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Der Kommissar - Die Nacht mit Lansky
episode 70
West Germany 1974
produced by Helmut Ringelmann for Neue Münchner Fernsehproduktion/ZDF
directed by Erik Ode
starring Erik Ode, Reinhard Glemnitz, Günther Schramm, Fritz Wepper, René Deltgen, Heli Finkenzeller, Stefan Hurdalek, Kristina Schober, Ruth Hausmeister, Eckart Dux, Veronika Faber
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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Heines (Reinhard Glemnitz), one of inspector Kellers (Erik Ode)
assistants, has invited him as well as his other assistants Grabert (Günther
Schramm) and Harry (Fritz Wepper) over for dinner - conveniently cooked by
Heines's mother (Ruth Hausmeister). Suddenly, neighbour Helga (Heli
Finkenzeller) shows up on Heines's doorstep to ask him over because her
husband Lansky (René Deltgen), a travelling salesman, has just come home
in a rather desperate state, with blood on his hands. When Heines and
Keller come over though, Lansky does his best to deny there's anything
wrong, even if his behaviour suggests otherwise. So much so that Keller
insists like he looks like a man who has just committed a murder. But of
course, there is no body (that anybody knows of), not even a case. Still,
Keller's men try to get someone from the company Lansky works at on the
phone - and learn he has been fired a year ago. Keller confronts Lansky
with this, and eventually he admits to it, but also claims he hasn't told
his family, has lived off his savings for a while, and when the savings
were depleted, he took to stealing. Basically his modus operandi was to
break into companies he visited as a travelling salesman at night and
emptied their safes. That went very well for a while, so he didn't have to
tell his family he's unemployed, but one day, when coming home from a
botched up break-in, he ran into Hessler (Eckart Dux), his successor at
the company he had formerly worked at, and upon learning about the
break-in, Hessler was quick to put two and two together, but instead of
going right to the police, he gave Lansky the opportunity to give himself
up. But in his desperation, Lansky killed Hessler instead ... Now
the idea to change the typical structure of a murder mystery around a
little and put the murder at the end of the story rather than the
beginning and let the investigators work the other way round - they have
the culprit but are looking for the crime - is an inspired one. That said,
unfortunately the story as a whole is just too far-fetched to actually
work, the premise of the "businessman" who's actually
unemployed, has taken to stealing and to lieing to his family, just isn't
believable enough to actually engage the audience, and writer Herbert
Reinecker's trademark stilted dialogues don't help one bit here. It's
still some fun, especially seen through a nostalgic lense, but not great
by any definition of the word, and actually falls short of its promise.
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