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A bank clerk turns up dead after a bank robber has broken into his home, conveniently placed right above the bank, has forced him to open the safe, and has then killed the clerk for reasons unknown. Inspector Keller (Erik Ode) and his team - Grabert (Gunther Schramm), Heines (Reinhard Glemnitz) and Helga (Emily Reuer) - investigate, and Keller soon comes up with a bankrobber, Kranz (Siegfried Lowitz), who has worked a similar modus operandi, always breaking into bank clerks' apartments located above their banks (weirdly enough, there were many of them) at night to force them to open their safes. Kranz though has never used any kind of violence let alone killed anyone. However, as it turns out Kranz has only recently been released from prison. But for the time of the robbery, he has an airtight alibi, as he does for another such robbery the next night - where the bank clerk in question was knocked out. Now Keller suspects Kranz to be involved somehow but doesn't figure him to be a murderer, so he has one of his friends, Mierich (Kurt Jaggberg), who has just acted a bit too suspicious, followed, and soon ties him to a murderer in jail, Möricke (Hartmut Reck), and a mysterious woman, Mrs. Albinger (Hanna Seiffert), who seems to stay at the same hotel every time a bank is robbed after Kranz's method. Eventually, Keller and company can pin everything down, the bank that's to be robbed next and the day it's to be robbed, so Heines hides in the bank clerk's (Wolfgang Stumpf) apartment, Helga has a few drinks at Kranz's favourite pub, and Keller and Grabert are at the hotel Mrs. Ablinger stays at, and ... the robbery can be prevented, and the next day, Keller has all the suspects come to his office, and it turns out that Kranz has sold the "copyright" to his robberies to Mierich for a share in the loot, Mierich has gotten in touch with Mrs. Albinger who's acually the wife of Möricke, and Möricke has actually persuaded his guard Seybold (Eduard Linkers) to get him out of jail every once in a while so he can you-know-what his wife, while really he was doing the actual robberies - first and foremost to support his wife since he's already a lifer ...

Now I'm no expert, but it sounds rather unlikely that bank clerks, as a rule, would have their apartments upstairs from the banks they are working at, much less that many to make a business out of it - which is this episode's main premise to make the story work. Also, it seems less than likely for thieves to pay copyright fees to other thieves - again, no expert of course, but ... So with two major plotpoints suspending disbelief to such a rate, can this be a good episode? Well, not from the murder mystery angle of course, as there are actually more than these two central points that are too far-fetched. But Siegfried Lowitz as the main suspects sure gives a spirited performance as the ex-con trying and failing to find his footing in modern society - even if the script tries to hammer home that point a bit too violently - and he and Erik Ode play well off one another. So not one of the best episodes for sure, but entirely watchable.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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