Melissa (1966)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Melissa |
 | |
| Country of production | Federal Republic of Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1966 |
| length | total 190 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Paul May |
| script | Francis Durbridge (original), Marianne de Barde (German translation) |
| production | West German radio |
| music | Peter Thomas |
| camera | Werner Dalg , Henry Beninca |
| cut | Liesgret Schmitt-Klink |
| occupation | |
| |
Melissa is a three-part German crime film from 1966. It is one of the series of Durbridge films that became street sweepers in Germany in the 1960s . The director of the film shot for WDR was Paul May .
action
The Fosters are invited to a party organized by the racing driver Don Page. After an unsuccessful day, the unemployed journalist and writer Guy Foster prefers to stay at home. But his wife Melissa goes to the party with friends of the Hepburns. After a while, Guy receives a call from his wife. She orders him to an address in order to meet a publisher there who she met at the party and who could help him professionally. Guy searches in vain for the address and a little later learns that his wife Melissa was found strangled in a park. Foster has no alibi for the time of the crime, when he was home alone.
Inspector Cameron runs into neurologist Dr. Swanson. He explains that Foster is his patient, but Guy doesn't know anything about it. The clinic assistant, Joyce Dean, also confirms the doctor's statements and claims to know Guy. Swanson told the inspector that Foster was extremely jealous, that his wife felt threatened and suggested that he see the doctor for treatment of his mental health problems.
After his wife is dead, Guy experiences further surprises: A hatbox mysteriously disappears. He also finds out that Melissa has a large amount of money in a Swiss savings account and expensive jewelry. Felix Hepburn had borrowed 1,000 pounds from her, as a promissory note found proves. Guy also comes across a letter that his wife had addressed to him in which she asks his forgiveness for being the mistress of a certain Peter Antrobus.
When Guy returns to his apartment one evening, he finds a handkerchief with the monogram M on the floor and a note in his typewriter that Peter Antrobus can be found in Elvingdale. There, Guy discovers that Peter Antrobus is really a twelve-year-old boy who lives with his sister Mary and his father, the petrol station operator George Antrobus. And there he happened to meet Joyce Dean, Dr. Swanson, who is from the place.
In the evening, back home, Guy Foster gets drunk and falls asleep. He is woken up by a phone call: He hears the voice of his dead wife Melissa pleading with him to come to her at their cottage immediately. Foster comes off the road on the way there and ends up in a field where he - still drunk - falls asleep. When he finally arrives at the cottage several hours late, he finds the dead Mary Antrobus there. She too was strangled.
In order to explain to Inspector Cameron in the interrogation why he went to Elvingdale and that he met Mary Antrobus there for the first time, Guy wants to show him his wife's letter in which Peter Antrobus is said to be a lover. When he tries to take the letter out of his desk, it turns out that it has meanwhile been exchanged for another, almost identical one, which, however, does not contain a name.
When Guy is later alone again, an armed man storms into his apartment, identifies himself as George Antrobus and accuses him of murdering his daughter. Guy can soothe him. He later learns from the man that Mary's brother accidentally found a slip of paper with a note from her. It says that on the upcoming evening she will meet a "Felix H." and with "M." should have, at a tower near Elvingdale. Guy goes there to see what this date is all about. At the same time as he was there, Joyce Dean was attacked and injured in the immediate vicinity. To the police, Dean gives a description of the perpetrator that fits Guy exactly.
But it comes to the decisive turning point, from which it begins to become clear to Inspector Cameron that Guy should not be the culprit in any of the cases: Joyce Dean has claimed, among other things, that the man who had strangled her wore a conspicuous metal watch strap . However, Cameron discovers that Foster has a pocket watch with him; By chance, his watch strap was torn and was at the time of the attack on Dean with a watchmaker. Now Cameron also believes in a devilishly planned plot.
When Cameron and Guy visit the gas station operator Antrobus in Elvingdale to check Guy's information, it turns out that someone else had been with him and pretended to be Antrobus. The fake Antrobus later turns out to be a fraudster and forger known to the police. His data had been traced through an entry in Joyce Dean's notebook that Guy had taken and given to Inspector Cameron. When the fake Antrobus is caught, he admits that he was acting on behalf of a professional blackmailer named Smith in his attack on Guy; Melissa Foster used to be the accomplice of this blackmailer, who repeatedly used hat boxes to collect extortion money. When Smith decided to get rid of his accomplice for unspecified reasons, he came up with an elaborate plan: He obtained witness statements through further extortion and laid traces, all of which should make Guy Foster appear as the perpetrator.
In order to find out the identity of the real murderer and criminal, Inspector Cameron sets a trap and spreads that there is a tape from Melissa with incriminating statements at Guy Foster.
In this trap, Dr. Swanson: He had - initially out of a favor to his office assistant Joyce, then because he was blackmailed by her - procured heroin several times for the drug addict Mary Antrobus. Guy claims the tape exposes this connection between Swanson and Antrobus and manages to persuade him to face the police. When Swanson called the police from a phone booth to make his confession, he was shot from a vehicle. Swanson is seriously injured, but survived.
Later, Guy is visited by Don Page. He reveals to him that a few hours ago he had confessed to the police that he had also been involved in the plot against him through false statements: Page had been blackmailed in connection with a drunk road accident that he had committed some time ago.
Finally, Felix Hepburn comes to Guy and demands the release of the tape. He blackmailed Melissa that she was married when she married Guy, and that she was doing bigamy. Now he tries to get the tape with the same pressure: Guy did not know anything about Melissa's other marriage, but nobody would believe him if he - Felix - brought the story to the public. However, this conversation between Felix and Guy is overheard by the police; Hepburn is convicted and arrested this way. He is the ominous "Smith" who worked as a professional blackmailer with Melissa.
Also present in Guy's apartment is an actress, Carol Stewart, who Felix hired to imitate Melissa's voice in two bogus phone calls with her husband. When Felix tries to shoot Carol during the confrontation, this can be prevented by a targeted shot by the police at the last second. Felix is injured in the hand. That is probably why he is not handcuffed. He tries to escape when he's taken away and has left Guy's apartment. He is shot dead by a police officer.
Remarks
The film was first broadcast on ARD between January 10 and 14, 1966, with an interval of two days in three episodes of about 65 minutes each at 9 p.m. Audience ratings rose Monday through Friday from 72% to 82% to 89% and reached the record set by the Durbridge multi-part series Das Halstuch four years earlier .
The music track Melissa by Peter Thomas reached number 4 in the German charts on February 12, 1966, in which it was represented for 12 weeks. Peter Thomas recorded the title with the " Harald Banter Media Band " in which, as a curiosity, the Bert Kaempfert trumpeter Charly Tabor ( Wonderland at Night ) only played the bass guitar once for this recording. The theme was only used as background music in the three-part series and was featured on an Odeon single. In fact, the single was released in a new recording on CBS, in which Thomas then used Franz Löffler on the bass guitar . The actual title and final theme was later published under the title The Keys on the CD Strassenfeger , Colosseum / Cinesoundz CST 80772, together with the Melissa theme.
The episodes ran repeatedly in the regional and special-interest channels of ARD at larger intervals, most recently as a three-hour one-piece.
The director Paul May was known among other things for the 08/15 films and Via Mala . At Scotland Yard, Dr. He had also directed Mabuse in a crime film. After The Keys (1965) , it was his second directorial work in a Durbridge film. After Durbridge had previously been filmed in six parts based on the English model, May's films were the first three-part series.
Further films
Melissa was first filmed in 1964 as a six-part for English television.
After the German series, a television adaptation in six parts was also broadcast in Italy at the end of 1966 . The Italian-language title song Regent's Park was sung by the American singer Connie Francis and was also released on record.
The first color version (three times 60 minutes) was shot by the BBC in 1974 . Channel 4 initiated a new film adaptation in England in 1997, which, however, differs significantly from the original.