Sergeant Studer (film)

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Movie
German title Detective Inspector Studer
Original title Sergeant Studer
Country of production Switzerland
original language Swiss German
Publishing year 1939
length 112 (Switzerland 1939), 90 (Germany 1949) minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Leopold Lindtberg
script Richard Schweizer
Horst Budjuhn based
on the novel of the same name (1936) by Friedrich Glauser
production Lazar Wechsler for Praesens-Film, Zurich
music Robert Blum
camera Emil Berna
cut Käthe Mey
occupation

Wachtmeister Studer , awarded and known in Germany as Kriminalkommissar Studer , is a Swiss crime fiction film from 1939 with Heinrich Gretler in the title role. The film adaptation of Friedrich Glauser's Schlumpf Erwin Mord was directed by Leopold Lindtberg .

action

Sergeant Studer of the canton police visits the prisoner on remand Erwin Schlumpf in the cell. It hangs lifeless on the bars, from which Studer takes it down again with the help of a guard. With resuscitation measures, Studer can bring the prevented suicide Smurf back to life. Schlumpf, a violinist, is currently suspected of having murdered the merchant and community treasurer Witschi, who was found dead in the forest near the village of Gerzenstein. Schlumpf, who vehemently denies the act, made the mistake of fleeing head over heels after finding the body. Now his suicide attempt is taken as a confession. Studer is far less certain in this regard and therefore goes to Gerzenstein to carefully reopen the case on site. But the villagers are buttoned up and lazy, hardly anyone wants to give Studer reasonable information. At least he learns that the deceased is said to have been involved in embezzlement of ward funds. Witschi's children, Armin and Sonja, the latter also Schlumpf's fiancée, make every effort to cover up any traces that were helpful to Studer. Even the locals are sometimes not particularly green with one another.

Community President Aeschbacher lets it shine through in the official gazette he controls that Gottlieb Ellenberger, who runs a tree nursery in the village that also employs prisoners like Schlumpf, is (partly) responsible for the crime committed. Ellenberger, however, does not put up with this and confronts his opponent in the village tavern in a sedate Swiss way: he sits down at Aeschbacher's table and tries to challenge and defeat him in a card game over a schnapps. Studer seizes the opportunity, sits down with them at the table and, in an unnoticed moment, inserts a playing card with their fingerprints on them. In his bed and breakfast room, he secures the prints of the two opponents and suspects. At the market festival the next day, there was a somewhat more serious confrontation between the locals and Ellenberger's convict troops. When the prisoners are supposed to perform as an orchestra, some incited Gerzensteiners begin to throw stones at them. Studer wants to intervene, but Aeschbacher can stop him by informing the police investigator that his superiors in Thun have called him back. The case is closed because Schlumpf finally confessed to the fact. Studer takes Schlumpf's fiancée Sonja with him and confronts the two of them. Then it turns out that Witschi's death was an accident. He had accidentally killed himself while faking a gun accident in order to commit insurance fraud.

Although Schlumpf was released again, the case for Studer is far from over. Because something is wrong with this case: the caliber of the bullet that killed Witschi does not match the caliber of Witschi's weapon. Studer defies his superior's orders and then returns to Gerzenstein again. Under the driver's seat of Gottlieb Ellenberger's car, he finds a weapon with Aeschbacher's fingerprints on it. Studer then puts the community leader under pressure until he confesses to having killed Witschi. The latter had blackmailed him because it was not Witschi but he, Aeschbacher, who had been involved in the embezzlement affair. Studer arrests the mayor. On the way to the police station, Aeschbacher drives his vehicle and Studer as a passenger with suicidal intent in a curve straight ahead and rushes over the roadside until he falls into a lake and drowns in it. At the last moment, Sergeant Studer managed to jump out of the vehicle at full speed. Studer has broken bones and is now lying in his sick bed. Then he receives a visit from Sonja and Schlumpf, who, out of gratitude, gives him one of Studer's beloved Brissagos and secretly slips it. Schlumpf's music colleagues play under Studer's sickroom in recognition of “Always practice faithful and honesty”.

Production notes

Heinrich Gretler as "Sergeant Studer"

The shooting of Wachtmeister Studer took place from June to August 1939. The interior shots were made in the Rosenhof film studio in Zurich, the exterior shots were made in Andelfingen, Greifensee, Türlensee and Frauenfeld. The world premiere took place on October 13, 1939 in the Urban Cinema in Zurich. In Germany, the film ran under the title Kriminalkommissar Studer at the beginning of 1949.

The production management was in the hands of Max Plüss, the film structures were designed by Robert Furrer . Robert Trösch not only played a role, but also stood by Lindtberg as an assistant director.

Anne-Marie Blanc , who was almost 20 years old at the time of shooting, made her debut here in front of the camera. Co-screenwriter Horst Budjuhn , who has just arrived in Switzerland from Germany, made his debut in federal film. With his manuscript for the Rühmann film Der Florentiner Hut , which had just been released in Switzerland, he had made an ideal calling card for entering the Swiss film industry. Over the next three years he became a busy Confederation screenwriter.

For Heinrich Gretler, Studer meant the final breakthrough as the first character actor in Swiss film. Despite considerable media advertising and large (almost consistently positive) press echoes in 1939, Wachtmeister Studer is said to have "only just paid in his substantial costs".

Reviews

"Glauser's tenderly vulnerable, clever and secretly gotten Studer becomes paternalistic, sullen, massive, sometimes authoritarian as a field woman, then again confused and awkward (with women) - clumsy honesty and honest… good-naturedness replace the subversiveness of the original figure. Gretler's physical appearance alone makes his sergeant more obedient to the authorities - the Marlowe of the Bern poor district is transformed into a rural and pithy Maigret ... While the real Studer only identifies with his own ethics and never identifies with the police apparatus he represents, Gretler is a lowly but heroic one , civil servant who never doubts his task and who “does more than just his duty”. (...) The jubilant press of 1939 wisely omits to mention that even a cinema student can only fulfill his task satisfactorily thanks to overstepping competencies and insubordination! "

- Hervé Dumont: The history of Swiss film. Feature films 1896–1965. Lausanne 1987. p. 403

"Humanity and honesty determine the atmosphere of the straightforward and carefully staged crime film based on a novel by Friedrich Glauser."

- Lexicon of International Films Volume 9. Reinbek 1987. P. 4174

"Constructor Studer was embodied in a simply grandiose manner by Heinrich Gretler: a man of a narrow-minded appearance, the Brissago clamped between his teeth, rough and uncouth on the outside, but never without compassion."

- artfilm.ch

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The History of Swiss Films, p. 249
  2. ↑ Review on artfilm.ch