Written by Mr. Mouseburger 31st Mar 2006
Kindly submitted by Kooshmeister
General Tanz is a high-ranking German officer during World War II who commands several tank divisions, and who happens to be an obsessive-compulsive sexual degenerate with a nasty habit of murdering prostitutes in lieu of paying them. His latest murder, committed in Paris prior to the Allied invasion, he has framed on his driver, Corporal Hartmann, who he (foolishly) allowed to escape and go on the run.
Roughly twenty years after the war, Tanz has been released from prison following a twenty-year sentence for war crimes, and is unaware that in the meantime Inspector Morand has been boning up on the old murders, because the original investigator, Colonel Grau of German Intelligence, who Tanz killed, was Morand's friend.
With the help of Corporal Hartmann, Morand is able to implicate all the murders on Tanz, and comes to confront him at a get-together reunion of the ex-general's old unit.
Realizing he's been caught, Tanz calmly requests that a subordinate give him his pistol (yes apparently the guys came armed to the military reunion) and retires to the dining room. A moment later, a shot rings out. Morand, Hartmann and the others rush in to find Tanz laying dead on the banquet table underneath the banner for his unit.
Hello there,
This is a good movie, a lot of well known actors appear. I found the ending a bit too hard to swallow. The general should have been brought to trial and dealt with according to the law.
Why would two senior police officers plus other attending constables permit a suspect to ask for a gun from some other person, and be given it, then be allowed to leave the room by himself, to go and kill himself. All this after a twenty five year investigation of four murders (ie three prostitutes plus a German officer)? Sorry it doesn't work for me and wrecks the ending.
Regards. 30/12/2007