End of the Game

1976 ""I could murder her in front of your eyes and you couldn't prove it," said the master criminal to the master detective. And so the game began..."
5.9| 1h46m| PG| en| More Info
Released: 12 May 1976 Released
Producted By: MFG-Film
Country: Turkey
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Info

Hans Baerlach is a Swiss police detective who has dedicated much of his career to pursuing powerful and allegedly murderous businessman Richard Gastmann. Though Baerlach's partner meets his demise while investigating Gastmann, his replacement, Walter Tschanz, is undaunted. Meanwhile, the lovely Anna Crawley becomes involved in the case, which proceeds to take many twists and turns.

Genre

Drama, Crime, Mystery

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Director

Maximilian Schell

Production Companies

MFG-Film

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End of the Game Audience Reviews

Hellen I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much
SunnyHello Nice effects though.
GazerRise Fantastic!
Josephina Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.
Robert J. Maxwell At the very opening, we see a Swiss police officer stop beside a parked car on a hillside. The officer opens the door. There is a corpse inside with a bullet hole in his temple.So what does the policeman do? Does he go back to his own car and radio headquarters to report a homicide? Does the police force descend upon the crime scene, seal it off with tape to preserve its integrity, and examine the ground and take photos of the body? No. No, the policeman gets into the dead man's car, starts it up, and drives into town with the corpse nodding beside him. A woman in a passing car is horrified by the sight of the bloody head, so the officer tries to perch his own police cap atop the corpse. The attempt is unsuccessful and the body jiggles and collapses against the dash.Now that's a weird opening for a murder mystery but then this film is something outré from beginning to end. The story, by the well-known Swiss author, Friedrich Durrenmatt, involves no more than the usual number of convolutions and winds up with a surprise ending. But the direction is by Max Schell, a highly underrated actor, who's done some enterprising work as a director too.He opts for a considerably stylized approach to the material. "I think I'm going to croak," groans the police commissioner (Martin Ritt, also an actor/director), sounding more like a man complaining of a hangover. "Well, I hope you feel better!" chirps his assistant, John Voight, in a completely anomalous, cheery tone of voice.Ritt's commissioner really is ill and is schedule for an operation in a short while that may give him an extra year of life. A consequence of his illness is that he can't eat anything or drink any stimulating fluids. Throughout the film, maddeningly, others keep offering him schnapps or a piece of cake, all of which he must refuse until the reveal at the end, when he solves the case and, with gusto, stuffs himself full of soup, wurst, sauerkraut, and huge wedges of Emmenthaler cheese.But, as I say, there are unexpected incidental touches in almost every scene. The initial corpse turns out to be that of another police officer. And we see perhaps two dozen people dressed in dark clothes standing around in the autumnal foliage while someone reads over the casket and a brass band plays a lament. But the threnody take on a subtle, more lively lilt. Soon, some of the mourners are tapping their feet. Then a row of four or five dark figures begin bobbing slightly up and down to the tune, by Ennio Moriconne out of Nino Rota. And that's nothing. An icy rain begins to fall. The mourners are quickly drenched and look as if they're about to freeze. And two more figures come literally dancing down the slope to drop a wreath on the coffin before dancing away. The wreath has the wrong name on it, but as it turns out, the cadaver was undercover and had two identities and whoever ordered the wreath got them mixed up. And so it goes.Sometimes Schell takes the story seriously. There are several shooting deaths. (Only one of them is turned into a semi-joke.) Jacqueline Bissett has the role of the girl who belongs to three men, the evil and egotistical villain Robert Shaw, the corpse, and John Voight's ever-smiling policeman. I can't figure out just what it is that informs Bissett's beauty, what it is that brings her so close to feminine perfection. Certainly her eyes have something to do with it. They slant at an ideal dihedral and they're sometimes blue, sometimes the color of a light turmeric, and as we all know, the eyes are the windows of the occiput. She has a generous bosom but I discount that.Martin Ritt is surprisingly effective as the worn-out, cynical, old cop. His features are over-sized, as are his black-rimmed glasses, and he has quadruple chins, smokes cigars, and his clothes are as shabby as his carefully cluttered apartment. Voight is good too, but then he always is.As a murder mystery, this is pretty sloppy work. As a thing unto itself, it's not at all bad.Madonna, it is always cold, foggy, and cloudy in Bern, hardly a healthy place to live. No wonder the commissioner is ill.
oldmovieman This very artsy movie has within it the elements of a fine noir thriller, but stumbles over its own excesses. First the good news: there are three superb performances here. Martin Ritt (best known as director of "Norma Rae","Hud", "Sounder", "The Spy Who Came in From the Cold", and many others), is superb as the weary but guileful old detective out to settle a score. So is Jon Voight as his newly assigned assistant; Voight's performance right from the beginning suggests he is a seriously unbalanced character and makes much of the remaining action plausible. Though dismissed by some reviewers as bad acting, this really was the only way to make this character work. Finally, Robert Shaw is the bloodless villain, recreating essentially the same character as he did the previous year in "The Taking of Pelham One, Two, Three." Now for the bad news: the plot is murky and the ending illogical; the direction and cinematography are grotesque (apparently there is more fog in Switzerland than London and Kodak had a special on grainy film); and the score is so whimsical that it suggests a parody of the genre. Best subtle scene: after Martin Ritt's character is apparently mauled by the Shaw character's guard dog, he (out of everyone's sight) removes a protective shield he had under his coat. That's a first clue that the old detective is up to something.
gridoon A very obscure thriller - both in the sense that it's very hard to find (I actually saw what seemed to be the imported British version, under the title "Deception"; the print was in terrible condition), and also in the sense that it has a very murky structure and characters with motivations that are pretty hard to understand, unless perhaps you've read the book. Some good twists and interesting performances (especially by Robert Shaw as the politically powerful villain)....but hold off watching it until you come across a decent print. (**1/2)
aromatic-2 Martin Ritt is absolutely spellbinding. He embodies one of the most unforgettable men I have ever met on the screen. It is a neat little thriller, and Shaw is fine as the would-be super-villain, but it is Ritt that still haunts my thoughts and dreams years after my three viewings of this film; I would love to get it on tape.