Paul Temple and the Alex case

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Paul Temple and the Alex case is an eight-part radio play from the Paul Temple series by Francis Durbridge , which WDR produced in 1967 and aired for the first time from February 16 to April 5, 1968. The total playing time is 207 minutes.

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The individual episodes of the earlier multi-part series were still provided with separate subtitles. From the Lawrence case onwards, with the exception of the Geneva case , the WDR evidently refrained from doing this.

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Sir Graham Forbes and Scotland Yard's Inspector Crane enlist the help of writer and private investigator Paul Temple on a difficult case. Six months ago a man named Richard East was found shot dead in his car. The name Alex was written in chalk on the windshield . The police did not find any clues that would point to the perpetrator. Now the body of the young actress Norma Rice has been found on the Manchester - London train , who was killed by a slow-acting poison. The name Alex was again written in chalk on the window pane . At East they found a business card with the name Mrs. Trevelyan on the back . The same name now appeared in Norma Rice's diary.

During a radio broadcast , at which Paul Temple is also present, the economist Sir Ernest Cranbury collapses in the studio. Before he dies, he mentions the name Alex and a letter he received to Temple . In his wallet the detective discovers a slip of paper on which Mrs. Trevelyan's name has been noted in pencil . On the way back from the studio, Paul and his wife Steve are pushed off the street in their car by another vehicle and almost end up in the window of a shop. Paul learns from a friend Spinner Williams that the car was owned by Dr. Charles Kohima heard. An avid thriller reader mistakenly believes he recognizes Paul Temple as one of his friends.

In Dr. Kohima meets the former playwright Carl Lathom, Temple know, who reports that the psychiatrist has cleared him of a hallucination . He had always believed he was being followed by a young woman dressed in brown. The office assistant is called Mrs. Trevelyan. Without the doctor hearing her, she asks Temple to meet him that evening about the Alex case . Dr. Kohima reports that his car is in a repair shop. When I call there, it turns out that the car had been picked up the night before by the doctor's alleged chauffeur.

When Paul and Steve drive to the address given that evening, Mrs. Trevelyan is not there. Instead, they almost become victims of a bomb attack. When Temple and Sir Graham want to meet a Dutchman named Jan Müller at the docks, who supposedly knows Alex's identity , they only find the man's body in a shed. Someone wrote the name Alex on the door in paint . Back home, Steve reports that she was followed by a young woman dressed in brown on the way home. A short time later Mrs. Trevelyan appears. She says she is being blackmailed by Alex , who also forced her to go on the date with Temple. But she didn't know anything about the attempted murder. Alex first asked her to deliver £ 2,000 in person to the Waverley Hotel in Canterbury , then asked Dr. Kohima, which she should send by letter to a Judy Smith in the hotel there. She found her instructions on her desk when she started work that morning. On a list were the names of seven blackmail victims, the first four of whom are already dead. Barton, Steel and most recently Trevelyan complete the list.

While visiting the Waverley Hotel, Paul discovers that the menu was written on the same typewriter as Alex's letters to Mrs. Trevelyan. The crime reader reappears in the hotel, this time introducing himself as Wilfried Davies. Frank Chester, the hotel manager, cannot give Temple any information about a Judy Smith. Paul uses a trick to get his fingerprints. A call from Inspector Crane prompts the Temples to return home that evening. Police found James Barton shot dead in London. A silver pencil was found next to the corpse, apparently from Dr. Kohima heard. On the way back, the Temples have to take a detour because of an alleged traffic accident. But this soon turns out to be a trap. A wire rope stretched across the street is almost their undoing. Nearby they find Spinner Williams, who was supposed to hand over £ 4,000 to Alex on behalf of Lord Stanwyck, but was then knocked down. When Williams takes a sip from Temple's cognac bottle, he dies of cyanide poisoning .

The fingerprint proves that Chester is actually a criminal named Michael Mulberry. Dr. Kohima does not identify the silver pencil found on the dead Barton as his. Just as Lathom tells Paul that he was followed by the girl in brown the night before, Steve calls and reports about the girl as well. When Paul and Lathom arrive at Steve's, the girl has disappeared. In the presence of the Temples, Lathom receives a letter from Alex asking for 2,000 pounds, otherwise he would tell the press everything about his one and a half year stay in Cairo . While handing over the money, Paul and Sir Graham Forbes set a trap for Alex that Mrs. Trevelyan falls into. When interrogated, she insists on being Alex herself. When she is completely nervous, Dr. Kohima and takes care of her. A few hours later, she revokes her statement. Temple suspects that Alex blackmailed her into blaming herself.

Davies visits the Temples and reports that he allegedly observed through a keyhole in the Waverley Hotel how Chester tampered with the Temples cognac bottle. Shortly afterwards he claims to have found a piece of paper in his jacket pocket with the handwritten message that it was not Mrs. Trevelyan but the brown-clad lady Alex who was. But Paul doesn't believe him about the note. When Ricky, the Temples' new servant, enters the room, he recognizes Davies as a man named Cartwright, whom he had met a year ago in a New York hotel.

Paul meets in a pub with an American friend named Leo Brent, whom he asks to stay at the Waverley Hotel for a few days, to observe everything there closely and to report to him twice a day by telephone. Then Ricky shows up and says that a young girl dressed in brown is waiting for him at home. Lathom, who was also present, suspected that it could be the girl who had followed him so often. A broken wine bottle breaks down Temple's car. The randomly passing Dr. Kohima brings the temples home. But they are too late. Somebody shot the girl shortly before. Inspector Crane, who is already in the apartment, heard the shot when he arrived, but was unable to catch the killer. Temple warns Lathom about Alex, but is surprised that he knew that the girl had been shot, even though he himself only spoke about murder in general. Sir Graham reports to Paul that the dead woman is the American Carol Reagan, who was an employee of the detective Jeff Meyers, who was known there. For his part, Temple tells of a written warning he received from Alex, written on the typewriter from the Waverley Hotel.

A bogus call from the hotel there, in which someone pretends to be Leo Brent, causes the Temples to drive to Canterbury immediately. The hotel manager Chester alias Mulberry is not present, but Wilfried Davies again. A written message Paul finds in Leo's room prompts the Temples to drive to the old, derelict claywood mill. But that turns out to be a trap that Leo Brent has already fallen into. When Paul tries to free Leo from a cellar shaft, the trap door above them is locked and the room is flooded with water. Sir Graham and Inspector Crane arrive just in time to rescue them. From the hotel they had followed Davies to the mill. Davies has disappeared, but Chester is arrested by Crane. Temple promises Sir Graham to introduce him to Alex the next evening at a cocktail party in his apartment.

In addition to Sir Graham and Inspector Crane, Carl Lathom, Dr. Kohima, Barbara Trevelyan and Wilfried Davies. First, it turns out that Wilfried Davies is actually the detective Jeff Meyers, whom Ernest Cranbury had hired for the Alex blackmail. Not only was Mrs. Trevelyan blackmailed, but Dr. Kohima, who initially took part, but when Alex cast suspicion on Barbara Trevelyan, with whom he is in love, he no longer took part. And then the game from Alex aka Carl Lathom is out. An attempt to poison Temple fails. When he pulls a revolver and pulls the trigger, Ricky succeeds in rendering Lathom harmless with the help of a vase. Nobody is injured by the shot.

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Remarks

The radio play was produced by the BBC in 1968, around the same time as the German version under the title Paul Temple and the Alex Affair . The Temple couple were voiced by Peter Coke and Marjorie Westbury .

However, the radio play is only a remake of Send for Paul Temple Again from 1945. Only the name of the villain was changed from Rex to Alex, otherwise the plot is the same. It was also published in Germany under the title Paul Temple chasing Rex as a book based on the script of the radio play. In 1945 Paul Temple was voiced in the first "Rex Version" by Barry Morse , who later became mainly Lt. Philip Gerard from the American television series On the Run became known. Marjorie Westbury first appeared in front of the microphones as Steve Temple. For Morse it was the only appearance in the series.

Margot Leonard could also be heard as Steve Temple in the German-British television series Paul Temple, produced from 1969, as the German voice of Ros Drinkwater .

After Paul Temple and the Gregory affair in 1949, this is probably the twelfth and, at the same time, last multi-part series that the WDR, or its predecessor, the NWDR Cologne , produced in its Paul Temple series. The ARD radio play archive, however, has another multi-part series entitled A case for Paul Temple from 1950, which is said to be the Valentin case . The WDR in Cologne could not confirm this information on request.

Once again, the director was Otto Düben, who had already taken over the game management in the Geneva case because of the death of Eduard Hermann . Both multi-part series, however, were significantly shorter than their predecessors.

Paul Klinger, who spoke the role of the villain Lonsdale in the previous episode, took over the role of the London private detective from René Deltgen . Also Annemarie Cordes , the standard spokeswoman Steve Temple, was no longer there.

The role of the servant Charlie , mostly spoken by Herbert Hennies , did not appear in this multi-part. Instead, Steve hires the Siamese servant Ricky as a temporary worker for the sick Charlie .

In the first episode, Raoul Wolfgang Schnell, Hermann Pfeiffer and Klaus Wirbitzky were three well-known directors in supporting roles.

Movie

The 1946 British crime film Who is Rex? based on the same fabric by Francis Durbridge.

Publications

Paul Temple and the Alex case has been published by Hörverlag on CD and MC ( ISBN 389940436X ).

References

  • The radio play (plot)
  • The internet database of the ARD radio play archive, accessed on April 11, 2011 (all information about the production).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Paul Temple: The Radio Shows. Retrieved February 11, 2013 .
  2. ↑ Paul Temple and the Alex case. In: synchronkartei.de. German synchronous index , accessed on June 2, 2013 .