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Der Kommissar - Das Komplott
episode 57
West Germany 1973
produced by Helmut Ringelmann for Neue Münchner Fernsehproduktion/ZDF
directed by Wolfgang Staudte
starring Erik Ode, Reinhard Glemnitz, Günther Schramm, Fritz Wepper, Helma Seitz, Leopold Rudolf, Ursula Schult, Charles Regnier, Nina Sandt, Wolf Roth, Gracia-Maria Kaus, Christian Margulies, Udo Vioff, Barbara Stanek, Ingrid Steeger, Rose Renée Roth, Gustl Weishappel
written by Herbert Reinecker, series created by Helmut Ringelmann, Herbert Reinecker, title theme by Herbert Jarczyk
TV-series Der Kommissar, Harry Klein
review by Mike Haberfelner
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One night at work after hours, Steintaler (Udo Vioff) receives a call
from his boss Bachmann (Charles Regnier) to immediately come to his
office. But when Steintaler enters the office no minute later, Bachmann is
dead, murdered, his safe is open and emptyeven though it ought to contain
quite a bit of money. Steintaler immediately calls the police, but when
he's asked to explain how Bachmann could have been murdered - and shot
dead of all things, without Steintaler hearing the shot -, his safe opened
and emptied, and the perpetrator escaping in a mere minute without
Steintaler at least spotting him, he fails to come up with anything and
thus makes himself the chief suspect - so inspector Keller's (Erik Ode)
men (Reinhard Glemnitz, Günther Schramm, Fritz Wepper) finger him the
chief suspect, and when they also find the missing money in his office,
they book him over night. Keller however is not so sure Steintaler is the
culprit, so he lets him go in the morning, instead concentrating his
investigations on Bachmann's wife (Ursula Schult), who, wouldn't you know
it, has an affair with Steintaler, and ultimately on his second in command
Dettmann (Leopold Rudolf), who seems to be the only one really affected by
the death of his boss - a little too affected in Keller's opinion, and the
longer the investigations are going on the more he loses it ... until
ultimately he confesses to Keller: It was he who emptied the safe, but he
was caught red-handed by Bachmann, took the handgun that was in the safe
along with the money, and shot without thinking - only to then recognize
Bachmann. He immediately wants to call emergency, but Bachmann tells him
otherwise - since the two are friends, he doesn't want to see Dettmann go
to jail. So with his dying breath he calls Steintaler, whom he knows to be
the lover of his wife, and then tells Dettmann to in the meantime sneak
into Steintaler's office and plant the money there to ultimately make
Steintaler pay for Dettmann's crime ... Ingrid Steeger, by then a star
in German erotica, plays one of Bachmann's daughters.
... and that's a resolution far-fetched even for an episode of
Der Kommissar, a series that was never troubled too much by
plausability when it came to pulling a culprit out of the hat. Though what
really hampers the whole thing is that Dettmann acts like the culprit from
early on, including bizarre outbursts, so the identity of the killer is
easily guessable, it's just the "how" that makes the episode
rather ridiculous - especially since the whole thing's also plagued with
stilted dialogue and characters acting and reacting unnaturally to
whatever it is - which is true enough a recurring phenomenon with the
whole series. Still, the whole thing's at least fun crime TV nostalgia,
but little beyond that.
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