Myriam Nys
(I'm afraid there are going to be some spoilers. However, I'll try to limit their number and scope.)An unusually original, clever and intelligent thriller, well capable of competing with the best of American output. There are also some scenes which, once seen, cannot be unseen : I defy anyone to forget Gert Fröbe and his winsome skull-like rictus.However - and in this case it's a rather large "however" - the movie is not without its problems. Problem one : the movie tells of a (retired) police inspector who is determined to catch a child killer. In order to do so he uses another, completely innocent and unsuspecting child as bait, in the same way that a hunter might tie a bleating goat to a tree. This is seriously, seriously unethical behavior, especially if one takes into account the fact that both the little girl and her mother regard the police inspector as their kindly benefactor. The movie does not fully explore the moral (or rather, immoral) weight and ramifications of this act. Problem two concerns the psychological evolution of the (retired) police inspector. When the movie starts, the inspector is shown as a pretty decent policeman - not a saint, perhaps, nor a bundle of laughs, but certainly someone with a working conscience and a sense of right and wrong. This, in other words, is a man who knows there are certain lines one should not cross. Later on, the same man tethers a goat / child to a tree, which is a hideously transgressive act. So where does this ruthlessness (or cruelty, or callousness, or blindness, or fanaticism, or...) come from ? Why, and how, does the man give himself permission to behave like this ? What has happened to his heart, his soul ? Feel free to ask the question, but do not count on the movie to give you an answer, or even a beginning of an answer...
hasosch
"It happened on broad daylight" (1958) was the first Swiss series-killer movie. In the Canton of Zurich, little blond girls are killed. The villagers suspect the peddler Jacquier (Michel Simon) who is arrested by the police and hangs himself up in his cell. Chief-commissioner Matthaei (Heinz Rühmann) is convinced that the peddler was innocent. In the drawings of Gritli, the last killed little girl, he finds little hedgehogs, a puppet, a black car and a strange animal with horns. He recognizes that all murder cases happened along the street that leads to the Canton of Grisons. From an Italian, he rents a gas station along this street and engages as his housekeeper a women whose little daughter Annemarie strongly resembles the murdered Gritli. One evening, Annemarie is late back home and tells that she met a huge "sorcerer" who gave her chocolates that resemble hedgehogs. On his car there is a number tag with the ibex, the heraldic figure of the Grisons. The film shows parallel the rich Mr. Schrott alias the "sorcerer" (Gert Fröbe) suppressed by his wife (Berta Drews). Matthaei asks Annemarie when she will meet the "sorcerer" again and goes instead of her in the forest. At the meeting-place he lays down a blond-haired puppet. While Matthaei hides himself, the "sorcerer" appears and thinks that Annemarie was killed. He cries out in his insanity and sees Matthaei, assuming that he is the murderer and tries to kill him. But Matthaei's police men are already ready to protect their boss and arrest the "sorcerer".
kelly-martino
Truly one of the superlative thriller/mystery films of all time. I saw it in the original German on Austria TV and it is still gripping. I thought it is so Hitchcockian then I realized the musical technique--the sudden loud shrieks in the orchestra--at the moment of contact with the killer, his house and the car. This is Psycho. The film mood and pace is Psycho. Then again, I realized the film and the Broadway play which received Tony nomination were both celebrated shortly before Psycho was made. Could it be that Hitch made the perfect horror film as a paean to this great masterpiece. One of the few films of the genre I will set next to Hitchcock and it does indeed hold its place superbly. Can any compliment be higher. If you love Hitchcock as I do, you must get the film--the original German print of 1958 not the TV version and not the American remake with Nicholson, as fine as it is. If you understand German watch it first that way. Unforgettable.
