Tödliche Recherche

Elizabeth Montgomery is, as usual, perfect in her role as the real life journalist and Pulitzer Prize Winner Edna Buchanan in this film loosely based on her book, which highlights her 18 year career as a crime reporter in Miami, where she covered about 5000 violent deaths, more than 3000 of them, homicides. The film and the book, however, don't follow the trodden path of so many real-life crime stories, thanks to the detachment and humor which Buchanan imbues her work with, which gives a droll slant to her otherwise macabre stories. Furthermore, the script deals with only one case, which captures the spirit of both the author and the book, as Edna and some friends in the Miami Police Department (Dennis Farina, Yaphet Kotto) search for the missing teenage daughter of a distraught father, played by Lee Horsley. (The film has been retitled abroad as Daddy's girl).