It Happened in Broad Daylight

This Swiss movie, originally made for TV, was dismissed by Durrenmatt because he felt it didn't probe deeply enough into the driven character of the Inspector. I totally disagree with him. This version is powerfully realized and stunningly acted. Durrenmatt's literary version, The Pledge, undercuts the power of the theme and registers the Inspector's commitment as hollow and pointless. The American movie version of the Pledge was a conceptual, execution and box-office disaster.

What Durrenmatt does in The Pledge is to book-end this satisfying story with a narrative overlay that only revokes all the drama and suspense of the central story. This is as pointless and destructive as book-end CASABLANCA with a narrator that claims that Rick was really a scoundrel working for the Nazis the whole time.

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.

Pop quiz! Did you know that Sean Penn's genius but shamefully underrated 2001 thriller "The Pledge" and this obscure Swiss masterpiece from 1958 are based on the same novel by Friedrich Dürrenmatt? The two films are also very reminiscent in terms of narrative structure, but the endings are completely different and that is because the novel was not yet finished when "Es Geschah am Hellichten Tag" was wrapped, and it was only afterwards that Dürrenmatt came up with the much darker and depressing ending that features in Sean Penn's adaptation. Of course you knew, since you probably also read the trivia pages here in IMDb...

Ever since I found about it, I put "Es Geschah am Hellichten Tag" on my must-see list, but sadly it's not an easy film to find. The only decent copy I eventually found was in the original German language. That wasn't a showstopper, luckily, since my native tongue is Dutch and was perfectly able to follow the film. And what a film it is! Over 65 years old, but still one of the most compelling, intense, uncomfortable, and sadly also relevant drama/thrillers that exist.

In the woods around a small Swiss town near an important route, the brutally murdered corpse of an 8-year-old girl is discovered. The drifter who found the body is immediately the prime suspect, and the police and townsfolk are certain of his guilt when he commits suicide in jail; - even though he fanatically exclaimed his innocent. Chief inspector Matthai, however, believes the real culprit is still at large and will murder again. His only leads are a drawing of a giant man dressed in black and handing out chocolates, made by the victim a few days before her death, a psychological profiling report, and a roadmap. Matthai quits the police to start his own private investigation, but for that he needs a cover, ... and live bait!

A great plot, with persuasive characters and genuine fear for the life of the vulnerable and totally innocent Anne-Marie, make this a first-class suspense classic. And the stellar performances, of course! Heinz Rühmann is excellent as the devoted Inspector Matthai, but the most remarkable role evidently remains for Gert Fröbe as the uncanny child snatcher Schrött. It was also the role that indirectly launched his international career because it led to his casting as super-villain Goldfinger in the James Bond classic with the same title.

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.

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