Der Greifer

Hans Albers and Hansjörg Felmy investigate in Essen

This crime thriller from the 1950s is no longer very convincing these days. Hans Albers and Hansjörg Felmy are investigating with the police as father and son. In addition to the little fish, with whom the affable Albers is of course on a first-name basis, there is a really nasty girl murderer in the Pott (German nickname for the entire Ruhr area), who acts out again at the end of the film (ultrafies: in kindergarten!) may. This is where the film becomes wonderfully mysterious for a brief moment! Otherwise, Eugen York's production turns out to be too kitschy and old-fashioned. It's definitely not the best film that Kurt Ulrich (Roses for the Public Prosecutor, Jons and Erdme) has produced.

In any case, there are great actors there: Mady Rahl, Werner Peters, Susanne Cramer (1936-1969), Agnes Windeck, Siegfried Lowitz, Maria Sebaldt, Ernst Stankowski and of course really great: CINECITTA Divo Horst FRANK (1929-1999)!! !

For Hans Albers the part of the retiring police superintendant is a repeat of the same part he played in the first version in 1930 (!). It seems to me that in this 2nd version Albers is better cast, though I never saw the 1930 version. Albers easily dominates the film and plays his part with a lot of joy and irony. The makers gave him the chance to render a song from his standard repertoire in at the same time the best scene in the film: during the underworld part Albers sings "Beim ersten Mal da tut's noch Weh", the song he sang for the first time in Helmut Käutner's "Grosse Freiheit Nr 7" of 1943. This is also the last film in which Hans Albers had a really good part. After this film came the only passable "Der Mann im Strom" (q.v.) and two others with Albers I would not care to mention.

Though the film can be considered a Hans Albers vehicle in retrospect, York surely did not aim for it. His aim was to make a psychological thriller. As such it is good entertainment, but the psychological element (the women killer who loves his mother too much) is on the simple side to say the least and is also taken to seriously, that is: a bit more tongue-in-cheek would have helped to make it acceptable. There are some big problems with the continuity of the script: at at least two occasions the action jumps without any logic. Watch how the film jumps from the bar to the arrest of Albers; someone forgot to bridge the two scenes.