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Derrick - Am Abgrund
episode 80
West Germany 1981
produced by Claus Legal, Helmut Ringelmann, Gustl Gotzler (executive) for Telenova/ZDF
directed by Helmuth Ashley
starring Horst Tappert, Fritz Wepper, Willy Schäfer, Klaus Behrendt, Ilse Neubauer, Lotte Ledl, Dirk Dautzenberg, Rainer Hunold, Anton Diffring, Thomas Schücke, Margot Mahler, Rebecca Winter, Joachim Wichmann, Konrad Georg, Gerd Deutschmann, Gudo Hoegel, Hans Zander
written by Herbert Reinecker, music by Hans Hammerschmid, title theme by Les Humphries
TV-series Derrick, Harry Klein
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Jakob Hesse (Klaus Behrendt), a hopeless and penniless alcoholic,
spends his evenings drifting from one pub to the next to try to get
somebody to invite him for a drink - this night though without success.
But when he tries to sneak into Raspe's (Dirk Dautzenberg) pup the
backdoor he witnesses the murder of a prostitute, Ina (Rebecca Winter).
He's caught peeking in on the deed but manages to evade the culprits.
Later, he stumbles over Ina's body in a driveway and is caught leaning
over her, but again makes an escape. However, investigating inspector Derrick (Horst Tappert)
and his assistant Harry (Fritz Wepper) manage to track down Hesse in no
time, and while they not actually suspect him to be the murderer, they
soon figure he knows something that he either won't or can't tell them.
They soon also find out that everytime Hesse visits Raspe's pub, he's
invited to a bottle of gin or more - which is suspicious to say the least.
They also find out about Ina's pimp Arthur Bandera (Thomas Schücke),
whose father's (Anton Diffing) is a regular at Raspe's place, and that
Raspe's son Willi (Rainer Hunold) had fallen seriously in love with Ina
and wanted to make her quit prostitution. So to solve the case, in a very
unusual piece of police work, Derrick and Harry drive Hesse to the home of
his estranged wife (Ilse Neubauer), where Hesse's overcome by his
conscience and he tells them that it was actually Willi who stabbed Ina,
with Bandera father and son and Raspe all present, because he was overcome
by jealousy after he turned another trick that night. When Derrick and
Harry stop by Raspe's bar to apprehend Willi, he has already hanged
himself out of guilt. Many concepts of this entry, from the
murder of a prostitute to the alcoholic witness to the prostitute with a
heart of gold (in this episode played by Lotte Ledl), were actually lifted
from a Der
Kommissar-episode Ein
Funken in der Kälte from 8 years earlier (of course also written
by Herbert Reinecker), with Klaus Behrendt playing an almost identical
character in both stories even. And if anything, the almost-remake is even
more far-fetched than the original, with Derrick's version of police work
leaving a lot to be desired, trying to go after an at best weak witness
rather than following up on concrete clues, then banking on a
totally hair-brained method to make his conscience kick in. Sure, it
works out because the script was written to that end, it's just not very
plausible let alone realistic - both of course not exactly strong points
in screenwriter Reinecker's body of work. That said, what we're left with
is still somewhat funny (for all the wrong reasons), but also somewhat
confusing and confused for sure.
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