Paul Temple and the Geneva case

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Paul Temple and the Geneva case is a six-part radio play from the Paul Temple series by Francis Durbridge , produced by WDR Cologne in 1966 and broadcast for the first time from February 25 to April 1, 1966. The total playing time is 228 minutes.

Title of each episode

  1. Too young to die
  2. Subject: Mrs. Milbourne
  3. A message for Danny
  4. Julia Carrington thinks differently
  5. A surprise for Mrs. Milbourne
  6. See you in London

action

The London financial tycoon Maurice Lonsdale asks the writer and private investigator Paul Temple and his wife Steve for a meeting in one of his restaurants. He reports that his sister Margaret, the wife of publisher Carl Milbourne, wants to ask Temple for help. She got it into her head that her husband was not the man who died a few days ago in a traffic accident in Geneva . Although the dead man was completely disfigured, both Lonsdale and the police are convinced of Milbourne's identity.

When the Temples leave the restaurant, they discover that their car has been stolen. The thief, a certain Ben Roberts, is shot while driving from another car. The killer must have thought Roberts was Temple.

The next morning Mrs. Milbourne visits the temples at home. She says that her husband went to Switzerland to contact the actress Julia Carrington because she wanted to write her memoir. A few days after the accident, Margaret received a package with a hat from a fashion store in St. Moritz . Behind the hat band was a message in her husband's handwriting, dated two days after the accident. The note said: “Please don't worry. Met Randolph. Everything will be fine. You'll hear from me again. ”She asks the Temples to take her to Switzerland to investigate the case. Paul asks for time to consider.

Dolly Brazer, a former friend of the Temples, warns Paul against getting involved in the Swiss cause . She couldn't say more because she was still too young to die , which she emphasized in a special way. On the same day the girl was attacked and beaten up. A rental car allegedly rented by Paul becomes a deadly trap for Steve. Her servant Charlie manages to get her out of the vehicle at the last moment.

Surprisingly, Margaret Milbourne comes back to the Temples that evening and reports on a meeting with Danny Clayton, Julia Carrington's secretary. This alleged that her husband had not died and for the sum of 5,000 pounds Clayton was ready to give her detailed information about her husband and his whereabouts. For the appointment made the next day in a hotel in Bray near Maidenhead , however, the Temples want to drive in their place. Temple learns from director Vince Langham that he met Danny Clayton on a recent visit to Julia Carrington in Geneva. He describes him as an unpleasant person. Clayton had also advised against the film diva, in Langham's new film Too Young To Die , written by a certain Richard Randolph, to participate. The book has not yet been published, but Langham already has an option on the material. Once at the hotel, Temple received an alleged written message from Clayton to meet him alone on a nearby houseboat . Steve, who stayed at the hotel, receives a telephone warning from a stranger telling Paul "not to touch the book". This is a specimen copy of Too Young To Die , which becomes a deadly trap for the owner of the boat, a painter named Peter Fletcher, who also worked for Vince Langham for a while. Shortly thereafter, Langham went missing his own copy. In a conversation with hotel owner Charles Gadd, it turns out that the man who wanted to meet Temple on the houseboat could not be Danny Clayton.

When Clayton visits the Temples that evening, he denies Margaret Milbourne's remarks about the meeting with her. He had come over from Geneva for two days on behalf of Julia Carrington to ask Temple for help. Julia has been receiving anonymous threatening letters for some time, about which she would like to speak to the detective personally. Temple agrees and so the couple set off for Switzerland with Danny Clayton. On the crossing from Dover to Calais , Clayton receives a written warning that includes a reference to Too Young to Die . During the night train journey that followed, he was attacked and beaten in his sleeping car compartment, which he denied to the temples. Maurice Lonsdale, who wants to visit a friend in St. Moritz, is also among the passengers.

In Geneva the Temples also meet Vince Langham, who says that he has an appointment with Julia Carrington the following day. But when Paul and Steve visit the actress that evening, she doesn't want to know about the date with Langham. Her blackmail problem also seems to have vanished into thin air. On the way back to the hotel, the car in which Danny and the Temples are traveling is pushed off the road by another vehicle. The car crashes into Lake Geneva , but the occupants can save themselves on the shore.

Margaret Milbourne is also in Geneva based on an alleged message from her husband. But he does not keep the appointment. In Temple's presence she receives a call from him, in which he tells her to go back to London and wait for more news.

The Temples drive to St. Moritz with Margaret Milbourne, where Julia Carrington is also in their villa with Danny. In the shop from which the hat, which Mrs. Milbourne received in the mail, came from, the process as such can be remembered, but not the buyer, since he appeared there with a large group of tourists. When the Temples go on a sleigh ride, gunshots suddenly fall, which easily injures their coachman. Paul finds a cigarette case nearby with the inscription: "For V. with lots of love from J."

When the Temples want to visit Julia Carrington that evening, they find Vince Langham, seriously injured by a knife, near the villa. Paul and Steve learn from him that it was himself who wrote the novel Too Young to Die under a pseudonym and then offered the manuscript to the publisher Milbourne. The book is based on a true story from the life of Julia Carrington. Carl Milbourne found out about this and has been blackmailing the actress with it for some time. Julia then tells the rest herself. At the height of her Hollywood career , she set her apartment on fire while drunk . The fire spread, killing several people, including Danny Clayton's parents. Julia wanted to face the authorities, but her production company prevented that. The only confidante, a caretaker, received money for his silence, but later revealed his knowledge to Langham. When Julia found out about Milbourne's accident, she hoped that the blackmail would end, but then Milbourne suddenly called again and asked for another $ 60,000.

In the hotel, the Temples learn of an alleged suicide attempt by Maurice Lonsdale. When he got better, he tore up a letter addressed to his sister. Lonsdale claims to Temple that he swallowed a few too many painkillers because of a severe migraine attack .

The next morning, Danny reports that Milbourne called again and asked for a final payment of $ 200,000. The handover is to take place in London in four days . After consulting Temple, Julia agrees. In London, Danny is instructed to leave the money in a briefcase at the Carlos Club cloakroom . The club is surrounded by Scotland Yard . When a man leaves the club with the deliberate briefcase, he is provided by Paul Temple. It's Maurice Lonsdale. When attempting to escape, Lonsdale runs straight into a moving patrol car and is fatally injured.

Lonsdale had taken a financial stake in Carl Milbournes Verlag and put his brother-in-law under pressure to blackmail Julia Carrington. After the fatal accident, he passed himself off as Milbourne and tried to shift the suspicion on Vince Langham. After the affair ends, Julia Carrington decides to bring the truth about the Hollywood fire to light and to have her memoir written by Paul Temple.

occupation

Remarks

The radio play was first produced by the BBC in 1965 under the title Paul Temple and the Geneva Mystery . The Temple couple were voiced by Peter Coke and Marjorie Westbury .

The SR also produced the radio play under the title Paul Temple and the Fall in Geneva in 1966 (with Franz Schafheitlin , Siegfried Dornbusch and Hans Timerding, among others ) . It was directed by Wilm ten Haaf . However, the SR's cast list does not reveal who spoke which role. With a running time of 176 minutes, it was more than 50 minutes shorter than the WDR production.

After Paul Temple and the Gregory affair in 1949, this is probably the eleventh multi-part series that WDR and its predecessor 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.

The Geneva case is the only multi-part that was produced in 6 parts. It was usually divided into 8 episodes, the Gregory affair even consisted of 10 episodes.

Otto Düben took over the direction of this production because of the death of Eduard Hermann . Annemarie Cordes and Herbert Hennies weren't there either. Your roles were spoken by Irmgard Först, who also worked as Mrs. Weldon in the Conrad case , and Eric Schildkraut.

Paul Klinger, who still spoke Maurice Lonsdale here, could be heard as Paul Temple in the Alex case a year later .

Publications

References

  • Radio play (plot)
  • The internet database of the ARD radio play archive, accessed on March 28, 2011 (all information about the production).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ "Paul Temple and the Geneva case" in Pidax