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Derrick - Pornocchio
episode 276
West Germany 1997
produced by Claus Legal for Telenova/ZDF
directed by Helmuth Ashley
starring Horst Tappert, Fritz Wepper, Michaela Merten, Dirk Galuba, Tobias Hoesl, Johanna Klante, Pierre Franckh, Ernst Jacobi, Christian Koch, Gundela Koller
written by Herbert Reinecker, music by Frank Duval, title theme by Les Humphries
TV-series Derrick, Harry Klein
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Pornstar Carlos, nôme du porn Pornocchio (Tobias Hoesl), is shot dead in the
streets after having been followed for quite some time while on the phone
with his producer Manzer (Dirk Galuba), with whoever killed him telling
Manzer that he's next. Inspector Derrick (Horst Tappert) and his assistant
Harry (Fritz Wepper) investigate, naturally first focusing on Manzer's
production company, where everybody assures theme Carlos was well-liked
and the nicest of guys albeit slightly naive. Only Manzer's wife Gitta
(Michaela Merten), a pornstar herself and Carlos' scene partner quite a
numbert of times, seems to know more, almost admits she knows more. So
Derrick decides to wait, and eventually she comes to him and tells him the
story of how Carlos earnestly fell in love with Anna (Johanna Klante),
granddaughter of castle owner von Landinius (Ernst Jacobi), and how their
relationship was totally innocent, and how he told everyone about it, but
on set became a laughing stock. Now of course, Carlos never told Anna what
he did for a living, only that he's "making movies", and that
was good enough for her. The whole story gave Manzer an idea though, why
not sign up Anna for his company, so she and Carlos would do a scene
together. Now of course, nobody would tell Anna about the nature of the
scene beforehands and she'd be tricked into signing a release while Carlos
would be gotten so drunk he wouldn't even notice he actually rapes Anna.
Of course, everything goes according to plan, it's just that Anna's
grandfather wasn't very ok with it, and despite being wheelchair-bound had
his means to get around. And when Derrick stops by his castle looking for
Manzer, he finds him with a bullet in the head. The best thing
about this episode is probably its rather hilarious and sensationalist
title, Pornocchio.The episode itself suffers, as does much of the
series, from Herbert Reinecker's rather poor writing: The dialogue comes
across as utterly stilted, several situations in the story are forced, the
characters all act and react unnaturally, and the plot actually has little
mystery to it. Furthermore, setting the episode in the porn world is done
for little more than sensationalism's sake, and while the characters
insist they go into this without prejudice, Reinecker quite obviously has
a very cynical view of the industry. And even with the lowered bar set for
the series, this is one of its lesser entries.
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