| Es geschah am hellichten Tag | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Ladislao Vajda |
| Written by | Friedrich Dürrenmatt Hans Jacoby Ladislao Vajda |
| Starring | Heinz Rühmann Siegfried Lowitz Michel Simon Gert Fröbe |
| Music by | Bruno Canfora |
| Cinematography | Ernst Bolliger Heinrich Gärtner |
| Release date(s) | 1958 |
| Running time | 95 minutes |
| Country | Germany |
| Language | German |
Es geschah am hellichten Tag (English: It Happened in Broad Daylight) is the title of a 1958 Swiss suspense film directed by Ladislao Vajda. In 1997, it was remade under the same title as a German TV film, directed by Nico Hoffmann. There was also a Dutch remake of the film, by Rudolf Van Den Berg, under the title The Cold Light of Day made in 1995. The original screenplay was written by Friedrich Dürrenmatt, a Swiss playwright and novelist, and the first incarnation of the film is still acclaimed by critics. Heinz Rühmann and Gert Fröbe both starred in the 1958 movie.[1]
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The three films follow the same basic plot, where a senior police detective is attached to elucidate the murder of a little girl. As the detective hopes for leads while talking with the mother of the murdered girl, he pledges to find her killer – and so, even after leaving the police force, he embarks upon buying a gasoline shop in the remote area where he hopes to find the criminal, and uses a little girl as bait to attract the killer. His trap is ultimately successful in ensnaring the murderer.
Friedrich Dürrenmatt had not been happy to see the detective proven successful at the end the story, so he wrote the novel Das Versprechen: Requiem auf den Kriminalroman (The Pledge: Requiem for the Detective Novel) from the previous film script. Das Versprechen differs from Es geschah am hellichten Tag by having the detective fail to identify the killer in the end because of murderer's death in an auto accident. This failure ultimately leaves the detective a broken and witless old man.
American director Sean Penn made a fourth movie on the topic, named The Pledge in 2001. Penn's movie incorporates Das Versprechen's darker ending, as preferred by Dürrenmatt.