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Der Kommissar - Die Tote im Dornbusch
episode 4
West Germany 1969
produced by Helmut Ringelmann for Neue Münchner Fernsehproduktion/ZDF
directed by Georg Tressler
starring Erik Ode, Günther Schramm, Reinhard Glemnitz, Fritz Wepper, Emily Reuer, Helma Seitz, Paul Albert Krumm, Ellen Umlauf, Jan Hendriks, Siegurd Fitzek, Arthur Brauss, Thomas Astan, Fritz Schmiedel, Alice Treff, Walter Ladengast, Sepp Rist, Ursula Hufnagel
written by Herbert Reinecker, series created by Helmut Ringelmann, Herbert Reinecker, music by Herbert Jarczyk, title theme by Herbert Jarczyk
TV-series Der Kommissar, Harry Klein
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Irmi (Ursula Hufnagel), wife of Pankofsky (Paul Albert Krumm), owner of
a highway rest stop, is found strangled by the side of the highway.
Inspector Keller (Erik Ode) and his assistant Grabert (Günther Schramm)
pay a visit to the rest stop to investigate and soon learn that Irmi
wasn't exactly a faithful wife, much to Pankofsky's distress, and the day
she was killed, he had a row with one of her lovers, truck driver Wiegand
(Arthur Brauss), right there at the rest stop for all employees to see,
then followed him into the parking lot, and was never seen again. Keller
and Grabert pay Wiegand a visit, and when inspecting his truck, they find
one of her shoes in the back - upon which he tells a cock-and-bull story
about how he found her dead body in the back and just threw her out. Of
course, this doesn't sound very believable, and thus Wiegand's arrested.
And yet, something doesn't sound super right, so Keller and Grabert
investigate some more, focussing on Pankowsky, even though all his
employees, suspects themselves, insist he couldn't hurt a fly. As it turns
out, Pankowsky has a water tight alibi for the time of the murder, so
water tight in fact that he must have known he needed an alibi. It's only
at Irmi's funeral when her parents (Fritz Schmiedel, Alice Treff) tell our
heroes that she has been married before. And a bit of more digging
unearths that Pankowsky and Irmi's former husband (Siegurd Fitzek) were
not only friends, the former husband was also working as barkeep at the
rest stop - and weirdly enough everyone else was unaware about his
relationship with Irmi -, and he killed her with Pankowsky's blessing. From
a purely technical point of view, this is a well-crafted TV crime show
with some decent performances - but frankly the plot just doesn't fly,
it's too convoluted, requires a bit too much suspension of disbelief, and
really doesn't make all that much sense - which is really one of the
reasons Der Kommissar is so much fun to watch, as many of
the episodes are so over-constructed that they really just break under
closer observation. And the very stilted, unnatural dialogue doesn't fare
too well, either, but is also part of the series' charm, at least as a fun
piece of nostalgia.
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