Director: Tom Toelle
Script: Tom Toelle, Wolfgang Menge nach einer Novelle von Robert Sheckley
Photography: Jan Kalis, Rudolf Holan
Music: Can
Principal Cast: Dieter Hallvorden, Heribert Faßbender, Elisabeth Wiedemann, Friedrich Schütter, Peter Schulze-Rohr, Annemarie Schradiek, Suzanne Roquette, Dieter Thomas Heck, Andrea Grosske, Josef Fröhlich, Theo Fink, Jörg Pleva
Producer: Peter Märthesheimer
Production: WDR
The film is set in North Rhine-Westphalia between Osnabrück and Cologne. The candidate Lotz has to run for his life for a week, pursued by three killers and even more cameras. He stands to earn a million marks if he survives, and viewers can help him. On an obscure private channel of the future, a moderator (Dieter Thomas Heck) broadcasts the show live. A brutal "interactive” manhunt, advertising breaks, and ratings pressure: these were still fiction in the TV industry at the time, but they anticipated the development of the media in the 80s and 90s to a tee. The material by Robert Sheckley has been filmed several times and even prior to 1970, including a version with Marcello Mastroianni in the 60s. At present, there is talk of a new Hollywood take. But it was Menge and director Toelle who with their cynical vision triggered the strongest reactions in TV history until then. "I’m a good killer” was just one of the comments made by someone seeking a part in the show, which thousands of German citizens took at face value.