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Derrick - Das Superding
episode 26
West Germany 1976
produced by Claus Legal, Gustl Gotzler (executive), Helmut Ringelmann (executive) for Telenova/ZDF
directed by Wolfgang Becker
starring Horst Tappert, Fritz Wepper, Günther Stoll, Horst Buchholz, Gottfried John, Ullrich Haupt, Gerhard Garbers, Christine Schuberth, Claus Fuchs, Horst Sachtleben, Fritz Hakl, Erni Singerl, Beatrice Norden, Angela Hillebrecht, Jutta Kammann, Werner Abrolat, Inge Fock, Karl Obermayr, Karl Renar
written by Herbert Reinecker, music by Peter Thomas
TV-series Derrick, Harry Klein
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Witte (Horst Sachtleben) calls bank director Veicht (Ulrich Haupt) and
announces his bank to be robbed - but asks for money for further details.
Veicht agrees to pay up, but before the two can meet, Witte is shot dead,
right in front of Veicht's bank. Investigating inspector Derrick (Horst
Tappert) comes across Witte's girlfriend Simke (Christine Schuberth), who
just happens to be a gogo girl in a discotheque right across the street
from Witte's bank. The owner of this discotheque, Gerke (Horst Buchholz),
acts more than forthcoming answering Derrick's questions, but ultimately
cannot help much - or at least pretends he can't as actually he has a few
guys down in the basement who dig a tunnle to the bank, and Witte was one
of them, as is Witte's friend Krummbach (Gottfried John). Derrick of
course soon comes across Krummbach as well, and learns about a link
between him and Veicht's brother Victor (Gerhard Garbers) - and slowly
Derrick pieces the puzzle together, it must have been Veicht who has given
Gerke the blueprints for the bank, and he also has had an affair with
Simke, which is why Witte wanted to snitch on them to Veicht, but Victor
shot him dead virtually the last moment. Of course, by the time Derrick
has figured this out, it's already too late, Gerke and his men, with the
help of a short person (Fritz Hakl) who actually fitted throught the
ventilation duct they were using to enter the bank's vault, emptied the
bank. Derrick decides to search Gerge's discotheque top to bottom, and
finds an unexpected allie in Gerke himself, who just wanted to commit an
ingenious crime, not necessarily get away with it. He freely presents all
the evidence to Derrick and even presents him with Victor, the murderer of
the piece, before he goes completely off the rockers ... Of
course, by 1976 the idea of robbing a bank by digging a tunnle to its
vault wasn't exactly new, but one has to give this episode some credit for
really thinking the story through from beginning to end, and also wrapping
the whole thing into a rather complex murder mystery shows at least
ambition. Unfortunately the outcome doesn't necessarily meet the story's
demands, for one the whole thing soon becomes over-convoluted, for the
other when towards the end Gerke just goes insane, it's getting
unintentionally funny, only augmented by Horst Buchholz' exaggerated
madman performance. Also Herbert Reinecker's trademark stiltedd dialogue
doesn't help all that much when it comes to keeping things grounded. But
that said, still one of the better episodes of Derrick -
even if that's not saying much.
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