René Scheibli

On February 4, 1936, Wilhelm Gustloff, leader of the NSDAP, was shot dead in Davos. His assassin, 27-year-old David Frankfurter, wanted to use the action to highlight the persecution of the Jews. This docudrama describes with great precision the events leading up to the fateful day and the trial that followed. The film was selected as the Swiss entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 48th Academy Awards, but was not nominated.

A private detective finds the limp body of a young Chinese beauty in his office, shot with his own gun.

Senator Isaak Kohler shoots and kills Professor Winter in a crowded restaurant, while Winter is dining with the struggling idealistic young lawyer, Felix Spat. Kohler puts up no defense and is sentenced to twenty years. Kohler then gets his daughter Helene to pay the reluctant Spat to reinvestigate the case, on the assumption that Kohler is innocent. The newspapers pick up on this and begin to question whether Kohler was wrongly convicted.

A car crashes, an expensive drill goes missing, systematic theft occurs in the department store, a murder happens. Police officer Wäckerli has his hands full and eventually even finds himself in mortal danger.

In this interesting World War I drama, Bruno Ganz gives a compelling performance as Jakob, an obsessive inventor who lives in a Swiss village. He receives unconditional support from his friend Otti (Walo Luond), but that is about all; the other villagers do not tolerate Jakob's eccentricities very well, and regard him as a crackpot. He perserveres in spite of this obstacle and finally invents a viable carriage that does not run on wheels but on a tread. Unfortunately for Jakob, the military have already come up with the same invention: the tank. The discovery finally breaks him, and he is quickly shuttled off to an asylum.