Adapted from Friedrich Durrenmatt's philosophical detective novel, The Judge and His Hangman. The structural beauty of Durrenmatt's mousetrap holds its shape not nearly as well on the screen as on the page, and the tone has been drastically altered by the overstressed symbolism, the Fellini-esque oom-pah-pah musical score, some stray surrealist jokes, and some campy cameo appearances by Donald Sutherland as a corpse, Maximilian Schell (the movie's director) as a renowned concert pianist performing Bach at a swank dinner party, and Durrenmatt himself lecturing on Good and Evil over a chessboard. The viewer must be thankful merely for some nicely realized atmospheric effects: the discovery of the murder victim slumped over his steering wheel in the skim-milk fog of early morning; the speedy night drives through the Swiss countryside with the headlights illuminating the treetops above the road; and the midnight sneak attack by a leather-gloved intruder who stalks the police detective amid the silent shadows and breezes of his apartment. With Martin Ritt (the Hollywood director in an amateurish acting debut), Jon Voight, Jacqueline Bisset, and Robert Shaw. (1976) — Duncan Shepherd
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