The body of a young man in a dress suit is found on a country road by Lake Biel in Switzerland. The victim happens to be none other than Schmied, the new police inspector who had just been appointed to replace Baerlach, the old police captain.
Acting
Charles Vanel's weary gravitas carries every frame
Direction
Le Comte's clinical Swiss restraint builds suffocating tension
Writing
Dürrenmatt's philosophical cynicism seeps into every dialogue
Director
Daniel Le Comte
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Friedrich Dürrenmatt adapted his own 1952 novella, already a classic of German-language crime literature exploring postwar moral exhaustion.
The title's 'executioner' refers not to the killer but to Baerlach himself — the judge who becomes complicit in the very violence he investigates.
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