Friederick Durrenmatt's Der Richter und sein Henker was made into a film in 1975 titled End of the Game directed by Maximilian Schell, with screenplay by Dürrenmatt and Schell.
Jon Voight took lead billing as Walter Tschanz, with Martin Ritt as Hans Bärlach and Robert Shaw as Richard Gastmann. Jacqueline Bisset and Friedrich Dürrenmatt also appeared in the film, and Donald Sutherland played the role of the corpse of Lt. Schmeid.
German silent film actress Lil Dagover made her last screen appearance before retirement in the film.
The film was also reissued as Getting Away With Murder, Murder on the Bridge and Deception.
Conversely, director Martin Ritt is the leading actor in this existentialist crime story as Hans Barlach, a Swiss police inspector who has spent 30 years trying to pin the murder of the woman he loved on Richard Gastmann, an "untouchable" industrialist (Robert Shaw). When Barlach's assistant Donald Sutherland is killed while trying to get the goods on Gastmann, the inspector puts idealistic detective Walter Tschantz (Jon Voight) on the case. Jacqueline Bisset costars as Anna Crawley Sutherland's girl friend, who attempts to solve the case on her own.
The novel upon which End of the Game is based has all the classical themes of author Friedrich Durrenmatt, long fascinated with the intangible aspects of Guilt and Innocence.
No comments:
Post a Comment