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Der Alte - Blütenträume
episode 6
West Germany / Austria / Switzerland 1977
produced by Helmut Ringelmann, Hans Peter Renfranz for Neue Münchner Fernsehproduktion/ZDF, ORF, SRG
directed by Alfred Vohrer
starring Siegfried Lowitz, Michael Ande, Henning Schlüter, Luitgard Im, Günther Ungeheuer, Thomas Astan, Xenia Pörtner, Helen Vita, Jan Groth, Wolfrid Lier, Walter Ladengast, Hans Jakob, Dietrich Frauboes, Günter W. Schünemann, Peter Böhlke, Günter Clemens, Lilian Rack
written by Karl Heinz Willschrei, created by Helmut Ringelmann, title theme by Peter Thomas
TV-series Der Alte/The Old Fox, Der Alte (Siegfried Lowitz)
review by Mike Haberfelner
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After one year of absence, Hasso Sandtner (Günther Ungeheuer) shows up
at his wife Marie's (Luitgar Im) flower shop, throws around a large sum of
money - even though he was a vagrant and alcoholic when Marie has last
seen him - and wants her to drink with him. She throws him out though and
then calls an acquaintance of hers, Wiener (Thomas Astan), who apparently
has something to do with where Sandtner has been last year. Sandtner then
pays a visit to some old friends of his, all vagrants living under a
bridge, gets royally drunk with them and hands out quite a bit of money to
each of them. The next day, he's found dead under the bridge, murdered.
The police has no problem rounding up the vagrants, and it soon turns out
the banknotes Sandtner has distributed among them were all counterfeits.
From the vagrants, investigating inspector Köster (Siegfried Lowitz) also
learns that when they parties with Sandtner under the bridge, an
acquaintance of his has shown up a few times - Wiener of course, but
neither the vagrants and the police know his identity. So Köster and his
men take the vagrants to various racetracks in town to track down Wiener,
who usually distributed his counterfeits by betting on horse races. One of
the vagrants, Schorschi (Wolfgang Lier) actually spots Wiener, but rather
than reporting this to the police, he gives them the slip and tries to
make a deal with Wiener - to the same night be found shot dead under the
bridge. Köster concentrates his investigations on Maria, who soon tells
him about her own dealings with Wiener, and how he needed her husband, a
talented artist when sober, to do the actual forging. She even offers to
take Köster to Wiener, but Wiener has set a trap for him and ultimately
knocks him out before wanting to escape with Maria and thousands and
thousands in counterfeits, but then Maria shoots him dead to avenge her
husband whom she loved despite everything and whom Wiener (of course) has
murdered. Problem is, Köster's assistant Heymann (Michael Ande) has seen
everything, and ultimately Köster can put the whole puzzle together. Once
again, Siegfried Lowitz delivers a great performance in the title role,
one that alone almost makes this worthwhile. Unfortunately the same can't
be said about a rather weak supporting cast, and a not all that exciting
script full of somewhat clichéed and not very accurate portrayals of
alcoholics, vagrants, forgers and the like doesn't help the episode too
much either. Of course, from today's point of view, nostalgia sure helps
to iron out at least some of the shortcomings of this entry, but good
crime TV this is not - just a splendid lead handling at best mediocre
material.
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