Jack Mortimer

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Movie
Original title Jack Mortimer
Country of production Federal Republic of Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1961
length 87 minutes
Rod
Director Michael Kehlmann
script Oliver Storz
production Frank Roell
music Horst Jankowski and his sextet
camera Karl Schröder , Helmut Mohr, WP Hassenstein , Peter Reimer
cut Adolph Schlyssleder
occupation

Jack Mortimer is a German television thriller from 1961. The film is based on the novel Ich war Jack Mortimer by Alexander Lernet-Holenia (1933).

action

The Munich taxi driver Herbert Sponer takes the American businessman Jack Mortimer with him at the train station. As they slowly drive through a construction site, Mortimer is shot through the open window. The perpetrator is a man who has already followed him at the train station and has now hidden behind a construction machine. Because of the noise, Sponer initially does not notice the death of his passenger. When he notices, he does not want to go to the police because he is currently driving an illegal taxi: he had to temporarily surrender his driver's license because he was driving alcohol. He also thinks no one would believe the story.

Instead, he wants to convince his colleague Haintl to drive to the police and state that he has driven. He initially agrees, but then refuses when he notices the blood in the taxi: Sponer hadn't noticed it at first and he assumed a natural death. Sponer's new plan is to make the body disappear in the river. This succeeds, but Haintl learns that another taxi colleague saw Mortimer get into Sponer's car and overheard the destination (Hotel Bristol). The two fear that Mortimer will be missed in the hotel at some point, a search will be initiated and they will quickly find out. Haintl has the idea that Sponer slips into the role of Mortimer, checks into the hotel with his passport and leaves the next morning with an unknown destination. Sponer agrees, but is very nervous when checking in.

Larsen and Renz, two businessmen, are already waiting in the hotel bar to sign a contract for Mortimer, whom they don't know personally. Sponer puts her off at first, but then lets her come into his room. He learns that Mortimer is supposed to collect a huge commission, but cannot find out what the deal is actually about. He asks for an hour to think about it and makes her wait in the bar. Shortly thereafter, a young woman named Eliza Hall appears in Sponer's / Mortimer's room: She sees through Sponer because she knows Mortimer: she's his secretary. The two get closer, and Sponer tells her the story of Mortimer's death. They decide that Sponer should keep playing the role so they can collect the commission and start over together somewhere.

Sponer is so taken with Eliza that he has completely forgotten Inge: She is a waitress in Sponer's and Haintl's local pub and “as good as engaged” to Sponer. Inge suspects that both are in trouble and presses the drunken Haintl until he tells her everything. Late that night, when Sponer and Eliza are celebrating the conclusion of the contract with Larsen and Renz in the hotel bar, Inge comes to the hotel and tries to persuade Sponer to go to the police. He harshly rejects her and sends her away. He has now completely absorbed in his new role and enjoys living no longer the insignificant life of a taxi driver, but that of an internationally active businessman.

Eliza didn't tell Sponer until the next morning that the contract was an illegal business: Mortimer was trading in weapons, among other things. Sponer gets nervous, also because he is apparently being watched from a limousine parked in front of the hotel. Eliza and Sponer have an appointment at Larsen and Renz's office that morning to collect the commission. But since any taxi driver would recognize Sponer, Eliza convinces him that it would be better if she go there alone. Sponer calls Haintl and wants him to pick him up and take him to the train station: There he should wait for Eliza so that both can start their new life together. Inge overhears the phone call. She goes to the hotel and keeps the men watching in the limo. She tells them that Sponer is about to go to the train station. The men, however, are evidently enemies of Mortimer: one of them is hiding at the construction site in the same place where Mortimer was shot at the beginning and shooting Sponer - believing it was Mortimer.

Eliza has since received the money and can be brought to the airport in a taxi - not to the train station, as agreed with Sponer. From the radio in the taxi, she learns about the recent murder of Sponer, which she notices without moving. Only now does it become clear that she didn't love Sponer, but took advantage of him to run away with the money alone.

Differences to the plot of the novel

The murder in the taxi as well as Sponer's assumption of Mortimer's role corresponds to the original, but the film then deviates from the plot of the novel as well as from the two earlier film adaptations I was Jack Mortimer (1935) and Adventure in Vienna (1952) : The reason for the Originally, murder was the jealousy of a man whose wife Mortimer loved. There are no illegal deals by Mortimer in the novel. Kehlmann had already worked on the script for the 1952 film in Vienna and played the supporting role of a forger.

production

The film was produced by Bavaria Atelier GmbH on behalf of WDR . It was first broadcast in Germany on August 20, 1961, in Switzerland on April 30, 1962 and in Austria on August 12, 1962.

Web links

Individual evidence