore in charge.

Walter Anthony 'Tony' Huston, who plays Dana Wynter's son Derek in the film , is John Huston's son. Director Huston also made a guest appearance towards the end of the film: as a lord on horseback. For veteran actor Clive Brook , who appeared in front of the camera for the first time after almost two decades of abstinence, The Dead List was the last film.

criticism

The film's large personal lexicon called Die Totenliste a “curious, cleverly constructed all-star crime puzzle”.

The Movie & Video Guide pointed to the large-scale masquerade of the actors: “Good murder has a gimmick: Curtis, Douglas, Lancaster, Mitchum, and Sinatra are all heavily disguised in character roles. All that trouble wasn't necessary, the mystery is good on its own ”.

Halliwell's Film Guide characterized the film as follows: "Old-fashioned mystery thriller, as though Holmes and Watson were combating a modern Moriarty".

The Lexicon of International Films wrote: "Excitingly staged criminal case in the British milieu".

The online presence of Cinema judged: "A very tricky, original story."

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Although the cast list lists Lancaster in this brief appearance as a woman demonstrating against the foxhunt, this part was actually played by Lancaster's largely unknown colleague Jan Merlin . Lancaster only appears in the final sequence in which all guest stars unmask in front of the camera
  2. ↑ Kay Less : The film's great personal dictionary . The actors, directors, cameramen, producers, composers, screenwriters, film architects, outfitters, costume designers, editors, sound engineers, make-up artists and special effects designers of the 20th century. Volume 4: H - L. Botho Höfer - Richard Lester. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89602-340-3 , p. 128.
  3. ^ Leonard Maltin : Movie & Video Guide, 1996 edition, p. 761
  4. ^ Leslie Halliwell : Halliwell's Film Guide, Seventh Edition, New York 1989, p. 601
  5. ↑ Klaus Brüne (Red.): Das Lexikon es Internationale Films, Volume 8, S. 3867, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1987
  6. ↑ Die Totenliste in cinema.de