Crime scene: Animals

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Episode of the series Tatort
Original title Animals
Country of production Germany
original language German
Production
company		 Bavaria Film and Telepool on behalf of Bayerischer Rundfunk
length 89 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
classification Episode 238 ( List )
First broadcast January 1, 1991 on Das Erste
Rod
Director Walter Bannert
script Max Zihlmann ,
Veith von Fürstenberg
production Wolfgang Hesse ,
Silvia Koller
music Paul Vincent Gunia
camera Kurt Lorenz
cut Luti Dadon ,
Sabine Zimmermann
occupation

Animals is a television film from the crime series Tatort . The report produced by Telepool and Bavaria Film for Bayerischer Rundfunk in 1990 was broadcast for the first time on January 1, 1991 in Erste as the 238th episode in the series. The Munich detective chief inspectors Batic and Leitmayr made their debut with this case, in which an animal rights activist was cruelly killed.

action

Chief Inspector Batic points out to Angelika Weiss, who tells him that she works for "Animals International", that her concern does not fall within his area of ​​responsibility. Weiss claims to have reliable knowledge that the Pelzer cosmetics company is conducting unauthorized animal experiments. The young woman then tries to convince her friend Peter Turm, who works for the newspaper, to start a media campaign against Pelzer and his cruelty to animals. Together with the photographer Fred Grimm, Weiss also penetrated the Pelzer company premises and freed the dogs from their cages. Pelzer arrives and sets his Rottweiler on the intruders. Angelika Weiss is fatally injured by a bite. Grimm manages to escape and, previously unnoticed, take a few photos that show Pelzer next to the dead woman at the crime scene.

The next morning the body of Angelika Weiss is found on the Isar. Batic and Leitmayr are entrusted with the investigation and first inquire at the animal welfare association which activities the victim was last engaged in. Then they go to Pelzer to question him. He admits that he knew Angelika Weiss because she used to model for his company and was her “advertising face” for several years. Batic informs him that Weiss made accusations against him, which Pelzer claims to be nonsensical.

Fred Grimm is now researching on his own to collect material that pollutes Pelzer. Among other things, he documents with his camera how Pelzer does it to get new dogs for his test series. His vicarious agent is the farmer Georg Kollberger, who simply catches the animals off the road.

The badly battered Peter Turm appears on the bureau and accuses Batic of being complicit in Angelika's death. Since Turm is very drunk, he stays in the sobering cell overnight. Turm states that his girlfriend has planned something, but he cannot say what exactly. The police investigations are focused on Pelzer and his company. One hopes to find traces of the dog that Pelzer is supposed to have. When asked about this, however, he claims that his dog was poisoned. He deliberately keeps to himself that he shot him immediately after the bite attack, for which he was responsible.

Turm's attempt to put Pelzer under pressure by telephone, knowing about the photos that Grimm took, bounced off the entrepreneur. Although the officers are not yet aware of these photos, they manage to follow a lead that leads to Grimm and ultimately to secure some negatives in his flat share . Grimm himself is not present, but is in the process of putting Kollberger under pressure with the prints of these negatives. He should tell Pelzer that he wanted a million DM for it, otherwise he would pass on the photos that show him of the corpse of Angelika Weiss to the press.

Leitmayr can recognize Kollberger's assistants in the confiscated photos, whom he met on Pelzer's premises on their first visit. He drives to Kollberger's farm, but is taken by surprise and locked in a silo . Grimm, in whose company Turm is, has meanwhile ordered Pelzer to see Kollberger and is demanding the million from him. When the photographer goes into the barn alone, he is knocked down there. When Turm enters the building shortly afterwards, he draws a pistol and shoots Pelzer without warning. Thereupon he is killed by Kollberger.

Batic finally appears and can help his partner to free himself and Kollberger and his assistant to be arrested, as well as the wounded Pelzer, who is transported on a stretcher.

background

In the episode Animals , the chief detective Ivo Batic and Franz Leitmayr appear together for the first time as Munich investigators. Miroslav Nemec had previously played supporting roles in the Schimanski episodes Broken Blossoms and Der Pott .

The BR editorial team searched for a long time to find “fresh faces” for the new dramaturgical concept of the Bavarian part of the crime scene series. In 1989, Miroslav Nemec and Udo Wachtveitl were still among the rising talents in the German film scene. The casting took place in the form of a snack in a Munich beer garden, to which both actors had been invited. The old Porsche, which Leitmayr drove as a suburban yuppie according to the script as a "distinguishing feature", was abolished after three episodes because it was mostly a hindrance for the shooting.

Michael Fitz plays an unveiling photographer here. Only in the third episode ( Tatort: ​​The Chinese Method ) is he there as Chief Detective Carlo Menzinger.

reception

Audience rating

The first broadcast of Animals on January 1, 1991 was seen by 8.71 million viewers in Germany and achieved a market share of 32.30% for Das Erste . In the crime scene blog, the episode reached 554th place out of a possible 911.

Reviews

At Moviesection.de, Thomas Ays awarded four out of five possible stars and judged this first deployment of the “two sympathetic investigators” that it was “unfortunately very weak in logic and in keeping with the times. Inappropriate and intrusive musical interludes dominate the scenery and some scenes are simply incomprehensible. Nevertheless, the scriptwriters [...] tell an emotionally charged and simply terrible story [...] (about) animal experiments. "He commented benevolently on the actors:" Batic and Leitmayr find their roles very quickly and have hardly changed to this day. Anyone who loves these two investigators must not miss the beginning. "

The website: How was the crime scene? initially found the episode to be “animal-friendly” and said: “The scriptwriters [...] seem to be primarily interested in pointing out the cruel fate of dogs, cats and baboons living in laboratories and in cages that are far too small with all kinds of chemicals and test substances are maltreated. That is of course worth all honors - but it does not make Animals a good crime thriller. [...] [Because the viewer already knows the murderer], the tension simmered on the back burner from the start.

Christian Mayer was also somewhat critical of the Süddeutsche and was of the opinion: “The story is somewhat confused and template-like. [...] When you look at the duo today, you have to laugh a lot: With his wild curls and the dandy suit shaking around his legs, Bayer Leitmayr looks like a high school student in an Oscar Wilde theater performance with Croatian hotspur Batic at least a couple of really cool appearances, but the nature of a commissioner is also rather alien to him. Guns are carelessly slammed on the table, goldfish are fed, blondes are kissed, computers are abused - the criminal investigation department seems to be made up of friendly amateurs. "

The critics of the television magazine TV-Spielfilm judged: "An old crime scene, but one with bite".

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for crime scene: Animals . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry (PDF; test number: 177089 / V). Template: FSK / maintenance / type not set and Par. 1 longer than 4 characters
  2. ↑ Crime scene: Animals. In: BR.de. Retrieved July 9, 2019 .
  3. ↑ a b Tatort Animals at wiewardertatort.blogspot.de, accessed on January 30, 2014.
  4. ↑ Klaudia Wick: Among brothers . At berliner-zeitung.de, accessed on January 30, 2014.
  5. ↑ Audience rating on tatort-fundus.de, accessed on January 30, 2014.
  6. ↑ Ranking list on tatort-blog.de, accessed on January 30, 2014.
  7. ↑ Thomas Ays: Tatort - Animals (TV). In: MovieSection. Archived from the original on December 19, 2015 ; accessed on July 9, 2019 .
  8. ↑ Christian Mayer: The final exam . On sueddeutsche.de, accessed on January 30, 2014.
  9. ↑ Short review on tvspielfilm.de, accessed on January 30, 2014.
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