Es geschah am hellichten Tag

The story of the perverted child murderer SCHROTT (Fröbe) and his hunter MATTHAEI (Rühmann) is still thrilling and frightening. The present events ensure that the story remains current. Fröbe and Rühmann can show their acting skills (what they were not always allowed to do).

To keep it short:

Ingenious actors in a great film, which is based on a great book, that was written by an ingenious author.

I'm waiting for the Hollywood-remake.

An old man is rushing through the woods and stumbles over a dead girl's body. He rushes to the village to call the police. But what he didn't expect happens - he gets the blame for it, not only by police who interrogate mercilessly, but by his fellow villagers. He says he's innocent. But no one believes him, except the chief inspector, who's set to retire in a day or so. But this case consumes him, when it takes a dramatic turn. He takes it upon himself to find out more. So he befriends a lady and her little girl. But they do not know what he's up to. The lady helps him manage a small shop/gas station in the determined vicinity of the attacks. What will he find? What will find him? This is an excellent film, with astounding use of black and white in telling and showing the story. This was remade in 2001 by director Sean Penn with Jack Nicholson in the lead role and with a totally different ending and a more downbeat feel to it. I had already seen it and liked it, before I saw this; but now, I prefer this version. The subject matter may be a bit unsettling to parents, but the treatment is first rate and with very believable dubbed American words. If you miss this relatively unknown foreign film, you've missed one of the best of its kind.

Es geschan am hellichten Tag (It Happened in Broad Daylight) is directed by Ladislao Vajda and collectively written by Vajda, Hans Jacoby and Friedrich Durrenmatt, from the Novel "The Promise". It stars Heinz Ruhmann, Sigfrit Steiner, Siegfried Lowitz, Michel Simon and Gert Frobe. Music is by Bruno Canfora and cinematography is by Ernst Bolliger and Heinrich Gartner.

When a child is found murdered in the woods, Oberleutnant Matthai (Ruhmann) promises the child's parents he will find the killer. It's a promise that weighs heavy on him, causing him to go outside of his rational thinking to hopefully lure the killer into a trap.

The source material has proved ripe for picking as regards film adaptations, latterly with a big Hollywood production directed by Sean Penn and starring Jack Nicholson (The Pledge 2001). There's a whole bunch of themes bubbling away in the story, all of which are handled superbly by the makers. At its core it's a criminal investigation fuelled by an obsession, but morality and mob justice play a big part in proceedings as well.

Lashings of intrigue permeate the atmosphere, as does a number of suspenseful scenes as the child killer enters the fray and we see him operating his vile shtick. The sequences of him at home, a complete milquetoast to a harpy wife, simmer away with deadly expectation, the acting superb. The psychological studies of the key characters carry considerable weighty merit, always niggling away at the audience, keeping us hooked to the very last frame.

With chills (for instance the hand puppet scenes are blood curdling), expressionistic touches and a film noir sense of the human condition gone wrong, it's a film deserving of a more wider and appreciative audience. Personally I prefer the ending that Durrenmatt rewrote as Das Versprechen (the author wasn't happy with Es geschan am hellichten Tag's resolution), and that was the ending Penn went for in The Pledge. This is not in the same class as Fritz Lang's "M", but it deserves to be on the same shelf, and that is praise indeed. 8/10

An ititerant peddler (Michel Simon) finds the body of a young girl in a Swiss forest and alerts an inspector from a neighboring town who'd once been kind to him. When Inspector Matthai (Heinz Ruhmann) gets there, he finds a mob eager to lynch the peddler who soon commits suicide in his cell after a grueling interrogation. Matthai believes the old man was innocent and the savage razor slaying the work of a serial killer prowling the woods along a major highway. No longer on the police force, the ex-inspector sets out to catch the killer by renting a roadside gas station and hiring a young woman with an 8 year-old daughter to be his housekeeper with the intention of using the child as bait...

That's a dangerous game to play in this gripping cat-and-mouse thriller that's also a fairly good police procedural, considering the resources and lack of forensics at the time. Gert Frobe is chilling as the misogynist psychopath and it was this performance that led the producers of GOLDFINGER to cast him as the titular megalomaniac.

Truly one of the superlative thriller/mystery films of all time. I saw it in the original German on Austria TV and it is still gripping. I thought it is so Hitchcockian then I realized the musical technique--the sudden loud shrieks in the orchestra--at the moment of contact with the killer, his house and the car. This is Psycho. The film mood and pace is Psycho. Then again, I realized the film and the Broadway play which received Tony nomination were both celebrated shortly before Psycho was made. Could it be that Hitch made the perfect horror film as a paean to this great masterpiece. One of the few films of the genre I will set next to Hitchcock and it does indeed hold its place superbly. Can any compliment be higher. If you love Hitchcock as I do, you must get the film--the original German print of 1958 not the TV version and not the American remake with Nicholson, as fine as it is. If you understand German watch it first that way. Unforgettable.