It happened in broad daylight

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Movie
Original title It happened in broad daylight
It happened in broad daylight in 1959.jpg
Country of production Switzerland , Germany , Spain
original language German
Publishing year 1958
length 95 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Ladislao Vajda
script Friedrich Dürrenmatt
Hans Jacoby
Ladislao Vajda
production Lazar changer
music Bruno Canfora
camera Heinrich gardener
Ernst Bolliger
cut Hermann Haller
occupation

It happened in broad daylight is a Swiss-German-Spanish fictional film from 1958 by Ladislao Vajda based on a screenplay that Vajda and Hans Jacoby wrote with Friedrich Dürrenmatt based on his idea. Dürrenmatt then wrote his detective novel The Promise that same year. But this was only released after the film was shown in the cinema . The premiere took place on July 4, 1958 as part of the 8th  Berlinale . The film was produced by the Swiss Praesens-Film AG in cooperation with CCC-Film from Berlin and Chamartín SA from Madrid and shot in Switzerland.

action

Dr. Matthäi from the Zurich canton police is supposed to train the police there in Jordan . Shortly before leaving, he received a call from the peddler Jacquier. He found the body of the little girl Gritli Moser in the forest of Mägendorf, a small town near Zurich . Matthäi drives to Mägendorf, takes the peddler with him, and he shows the police where it was found. Matthäi goes to Gritli's parents and promises his mother to find the murderer Gritlis. During his investigation in the elementary school , Gritli's girlfriend shows him a picture that Gritli had painted. The picture shows a giant, a little girl, several hedgehogs, a puppet, a car and a strange animal with horns. But at first Matthäi cannot relate these depictions to the crime.

The villagers think Jacquier is the murderer. This was observed, he also carries razors with him, as one could have been used for the act. Lieutenant Henzi, Matthäi's co-worker and successor, was then able to persuade Jacquier to admit the crime in a tough interrogation lasting several hours. The following night the peddler hanged himself in his cell. Matthai, however, does not believe in his guilt. Two other murders of this type were committed some time ago. He believes there is a connection. It may be a serial offender.

When Matthäi wants to fly to Jordan, he meets a man on the plane who is eating chocolate truffles, which remind him of the hedgehogs in Gritli's drawing. He senses a new lead and leaves the plane. The police refuse to reopen the investigation; An old friend, the psychiatrist Professor Manz, explains to Matthäi that real events and people must be hidden behind Gritli's picture. The psychiatrist believes the killer has an inferiority complex towards women and it is very likely that he will commit further murders. He also suspects that the murderer probably has no children, otherwise he would not be capable of such an act.

Matthäi examines the places where the other two girls were murdered years ago and uses a map to find out that the crimes were all committed not far from a country road leading into the canton of Graubünden . Matthäi connects the “strange animal with horns” in Gritli's picture with the Graubünden heraldic animal , an ibex, and suspects that the murderer drives a car with Graubünden license plates and often uses this country road.

He rents a gas station on the road from Zurich to Chur and hires a young woman as a housekeeper, whose daughter is Gritli Moser's age and looks similar. His plan is to use little Annemarie as bait to lure the real killer into a trap. He makes a note of the numbers of suitable cars and then uses pretexts to inquire whether the owners have children.

One day the businessman drives scrap metal past the gas station and sees little Annemarie playing near the country road. A few days later, Schrott lurks Annemarie in the forest and quickly wins her trust with the help of his puppet doll. Annemarie thinks he's a magician. She has to promise not to tell anyone about the encounter, otherwise he will no longer be able to perform magic. One day Annemarie comes home late from school. Matthäi finds chocolate truffles with her that look like little hedgehogs. So she must have met with the murderer. After initially resisting, Annemarie tells him about the magician she met. Matthäi buys a life-size girl doll to set a trap for the murderer.

Schrott lives in Chur in his wife's upper-class house, whose chauffeur he used to be. Even after the marriage, she treats him like a servant. A marriage dispute enrags Schrott so much that he drives off to murder Annemarie. When he was looking for the girl in the forest, he saw the doll that Matthäi had put down in a hollow. Schrott thinks he sees the child dead and screams out loud in shock. Thereupon Matthäi leaves his hiding place to collect scrap. This attacks him, but is stopped by a targeted shot.

Matthäi, who is only slightly injured, hears Annemarie's voice calling the magician. He takes the puppet doll and goes to meet her so she doesn't have to see the man who was shot. He shows her that he too can do magic with the doll, and Annemarie no longer thinks about the other magician. Finally her mother arrives, relieved that nothing has happened to the daughter. She sees Matthäi's bloody hand under the doll, but he tells her not to tell the child anything.

History of origin

In May 1957 Dürrenmatt received the order from the Swiss film producer Lazar Wechsler to write the script for a feature film. It should be about sex crimes against children. Dürrenmatt accepted the contract and wrote the template for the later film script.

The shooting had to be postponed again and again, most recently to February 1958. Director Wolfgang Staudte and the planned lead actor Martin Held were already cast for this time. So Ladislao Vajda and Heinz Rühmann were engaged , who made it a condition that Hans Jacoby should work on the script. Dürrenmatt did not agree with Staudte's suggested film title. His own proposals (God slept in the morning and junk goes boom) were rejected by the donors. He wasn't particularly enthusiastic about the film itself either: “You could have been more cheeky and burlesque. Rühmann is too bourgeois for me, too little obsessed with the idea. ”He also didn't like the fact that the murderer was caught in the end. The writer wondered whether such a case was even realistic.

For this reason, Dürrenmatt wrote the detective novel The Promise on the basis of his own film script , which he himself referred to as the “ Requiem for the detective novel” because it defied the usual rules of a crime novel and took a completely different direction. While inspector Matthäi is successful with his investigations in the film, the protagonist Matthäi in the story loses his emotional stability because of his unsuccessful search for the murderer.

Remakes

The material was later filmed several times:

Reviews

  • “Remarkably dignified design, excellent actors, high tension. A Swiss crime film that contains useful warnings for parents and educators. Worth seeing. ”- 6000 films. Critical notes from the cinema years 1945 to 1958. Handbook V of the Catholic film criticism, 3rd edition, Verlag Haus Altenberg, Düsseldorf 1963, p. 102.
  • "[...] subtle, atmospherically dense criminal case from the Swiss provinces, with star cast [...]" (rating: 3½ stars = exceptional) - Adolf Heinzlmeier and Berndt Schulz in the lexicon "Films on TV" (extended new edition). Rasch and Röhring, Hamburg 1990, ISBN 3-89136-392-3 , pp. 206-207.

Others

Filming locations and props

Gasthaus zum Löwen, Bonstetten (2014)
  • Part of the classic film was shot in Bonstetten in 1958 in the Gasthaus zum Löwen.
  • The restaurant with the label Graubünden is located on the Tardis Bridge over the Rhine near Landquart . The steel bridge shown in the film was replaced by a new construction in 2001.
  • The SOCAL petrol station is actually a farm near Trimmis (Deutsche Strasse), which was redesigned by the local carpenter for the shooting.
  • The scenes in which Matthäi meets Annemarie Heller were shot in Trimmis. During the conversation with the village merchant, the Evangelical Reformed Church can be seen in the background. The village fountain, where Annemarie plays with her doll, is also located there.
  • The scenes in which scrap meets Annemarie in the forest were filmed in the Fürstenwald near Chur.
  • The house where Schrott lives is in Chur (Obere Plessurstrasse).
  • Schrott's black limousine, a Buick Special Series 40 , was rented from a taxi company in Chur for the filming.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ La promessa. In: imdb.com. Retrieved April 21, 2020 .
  2. ↑ Szürkület. In: imdb.com. Retrieved April 21, 2020 .
  3. ↑ It happened in broad daylight. Film 1996. In: kino.de. Retrieved April 21, 2020 .
  4. ↑ It happened in broad daylight. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed April 21, 2020 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used