Das Verbrechen des Jahrhunderts

Call me a bleeding-heart liberal, but I guess I'm a sucker for movies about people who are wrongly accused. This movie, however, failed to move me, even though I've read books on the subject and the case itself moves me. Rydell and Nicholson do a good job setting up the circumstances that led Hauptmann to become a suspect, and to even arouse suspicions in us, but the dialogue and individual scenes fall completely flat, because they're obvious and heavy-handed. To make matters worse, some of the actors, like David Paymer and Allen Garfield, seem to have been told they were in an over-acting contest. Walsh is good, as is the ever dependable Moriarty, but Rea seems lacking as Hauptmann.

"Crime of the Century" is a fictional recounting the story of the Lindberg kidnapping. I presumes the innocence of Hauptman (Rea), the alleged kidnapper. It could have left the audience in question of Haputman's innocence thereby aligning it with the 60 year old controversy. It could have even set forth the compelling notion that the Lindberg baby lives today, but it does not. Instead it walks us through the legal process showing the case to be a colossal miscarriage of justice. Hence, "Crime..." is little more than a journeyman flick which attempts to capitalize on the infamy of the crime. An enjoyable watch for those interested in the notorious case.

I have heard some references to the Lindbergh baby in some TV shows even though I don't remember exactly where. Here, the film mostly centres around how the police and the attorneys pin it on an innocent man. The debate on whether he was actually innocent or not is still going on but even if the movie is largely fictional, the fact that the police left so many loopholes and manufactured evidence and witnesses is pretty evident. The movie makes a great case of how a foolish immigrant man gets caught up in this because of his foolishness and the police exploit it and pin everything on him. This being a TV movie, Isabella Rossellini playing the wife is a surprise. But most of the cast were pretty brilliant. The sad thing is the various techniques used by the police to coerce so many people into different situations are still a very real thing that we can't escape. The belief of some people being the primary reason others suffer is always an evil that humanity can't seem to stop, whatever kind of belief it is. The confidence of people who are wrong is always what the world relies on to maintain the status quo.

The film could have been way better if it tried to be but as a TV movie, it felt it was limiting itself too much. Still, by the end, when the text appeared about what happened afterwards I really started to get emotional.

This is a great film. Stephen Rea and Isabella Rosellini are wonderful as Hauptmann and his wife. There was a tv film made about the Lindbergh case in 1976 that was very simplistic and accepted the case against Hauptmann at face value. This film, like Ludovic Kennedy's excellent book, dare to be different. As they say in the film, the case against Hauptmann smells like a cesspool. All of the evidence against him was either manufactured or misrepresented. There is no doubt this man was sent to his death because of a diabolical frame up. They do an excellent job of showing it point by point. Hauptmann was beaten by the police. There were only two witnesses at the trial who placed him anywhere near Lindbergh's house. One of them was an old man who was legally blind and the other was a man with a criminal record and a reputation as a pathological liar. Hauptmann's lawyer was an alcoholic who told several people he wanted him executed! Lindbergh claimed he could identify Hauptmann's voice and yet he had only heard the kidnapper say two words over two and a half years earlier. Doctor John Condon who gave the ransom to the kidnapper, testified at the trial it was Hauptmann and yet he failed to identify Hauptmann when he first saw him in a police lineup and then said he was NOT the man he saw. There was evidence the police doctored and forged handwriting samples from Hauptmann to make them appear like the writing on the ransom notes. There have been many experts who said Hauptmann DIDNT write the notes. One key piece of evidence at the trial was a board taken from Hauptmanns closet that had Condon's phone number written on it. I saw an interview once with a member of the jury who said this was the evidence that convinced her the most Hauptmann was guilty. Yet, there was a reporter for a tabloid newspaper who admitted HE had written it in the closet. He said he didn't think anyone would take it seriously because the closet had already been searched. Hauptmann was found with some of the ransom money hidden in his garage. He claimed a man named Fisch had given him the money and then gone back to Germany and died. The newspapers called this "The Fish Story". There is overwhelming evidence there really was a man by this name and he was a known mobster who might have been the real culprit behind the kidnapping. This is a film that should be seen because it tells of a time when justice erred and an innocent man paid with his life.

Crime of the Century fails much in the same way the system of justice failed in the prosecution of for the kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindbergh's baby in the 1930s, not enough evidence.

I know Mark Rydell (On Golden Pond) to be an extremely sensitive filmmaker and stage director, his motivation here, I'm sure was to present an alternative to Hauptmann's guilt, to entertain ideas that the prosecution may have erred. The evidence was only circumstantial, of the course the crime was horrible, but Hauptmann's execution may have been more a result of public outrage than guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

And he may be right, based on everything I've read, he probably is right. Unfortunately all the probabilities in the world add up to nothing on screen. After only a couple of suppositions the viewer gets so lost in the ultimate goal of the story that he loses interest. I've watched this film 3 times, and lost interest every time.

What a waste of terrific actors, including Stephen Rea, J.T. Walsh, Michael Moriarty, Vyto Ruginis, Barry Primus, and Allen Garfield.

Without closure, as long we as know as little as we do about what actually happened, maybe this story is best left to the true-crime section of the local bookstore, or Investigative Reports, Dateline, or 20/20. Told this way, in this medium it's a sad waste of time.