Hot Picks
|
|
|
Derrick - Tod am Bahngleis
episode 5
West Germany 1975
produced by Hans Peter Renfranz, Helmut Ringelmann (executive), Gustl Gotzler (executive) for Telenova/ZDF
directed by Alfred Weidenmann
starring Horst Tappert, Fritz Wepper, Peter Kuiper, Mascha Gonska, Günter Strack, Arthur Brauss, Franz Morak, Ulli Kinalzik, Rinaldo Talamonti, Erica Schramm, Claudia Rieschel, Christine Buchegger, Gerhart Lippert, Günther Stoll, Hermann Lenschau, Eleonore Weisgerber, Wolfgang Spier, Franz Muxeneder, Hans Hermann Schaufuß, Gabi Fischer, Andreas Schnoor, Alexander Radszun, Dietrich Thoms, Helmut Alimonta, Knut Reschke, Günther Becker
written by Herbert Reinecker, music by Hans-Martin Majewski, title theme by Les Humphries
TV-series Derrick, Harry Klein
review by Mike Haberfelner
|
|
Available on DVD! To buy, click on link(s) below and help keep this site afloat (commissions earned) |
Always make sure of DVD-compatibility!!!
|
|
|
|
|
Hugo Hase (Peter Kuiper) is a lowly railroad worker, doing up repairs
with a crew on a track leading to Munich. And thus it's only natural that
he's going to Munich every night for some fun, even if he's getting
ridicule from his colleagues for it. Usually, he takes one of the last
trains home, trains usually not all that frequented, but time and again,
he meets a lovely woman there, tries to chat her up, but since his social
skills are a little on the klutzy side, he only manages to freak her out,
which makes him mad so he kills her and places her body next to the
railroad tracks. Three women have already died that way when inspector
Derrick (Horst Tappert) and his assistant Harry (Fritz Wepper) pick up the
case, and Derrick soon has a hunch that the killer must be a railroad
worker. He and Harry also find a woman (Claudia Rieschel) who has been
chatted up by Hugo but who has managed to escape, and who can give them a
good description. So they search all the night clubs and all the worker
barracks along the train track leading to Munich to find Hugo. Hugo by
the way also has a gentle side, as he's madly in love with Hannelore
(Maschka Gonska), daughter of his crew's big-hearted foreman (Günter
Strack), but she sees him as nothing but a friend. Oh, and Hugo's motive,
it is revealed rather clumsily, is because his mother's (Erica Schramm) is
a prostitute. Eventually, Derrick and Harry's investigations get them on
Hugo's trail rather by accident, but they only can catch up with him at
his mother, where he has killed both her and himself. Now it's
easy to tear down this episode for its rather less-than-stellar writing
that mixes some very basic preudo-Freudian psychology with what's
basically a character study that remains very one-tracked and never falls
together properly, all sugared with stilted, unnatural dialogue, and the
whole thing lacks both narrative urgency and suspense ... and somehow it's
still fun to watch, maybe due to its clumsy script that has this certain
unreal quality that many of writer Herbert Reinecker's scripts have in
common and make his TV crime shows standouts for all the wrong reasons.
|
|
|