Cannon Serenade

Director Wolfgang Staudte who left East Germany in 1953 to make movies in West Germany, takes a few swipes at the West German judicial system in this fairly effective courtroom drama about the murder of a four-month-old baby. Police almost immediately arrest the mother Ingrid (Ellen Schwiers) who is the mistress of the father, a rich business VIP married to another woman. His position and wealth keep him insulated from suspicion. A hot-shot lawyer (Hanns Lothar) has to overcome the unaccountably biased perceptions of the police, the judge, the prosecutor and almost everyone else in the judicial system. The defence lawyer, driven to an extreme, knows he has to find the real killer or his client will be convicted.

a TV-Movie by Wolfgang Staudte

A movie by Wolfgang Staudte

A group of West German men on a stag party find themselves stranded in a Montenegrin village inhabited only by vengeful women since all their men were shot during the war.

During his trip to the city, a naïve man from the countryside falls victim to a thief who steals his wallet. Since all his personal documents were in it, he not only looses his money but also his identity. The thief turns out to be a cunning con man, who uses the papers for his criminal schemes. Soon enough, a warrant is issued, and eventually both men – the thief and the innocent guy – are arrested. But since all the red tape of the government causes even more confusion, the odyssey of the victim searching for his lost identity has just started.

The seventh case for Commissioner Haferkamp.