The invisible archer

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Movie
German title The invisible archer
Original title The sniper
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1952
length 88 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Edward Dmytryk
script Harry Brown
Edward Anhalt
Edna Anhalt
production Stanley Kramer
music George Antheil
camera Burnett Guffey
cut Aaron Stell ,
Harry Gerstad (Editing Supervisor)
occupation

The Invisible Sagittarius is an American thriller written in 1951 by Edward Dmytryk with Adolphe Menjou and Arthur Franz in the leading roles.

action

Edward Miller, who works as a driver for a cleaning company, is a psychopath. He detests the female sex and is under constant pressure to want to cause pain to women. The fact that he has a nagging landlady and is surrounded by quarrelsome colleagues only increases his misogyny. He is fascinated by the idea of ​​murdering women and his currently unloaded rifle becomes in his imagination his best friend in carrying out his dreams. Edward realizes that something is wrong with him and so he seeks out his former prison doctor in the hope of getting help from him. But the doctor has just left. Miller is under so much pressure that in his desperation he burns his right hand, with which he would pull the trigger on the rifle, on a hot stove. He then goes to a hospital, where the resident immediately becomes suspicious and assumes that the patient has inflicted the injury on himself. The junior medical doctor asks Edward if he's ever been in a mental hospital. Eddie admits he assaulted a woman while in prison. The assistant doctor discusses with his supervisor whether it would be better to refer the patient to psychiatry, but the doctor refuses, on the grounds that the patient should be discharged in three days at the latest.

Edward Miller is late for work because of his hospital trip. He rushes to hand over a delivery to nightclub singer Jean Darr, who is trying on a low-cut evening dress. When Jean notices a stain on the dress, she asks Miller if he could take this cleaning rope job straight away. Miller and Jean are having a friendly conversation, until suddenly one of Jean's male friends shows up and she then expedites Edward in the dress out of the back entrance of the nightclub. Again, Miller had a frustrating experience with a woman. But this time it's enough for him. With his rifle, which he keeps hidden in a suitcase, he ambushes Jean in front of her apartment. As she leaves her apartment, Miller secretly follows the singer who goes to the bar for her performance. He climbs a roof and waits quietly for Jean to come out again. Then he lands and shoots her.

The senior police officers Lt. Frank Kafka and Sgt. Joe Ferris appear at the crime scene and begin the investigation. The next day, Eddie flirts with a young woman in a bar. He receives her address and phone number, but suddenly he gets angry when she catches him telling a lie about his work. On the same day, Edward Miller takes Jeans' cleaning dress into his room and hides it there. When he immediately went to the park and had negative and for him humiliating experiences with the opposite sex, he returned to his room and tore his dress to shreds. He throws the scraps of cloth into an incinerator. Eddie stares at the slip of paper with the address of the girl from the bar and then tears open a box of rifle ammunition. He then wrote a short note to the police, asking that he be stopped because he would kill again.

That same afternoon Miller follows the woman from the bar who gave him the note and shoots her from her apartment with his rifle. Ltnt. Kafka and his colleague Police Inspector Anderson order a police raid and collect the usual suspects among the sex offenders in order to bring them to bear witness to the murderous crime. The psychiatrist Dr. Kent makes it clear to Kafka that none of these arrested people would come into question and explains to the Police Ltnt. The perpetrator profile he has created. In his opinion, the creepy sniper is a man who lives out a childhood fantasy of murdering a very specific woman, probably his mother, over and over again. Meanwhile, Eddie is fascinated by a television program through a shop window in which Mrs. Fitzpatrick, a well-known lady of society, talks about an upcoming charity ball. Miller makes a note of her address, which Mrs. Fitzpatrick gives for the card orders on the shipment.

In the meantime, Kafka and Ferris sift through a long list of possible perpetrators in their criminal record until they come across Eddie Miller's criminal record. He fits into the possible perpetrator profile, as he once attacked a woman with a baseball bat. A little later the news comes in that Mrs. Fitzpatrick was shot by an unknown person. The police officers then meet with the mayor of the city and other high-ranking politicians, who massively increase the pressure on the police to finally catch the perpetrator. The also present Dr. Kent becomes increasingly annoyed when he always has to hear the same litany of harsher punishments instead of demanding meaningful, promising therapy. At his place of work in the laundry, the woman at the reception starts nagging Eddie again. A little later the body of another woman is found, this time in the park: shot. Eddie has struck again, but his frustration returns faster and faster after the brief satisfaction at the murder. At the crime scene in the park, the police find the dirty bandage that Edward Miller last wore on his burned hand. In the hospital, where Eddie was treated for the burn, you will find it. The resident immediately points out Eddie's photo that the police are holding against him.

When the receptionist from Edward Miller's workplace, the cleaning, reads the newspaper report on the latest murder in the park, she immediately reports Eddie's hand injury and his increasingly conspicuous behavior to the law enforcement officers. Ltnt. Kafka and Sgt. Ferris wait in the cleaning department until Eddie comes back. But he's not coming. Edward Miller is lurking on a roof again, rifle at the ready. Quite indiscriminately, he wants to shoot women from high above. But a house painter working high up on the opposite building spots the sniper and shouts loud warnings to passers-by on the street below. He has to pay for this courage with his life, because Eddie simply shoots him. The killer runs away in a panic and wants to hide at home. The police surround Miller's house, surrounded by onlookers. With a megaphone, Inspector Anderson tries to persuade Miller to give up - in vain. Kafka and Ferris then shoot their way to Miller's apartment, where they find him holding onto his rifle as if frozen and arrest him.

Production notes

The Invisible Sagittarius was composed within four weeks between September 24th and October 20th, 1951 in San Francisco and Long Beach and premiered on May 9th, 1952 in New York City . When and where the German-language premiere took place cannot currently be verified.

The film structures executed by Walter Holscher were designed by Rudolph Sternad , James Crowe provided the equipment. Harry Gerstad took over the editing. Frank Goodwin was responsible for the sound. Morris Stoloff took over the musical direction.

The story template by Edna and Edward Anhalt was nominated for an Oscar in the category Best Original Story in 1953 . The couple also acted as production managers.

useful information

The invisible shooter was the first film that director Dmytryk made after four years of inactivity in Hollywood - in 1948/49 he was able to make two films in England. Previously, he had been temporarily sidelined as one of the Hollywood Ten and was blacklisted on suspicion of communist-friendly activities. The director was even temporarily detained for alleged disregard for Congress. After his return from England, Dmytryk proved to the Committee for Un-American Activities to be “cooperative” and in April 1951 denounced film colleagues suspected of being pro-communist. This ended the boycott of Hollywood production companies against him, and producer Stanley Kramer offered Dmytryk the directorship of the film in the fall of 1951. In order to highlight his patriotic sentiments, Dmytryk was ordered to give the lead role to the actor Adolphe Menjou, who was notorious as a virulent hater of communists.

Reviews

Bosley Crowther wrote in the New York Times : "Hence," The Sniper "does not develop into anything more powerful or impressive than a moderately intriguing" hunt ". The murder committed at the beginning of the story of a lascivious salon singer who plays Marie Windsor is portrayed in a delicate way, and the trawling that the police, led by a shaved Adolphe Menjou, set up is interesting to watch. "

The Movie & Video Guide wrote: "Excellent, realistically filmed drama (...) Good portrayals of everyone."

Halliwell's Film Guide called the film "semi-documentary police drama, which was pretty terrifying and influential when it came out. Quite a routine today. "

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Sniper in The New York Times, May 10, 1952
  2. ^ Leonard Maltin : Movie & Video Guide, 1996 edition, p. 1207
  3. ^ Leslie Halliwell : Halliwell's Film Guide, Seventh Edition, New York 1989, p. 933