End of the Game movie storyline. In 1948 Istanbul, a young Hans Bärlach accepts a bet from his associate Richard Gastmann that Gastmann can commit a crime in front of him Bärlach cannot prove. Shortly after, he witnesses the woman he loves (Rita Calderoni) fall from a bridge into the bay. Convinced Gastmann had pushed her but indeed unable to prove it, Bärlach leaps into the water too late to save her as Gastmann disappears.
Thirty years later, Bärlach (Martin Ritt) has become a Swiss police commissioner and is facing death in less than a year from stomach cancer, for which an uncertain operation is planned. In the countryside his assistant Lt. Robert Schmied (Donald Sutherland) is found shot dead in his car by the side of the road and Bärlach takes pains to remove a red folder from Schmied’s files.
The case is assigned to the young, aggressive detective Walter Tschanz (Jon Voight); Tschanz appears well-informed about the case, but is stymied by Commissioner Bärlach’s revelation that two bullets were found at the scene, unaware that the Commissioner himself had planted the second one. After a disastrous funeral for the late Lieutenant, Tschanz strikes up a stormy romance with Schmied’s girlfriend Anna (Jacqueline Bisset). He finds a cryptic letter G regularly occurs in Schmied’s datebook, leading him to Gastmann (Robert Shaw), who has become a wealthy industrialist with an expansive remote estate.
Spying on Gastmann’s dinner party from a window, Tschanz is shocked to see Anna in attendance. The stakeout is exposed when the Commissioner, who had accompanied him, is attacked by Gastmann’s watchdog and Tschanz is forced to kill it. After harsh words with Gastmann’s attorney von Schwedi (Helmut Qualtinger), Tschanz hears screaming from an upstairs window and, peering in again, is greeted by Gastmann himself and a disembodied woman’s head.
During the incident, the dog’s body disappears. Gastmann’s bodyguards force Tschanz off the property and he drives the Commissioner home, who quietly puts away a pistol and a leather bite guard from his arm that the dog had supposedly mauled. Von Schwedi makes a formal complaint the next day to Lutz (Gabriele Ferzetti), the chief of police, and alleges that Schmied’s undercover attendance at Gastmann’s parties was a spy attempt by a foreign power. As if in confirmation, the Minister of Justice instructs Lutz to stop the investigation of Gastmann, citing his importance to the national economy.
End of the Game (German: Der Richter und sein Henker) is a 1975 DeLuxe Color German mystery thriller film directed by Maximilian Schell and starring Jon Voight, Jacqueline Bisset, Martin Ritt and Robert Shaw. Co-written by Friedrich Dürrenmatt, the film is an adaptation of his 1950 crime novella The Judge and His Hangman (German: Der Richter und sein Henker). Dürrenmatt also appeared in the film, and Donald Sutherland played the role of the corpse of Schmied.
End of the Game (1975)
Directed by: Maximilian Schell
Starring: Jon Voight, Jacqueline Bisset, Martin Ritt, Robert Shaw, Helmut Qualtinger, Lil Dagover, Gabriele Ferzetti, Rita Calderoni, Guido Cerniglia, Willy Hügli, Margarete Schell Noé
Screenplay by: Maximilian Schell, Roberto De Leonardis
Production Design by: Mario Garbuglia
Cinematography by: Roberto Gerardi, Ennio Guarnieri, Klaus König
Film Editing by: Dagmar Hirtz
Costume Design by: Monika von Zallinger
Set Decoration by: Kathrin Brunner, Boris Juraga
Music by: Ennio Morricone
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Constantin Film, 20th Century Fox
Release Date: September 16, 1975 (Spain), May 12, 1976 (United States)
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