Crime scene: cats and mice

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Episode of the series Tatort
Original title Cats and mice
Country of production Germany
original language German
Production
company		 SFB
length 98 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
classification Episode 127 ( List )
First broadcast August 23, 1981 on German television
Rod
Director Eberhard Itzenplitz
script Karl Heinz Knuth ,
Joachim Nottke
production Horst Borasch
camera Gérard Vandenberg
cut Katja Schmiljan
occupation

Katz und Mäuse is an episode of the ARD crime series Tatort . The episode produced by the broadcaster Free Berlin (SFB) was first broadcast on August 23, 1981 on ARD. It is the second crime scene with Inspector Walther, who has to solve an apparent kidnapping case that has turned into a murder.

action

Sophie Schulte, who works for the real estate agent Heike Witkamp, ​​and her new friend Arne Hirsch are watching Superintendent Hassert, who lives in Sophie's neighborhood, to find out whether he is an important man in the criminal investigation department. The two are planning a fictitious kidnapping of Sophie, in which Sophie's boss Heike is supposed to pay enough ransom so that the couple can move to an island in the south. They want to use their observations for their plan. Arne Hirsch is an architect, but dissatisfied with his work. Sophie's boss Heike seems drawn to Sophie and tries to buy her with expensive gifts. In the following days, Sophie and Arne concretized their plan, Sophie is supposed to hide in an empty house during the fictitious kidnapping, and the handover of the money is also planned in detail by the two. Heike Witkamp knows Arne Hirsch as a rebellious young architect and has an aversion to him. Arne and Sophie are aware of this and demonstrate that they are in love in front of Heike's eyes at a party. The next morning Heike visits Sophie and shows her a threatening letter that she has received. When Heike left, Arne and Sophie are happy that the threatening letter plays into their hands.

That same evening, they record the blackmail call and write the ransom note to Heike. After Sophie and Heike go to the theater, they start their action. Arne takes Sophie to the empty house where she will hide during the alleged kidnapping. The next morning, Arne calls Sophie's talkative neighbor, Ms. Reschke, to inform her about Sophie's "kidnapping". As planned by Arne, she immediately informs her neighbor, Commissioner Hassert. Hassert immediately informs Chief Inspector Walther. A large manhunt is initiated in the police headquarters, to Arne's surprise Walther and Hassert go to see him. Arne plays to the officers that he is hysterical because of fear for his girlfriend, that he is afraid that the house will be watched by the kidnappers. Walther and Hassert install a tape recorder on Sophie's phone and wait in the apartment for something to happen. Arne puts the prepared ransom note behind the front door, unnoticed by the officers, so that it looks as if it has been pushed under the door. He then pretends to find the letter in front of the officials, Walther and Hassert open it and read the ransom demand for DM 350,000, which is addressed to Heike Witkamp's company. Enclosed with the letter is Sophie’s prepared letter asking her boss to pay. Walther then goes to Heike, Hassert stays with Arne.

Walther informs Heike about the kidnapping and shows her the ransom note. Heike doesn't find it strange that the ransom note addressed to her was delivered to her boyfriend. She suspects that Sophie advised the kidnappers to do this in order to spare Heike. Heike bursts into tears in front of Walther, but promises him to find the money. After Walther leaves, Heike learns that a heating bill has been received for the empty house in which Sophie is hiding due to a mistake by Sophie.

Heike then goes to the object and takes her pistol with her. Meanwhile, Sophie longs for Arne and leaves the house to call him from the phone booth. While Sophie is in the phone booth, Heike walks through the house and is amazed at the switched on light in the empty house. In the house she finds the brooch that she herself recently gave Sophie and realizes that it is hiding there. Meanwhile, Sophie breaks off the attempt to call her boyfriend after he pretends to Hassert that no one answers the phone. Meanwhile, Heike also finds the cassette recorder on which the blackmail call that is supposed to be sent to her is recorded. At this moment Sophie returns and meets Heike. A battle of words ensues between the two women, in the course of which a shot is fired. The next morning, Arne receives the expected blackmail call in the presence of Hassert. Little does Arne suspect that Heike, not Sophie, played the tape when he called. Walther and his people prepare for the handover, the place where the money is handed over is monitored extensively, they are also in contact with Heike and Arne.

After Hassert said goodbye to him, Arne, believing that everything is going according to his plan, sneaks out of the house through the cellar window and to the place where the money is handed over. Walther and his team are waiting there to watch the money being handed over and to follow the perpetrator unobtrusively. Arne, meanwhile, plans to get the money underground through the sewer and a manhole cover. While Arne struggles through the sewer system to the handover location, Heike takes a few thousand DM bills from the ransom on the way to the meeting point. Shortly afterwards, she interrupts the journey because she bursts into tears. Still depressed, she puts the money at the agreed point. It seems strange to Walther when Heike stoically lingers at the handover location for a moment before getting back into the car. While the officers watch a crane driver who comes to the construction site at the handover location, Arne fetches the money through the manhole cover as planned. He throws the money into a wastepaper basket in Oberbaumpark, from which Sophie is supposed to get it out, as agreed. When she doesn't come, he takes the money back. In the meantime, the crane operator is moving the overturned dumpster under which the money was deposited, the officers observe this and realize that the money has disappeared. Walther and his team also find Sophie's body under the container. The crane operator is arrested as a suspect, but protests his innocence.

Walther seeks out Heike, who is shocked by Sophie's death and accuses the police of making mistakes. Meanwhile, Hassert discovers that Arne has not stayed at Sophie's home. On his return, Arne claims to have only got tobacco for a short time. When Hassert doesn't believe him, he says the blanket fell on his head at home because he was worried about his girlfriend. When Hassert tells him that Sophie is dead, Arne is stunned and incredulous. At this moment a woman calls who introduces herself as “Malou” and tells him that she loves him and that she is looking forward to being with him soon. Arne assures Hassert that he doesn't know any Malou. At the same time, Heike books a flight for Arne in a travel agency disguised and booked a flight to Mexico under the name Malou Bender. She pays for the trip in cash from the money she withdrew from the ransom. The preliminary autopsy report on Sophie's body reveals that it was strangled, but she was previously shot in the face with a blank gun. Meanwhile, the now drunk Arne is haunted by a recording of his blackmail call and a short time later by a blackmail call. He should take the ransom to an empty villa and in return get the cassette with the extortion call back.

While Heike lures Walther on the wrong track by suspecting a former resident of a house she had vacated, Walther is informed by his superior that the first two ransom notes have appeared in a travel agency, with which Arne's flights to Mexico and Arne's not existing Malou Bender were paid. Hassert and a colleague shadow Arne and watch him go with a bag in hand to the meeting point where the money will be handed over again. You can't figure it out, but you notice that Arne is in a disintegrated state. Walther and Hassert manage to get to the empty villa before Arne, and find the tape recorder with the blackmail call there. They lie in wait and arrest Arne when he wants to enter the villa. Arne looks relieved. The case seems to have been solved, but Walther is sitting in his office thinking about the entire case, listening to the recording of the second blackmail call to Arne over and over again. There he hears a metallic clink in the background. Then he calls Heike to meet her in her office. He cleverly builds delays into the phone call, during which he hears that Heike is jingling her jewelry while she is on the phone. It's the same jingling as the blackmail call. He drives to her office and arrests her.

Audience and background

When it was first broadcast, this episode reached 18.53 million viewers, which corresponds to a market share of 49%. The film was shot in West Berlin in March and April 1981.

criticism

The critics of the TV magazine TV-Spielfilm rate this crime scene as mediocre and remark: "Here are great tips for early retirement".

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for crime scene: cats and mice . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry (PDF; test number: 177934 / V). Template: FSK / maintenance / type not set and Par. 1 longer than 4 characters
  2. ^ Crime scene: Katz und Mäuse data for the 127th crime scene at tatort-fundus.de
  3. ↑ Short review on tvspielfilm.de, accessed on December 31, 2014.
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June 28, 1981: Duisburg-Ruhrort 		Crime scene follow next episode
September 13, 1981: Slalom