It Happened in Broad Daylight

It Happened in Broad Daylight is an intelligent crime drama set in Switzerland. On the very day the senior police officer Matthaei is due to retire, a little girl is found brutally murdered. Suspicion quickly falls on the pitiful pedlar Jacquier, who is arrested and later confesses under pressure. Matthaei, however, is not so sure of his guilt, but when Jacquier commits suicide in prison, all his colleagues consider the case closed.

Matthaei cannot forget the case, though, and he begins his own tireless investigation as a civilian, for the murderer has killed several times before, and who is to say he will not strike again?

Age has not been kind to It Happened in Broad Daylight, and it falls particularly short compared with Sean Penn's excellent remake "The Pledge" from 2001, whose disillusioned and crushing ending departs radically from the plot of the original film. In the German version the villain also occupies a far more central place than in "The Pledge".