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Derrick - Ein Koffer aus Salzburg
episode 12
West Germany 1975
produced by Claus Legal for Telenova/ZDF
directed by Alfred Weidenmann
starring Horst Tappert, Fritz Wepper, Ralf Schermuly, Max Eckard, Jacques Breuer, Eva Brumby, Liane Hielscher, Katrin Grimm, Traugott Buhre, Friedrich Joloff, Günther Stoll, Willy Schäfer, Gerhard Bormann, Paul Neuhaus, Thomas Braut, Rosl Mayr, Konrad Georg, Wolfrid Lier, Kurt Jaggberg, Rolf Castell, Rainer Basedow, Hans Jürgen Diedrich, Andrea L'Arronge, Gernot Möhner
written by Herbert Reinecker, music by Martin Böttcher, title theme by Les Humphries
TV-series Derrick, Harry Klein
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Kläre (Eva Brumby), part of the railway's cleaning personnel, has
forgotten her bag on one of the trains she had to clean, and going back to
fetch it she's shot dead. A man with a suitcase (Ralf Schermuly) is seen
on the premises, but somehow he manages to give the police, who arrive on
the scene promptly, a slip. However, he had to leave his jacket behind,
and through this the police could track down his car, and through the car
they could identify him as Scharwedder. Instead of bringing him in for
questioning, inspector Derrick (Horst Tappert) insists on keeping the
hands off him for the time being as he appears to be part of a smuggling
ring. Unfortunately Richard (Jacques Breuer), son of the deceased, has
gotten wind of the identity of the killer, and he wants to meet him face
to face to ... not sure what, but anyways, Derrick's assistant Harry
(Fritz Wepper) can intercept him just in time. Scharwedder as well as his
girlfriend (Katrin Grimm) are kept under observation, and soon there's a
trail that leads to a crooked travelling agent (Traugott Buhre), a crime
kingpin (Friedrich Joloff), and to Karl Hinz (Max Eckard), husband of the
deceased, who admits to the police he has given the smugglers some info
about the trains ending at Munich Central (where the murder has happened),
nothing exclusive, just what he could cull from his wife. Then there's
news that Scharwedder is travelling to Salzburg, Austria, apparently a
drug hub, and keeping him under observation, Derrick and company soon
learn the smugglers' modus operandi, and ultimately they manage to arrest
them all when they try to pick up their next drug shipment, attached to
the bottom of a train waggon via electro-magnet. Kurt Jaggberg makes a
cameo appearance as inspector Wirz of the Austrian police, a role he also
played in the Austrian arm of the series Tatort back when,
but is given disappointingly little to do to drive the plot. There's
a throwaway scene in this one that's quite amusing that sees Derrick asked
to describe Scharwedder by his colleagues, and he proves as unreliable a
witness as his witnesses usually are in the series. Other than
that, this episode proves to be a convoluted mess that leaves way too many
questions open, in which, as in many crime dramas written by Herbert
Reinecker, characters act and react unnaturally, and which at times loses
itself in subplots. At least it's nostalgic fun, but little more.
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