The time has come (film)

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Movie
Original title The time has come
The time has come Logo 001.svg
Country of production Federal Republic of Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1960
length total 237 minutes
Rod
Director Hans Quest
script Francis Durbridge (original), Marianne de Barde (German translation)
production North and West German Broadcasting Association
music Peter Thomas
camera Jochen Maas , Manfred Ensinger , Rüdiger Walch , Michael Kurth
cut Maria-Anne Gerhardt , Maria Pleiner , Irmgard Schertl
occupation

The time has come is a six-part German crime film from 1960. It was the second in the series of Durbridge films that became street sweepers in Germany in the 1960s . The director of the film shot for the NWRV was Hans Quest .

action

Lucy and Clive Freeman have drifted apart. Since Clive left his research at Prescott and started his own business, they've been fighting and avoiding each other. Eventually they decide to get a divorce and consult with their mutual friend and lawyer, Laurence Hudson.

The next day, Clive takes her eight-year-old daughter, Janet, to school. When he comes home in the evening, the police are already there. Janet didn't come home. The teacher Miss Calthorpe says she took her to the bus stop and the child has since disappeared. Police receive information that Janet may have been seen in Henshaw Forest, 20 miles away, but the search remains unsuccessful.

After two weeks, the police have still not found any trace of the Freemans' daughter, only the name Nelson seems to be a clue. Strangely enough, Janet's school supplies turn up in Henshaw Forest, but due to the previous rainfall, they could not have got there until the day they were found. At the same time, attorney Hudson receives an anonymous phone call, telling him to tell Mrs. Freeman to look at the exercise book. When the teacher Miss Calthorpe came to the Freemans on the same evening, he noticed that there were words with P in the exercise book, even though the letter M had only been worked through in school. Using the words photo, portrait and profile, Clive remembers that before Janet disappeared, an appointment had been made in the photo studio profile for her daughter, which then did not materialize. The actual reason for the teacher's visit was a borrowed school doll depicting a sailor named Nelson.

The Photo Studio Profile was recommended to Lucy Freeman by a neighbor named Barstow. Lady Barstow, on the other hand, had learned about the photographer Pelford through the dentist Stevens. After consulting Inspector Kenton, Lucy goes into the studio and seeks out Pelford. He supposedly lets her talk to her daughter on the phone, but it is a played tape recording. He also tells her to leave the police out of the picture and wait for further instructions.

Kenton learns nothing of the true course of the meeting and also nothing of the fact that a short time later, Pelford calls Clive Freeman and announces the visit of a third party, whom he should receive alone. Nevertheless, Clive asks his friend Hudson to secretly follow the conversation. But during the meeting the unknown visitor notices the lawyer and when he draws a gun, Freeman knocks him down, a shot is fired and the man collapses. Hudson discovers the man is dead. They also find a wallet with a dental bill from Dr. Stevens to a Mr. Nelson.

To mislead the kidnappers, they do not go to the police, but hide the body in the Henshaw Forest. They want people to believe that Nelson never showed up for a date. But the contact with Pelford fails, he has disappeared. The Freemans have also learned that Ruth Calthorpe, Janet's teacher, has a relationship with the dentist Stevens. So Clive goes there for treatment on a pretext. In the office, Clive can secretly take a look at the patient file and find out Nelson's address. That was just a trick, however, after Clive's departure, Stevens destroys the card.

In the meantime the police have found the dead Nelson in the forest and are also asking the Freemans if they know him, because his wallet has disappeared even though they had put it back. They decide to go to the address they got from Stevens and find a remote cottage near Lower Meldon. The building is apparently abandoned, but they find Janet's school hat lying on the grass. Clive gets in through an unlocked window and finds the murdered Miss Calthorpe. He anonymously alerts the police and they disappear home.

There the Freemans find out that Pelford had been there in their absence, and shortly afterwards he calls and makes an appointment with Clive Freeman in a trucking café. There Pelford demands that Freeman go to Prague in exchange for his daughter's return. As Clive had learned earlier, Pelford is related to another researcher who Clive worked with at Prescott and who is now in Prague. In the meantime, Inspector Kenton is with Lucy Freeman and shows her a letter in Clive's handwriting, in which he allegedly arranged to meet Miss Calthorpe in the cottage and also intended Janet's hat as a diversionary maneuver in case his wife would come along. The letter was found with the dead woman and the inspector suspects that the Freemans were there, although they deny it. When Clive comes home, he denies having written the letter.

After the inspector leaves, he tells his wife that Janet will be back the next day, but tells her that Pelford asked for money and that he would hand it over the next day. Lucy, having grown suspicious, later overhears her husband's message to Pelford that "the ticket is required". She confronts her husband and suspects the truth, but cannot stop Clive. When she tries to inform Inspector Kenton, Hudson intervenes. Finally, Hudson goes to Kenton and tells him what actually happened that evening of Nelson's visit to the Freemans' house, as well as Janet's planned return and Lucy's suspicions.

When Clive Freeman arrives at the airport as agreed, Pelford confirms his arrival by telephone to a man named Lomax, who then has the kidnapped daughter taken to the train station. The photographer is immediately arrested by the police. However, the dentist Stevens found out about the arrest and informed Lomax, who then managed at the last moment to jump on the moving train and bring Janet back. The whole operation is also monitored by the police, but they do not intervene, although Abwehr Commissioner Wilde has apparently been monitoring the Lomax house for a long time.

Shortly after Freeman is back home, a messenger from Clive's former employer Prescott arrives with a letter offering Clive his own research department at the company. Shortly thereafter, Stevens calls him, and although he suspects that his lawyer 's visit to the police led to Pelford's arrest, a second exchange is said to take place. Clive then demands to see his daughter. He is picked up by Stevens in London and taken to Lomax's house. While he is being reunited with his daughter, Janet, the police surround the house and the kidnapping is ended with a quick move.

Back at the Freemans house, the police finally set a trap for the gang's head. It is Laurence Hudson who tampered with the safe in order to get the Prescott letter set up as bait. When the police try to arrest him, he manages to grab a gun that he had prepared beforehand. But before he can use it to clear an escape route, Lucy Freeman appears, shoots him and hits him in the arm, whereupon he can be overpowered.

Remarks

The six-part film was first broadcast on the ARD between October 21 and November 7, 1960 on Fridays and Mondays. The audience ratings reached around 80%. Just two years later, the series was repeated on ARD and later ran several times in the regional and special interest channels of ARD. In 2008 a digitized version was released on DVD.

Unlike the first Durbridge film The Other , which was produced by NDR, this time it was shot with more effort. There was a lot of outdoor shots filmed in England. The film team spent three weeks of the shooting time abroad, the rest of the film was shot in the Bavaria Film studios.

The inspector played Siegfried Lowitz , who had already played the police investigator in the successful Edgar Wallace film The Frog with the Mask a year earlier . For director Hans Quest it was the first of four Durbridge film adaptations for television: He then also directed the shooting of Das Halstuch , Tim Frazer and Tim Frazer: The Salinger Case .

Further films

The first screenplay by Francis Durbridge was screened in 1957. The BBC also broadcast the film as a six-part series in slightly shorter episodes under the original title A Time Of Day . However, the recordings no longer exist today. In the 1960s there was a film adaptation in Italy with the title Paura per Janet in six approximately one-hour episodes.

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