Secret police
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Secret police |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1929 |
| length | 90 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Edmund Heuberger |
| script |
Fritz Falkenstein Walter Wassermann |
| production | Gustav Althoff |
| camera | Charles Stumar |
| occupation | |
| |
Secret Police is a German silent detective film from 1929 with Eddie Polo in the leading role. Directed by Edmund Heuberger .
action
Factory owner Wehring seems to have been murdered in a terrible way. In any case, his factory was blown up. His engineer Franz Hayn is suspected of the act. However, one cannot prove the deed against him, and so he has to be released again for lack of evidence. The fact that he was ever suspected of such an offense annoys Hayn very much, as he knows about his own innocence. Now he is doing everything possible to find the real perpetrator behind the attack.
Suddenly the mysterious dancer Ria Rita appears, who pretends to be Wehring's sister. It makes anything but a serious impression on Hayn. The only thing that seems to matter to the woman is to be able to receive the sum insured due to the death of her brother as quickly as possible. Hayn clings to her heels, and soon his suspicions are confirmed that something is wrong with this lady. Behind her there is a whole gang of crooks, led by Mr Wehring, who was believed to be dead! In cooperation with the investigating criminal inspector Dr. Stendorf can arrest Hayn and hand them over to the police.
Production notes
The film was made under the working title of the Criminal Police - Murder Department in October and November 1929 in the Jofa studios (indoor shots) and at Wannsee (outdoor shots). The six-stroke with a length of 2254 meters passed the film censorship on November 22, 1929 and was banned from young people. The first performance by secret police was on December 6, 1929 in Berlin's Schauburg.
The production line had Joe Pasternak , the buildings date from Gustav A. Knauer and Willy Schiller . The recording manager was Alfred Kern.
Trivia
Coincidence of the events: Immediately before the premiere of the film, a similar case occurred in the German Reich. The Leipzig publishing house representative Kurt Erich Tetzner had murdered a tramp and burned the body and his car in order to simulate his own death in a serious traffic accident. His wife was supposed to cash in the insurance sum, and the couple wanted to remarry under a different name when the situation got stuck. The matter was exposed and on December 4, 1929 (two days before the premiere by secret police ), Tetzner was arrested in Strasbourg.
Reviews
“Eddie Polo, the crowd favorite, has the opportunity to show off his swimming and boxing skills, climb over walls, act mysteriously and lead everything to a happy ending. Fritz Falkenstein and Walter Wassermann, the authors, understand their craft and keep the tension alive until the last moment. (...) And only those who have been trained on Wallace suspect close to the end who the great stranger is who haunted the whole thing. Edmund Heuberger takes advantage of the tension, plays the scenes down at a certain speed ... "
“The script has to be conceded to be shortness, tension and speed. The director knows how to keep the observer in the dark about the great stranger right into the last scenes. This great unknown ... is portrayed in clear lines by Anton Pointner. But even smarter ... is Eddie Polo, who ... is less interested in acting than in sport. As the sister of the factory owner, Rina Marsa can show her good figure in a revue costume, but less her acting talent. "
"[The] insurance fraud ... doesn't come out of the secret police, who, as always, play a half-ridiculous role in such films, but through Eddie Polo himself, who obviously has the ambition to imitate Harry Piel . But as agile and strong as he is, he does not come close to his role model. He lacks imagination, the fable of tension, the film of technical ideas. "
Web links
- Detectives in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Secret police at filmportal.de