It happened in broad daylight (1958)

[loreta]

This is a very interesting movie, German, about a serial killer... of little girls. Do someone know this movie? It is a very rare movie, almost forgotten, because maybe the subject is not very nice. We can talk about serial killers, but serial killers like this one, that makes me think that maybe it is the story of a pedophile...And who the killer is from high society... Hmmm

I forgot this movie but my husband remind me of it because of the Dutroux story.

There is an excellent French actor, in this movie: Michel Simon.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051588/

 

[Palinurus]

Hi loreta,

I've seen this one several times in the course of maybe thirty years, in the theater as well as on TV. The first time I saw it, I cannot have been older than 15 or 16 yo. It made a deep impression on me, then. As you said, it's a very interesting production in connection to the Dutroux affair.

The story was written on request by the well known Swiss writer Friedrich Dürrenmatt who later on rewrote the filmplot into a new novel (The Pledge: Requiem for the Detective Novel in English; Das Versprechen. Requiem auf den Kriminalroman in German) as part of a trilogy called: Three Detective novels (Drei Kriminalromane: Der Richter und sein Henker - Der Verdacht - Das Versprechen).
This rewrite has a different and darker ending than the original movie, which --according to Dürrenmatt-- would be closer to reality. He didn't like the storyboard's ending of the movie all that much, really.

There have been made several remakes of this film, both for big screen and for TV.

More info on:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Es_geschah_am_hellichten_Tag
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pledge:_Requiem_for_the_Detective_Novel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Dürrenmatt

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Es_geschah_am_hellichten_Tag (in German)

PS. It seems I can't copy/paste the full link to Friedrich Dürrenmatt 's wikipage. It consistently stops at D... Sorry about that!

 

[loreta]

Wow, this is interesting. Maybe his story is based on a true story? I will try to see The Pledge. And read the book!

Thanks for all this information!

 

[Palinurus]

Maybe his story is based on a true story?

As far as I remember, there were elements of several real life events woven together for this story but I'm not completely sure of that. It certainly added weight to the plot that realistic backgrounds were used, osit.

 

[ROEL]

This is a very interesting movie, German, about a serial killer... of little girls.

So the movie with Nicholson (The Pledge) must be an adaptation of the German original:
"Homicide detective Jerry Black (Jack Nicholson) is on the eve of retirement when he gets a call that changes everything. A young girl has been murdered, and Black takes the case, promising the distraught parents he'll see it through to the end."