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The Pledge

209 statements
40 feature instances
5 referencing feature instances

The Pledge	type	TVTItem
The Pledge	label	The Pledge
The Pledge	page	ThePledge
The Pledge	comment	Das Versprechen: Requiem auf den Kriminalroman, better known as The Pledge: Requiem for the Detective Novel, is a crime thriller written by the Swiss author and playwright Friedrich DÃ¼rrenmatt in 1958. A very popular subject in language classes throughout the German-speaking world.It was based on the script for the Swiss-German movie Es geschah am hellichten Tag (It Happened in Broad Daylight), a cautionary tale for the public about child predators and murderers, starring Heinz RÃ¼hmann as the inspector and Gert FrÃ¶be as the killer. This screenplay was written by DÃ¼rrenmatt too, but he was unhappy with the Surprisingly Happy Ending, brought forth by Executive Meddling.So he chose to write his own version of the story, quite a bit Darker and Edgier and more complex than the film and its fairly standard plot. Among other things, it makes both the protagonist and antagonist more tragic, and gives the whole spectacle a Bittersweet Ending, perhaps even a Downer Ending.In return, DÃ¼rrenmatt's book was itself adapted to film four times. The 1996 version, The Cold Light Of Day starring Richard E. Grant, moved the setting to post-Soviet Czechoslovakia. The 2001 version, simply called The Pledge and directed by Sean Penn and starring Jack Nicholson, shifts the setting to rural Nevada.Both later works follow Tag in their basic plot and premise:Somewhere in Zurich, in the heart of the Swiss Alps, an old peddler named von Gunten makes a horrifying discovery; in a forest, a school-age girl had been cut to death with a razor blade.From a local village, von Gunten calls his old acquaintance, Komissar MatthÃ¤i of the Canton Police, to come and investigate for himself.The police investigator meets the murdered girl's parents, and promises them to find the killer, delivering the story's MacGuffin. Then he goes to the girl's school, and finds out from a classmate that she claimed a giant had been giving her chocolate hedgehogs. He finds a picture she drew before her death, featuring herself, the giant, a car and a Capricorn.In the meantime, the locals have decided that von Gunten himself, previously convicted for sexual offence, is in fact the killer, and try to lynch him. To save him from the angry mob, MatthÃ¤i arrests von Gunten and hands him over to the local police. Equally convinced of his guilt, the police conduct a 20-hour non-stop Perp Sweating, and thus torture a confession out of him.The case seems solved, especially when von Gunten, driven to despair by the interrogation, hangs himself in his cell. MatthÃ¤i gets commended for his work and even the victim's parents thank him for keeping his promise.MatthÃ¤i himself is ordered by the confederation to travel to Amman, Jordan, to instruct the local police force. However, he gets severe doubts about von Gunten's guilt and his colleagues' apt and popularist judgement. Seeing how von Gunten is implicated with two further similar child murders throughout the country, the chances are high that there still is a serial killer on the loose.Overtaken by guilt, he skips the flight to Jordan and quits his job as a police investigator, vowing to keep the promise he gave and track down the killer on his own. He buys a gas station in the alps, in direct vicinity of the crime scenes, and hires Frau Heller, a former Hooker with a Heart of Gold and her little daughter Annemarie. Having taken advice from local children fishing, MatthÃ¤i wants to use Annemarie as bait to catch the killer, who seems to be fixated on killing blondes in red skirts...
The Pledge	fetched	2024-04-11T17:16:58Z
The Pledge	parsed	2024-04-11T17:16:58Z
The Pledge	processingComment	Dropped link to ForeignRemake: Not a Feature - ITEM
The Pledge	isPartOf	DBTropes
The Pledge / int_14beeefd	type	Darker and Edgier
The Pledge / int_14beeefd	comment	Darker and Edgier: The novel. The setting is grittier, all the characters are more morally ambiguous.
The Pledge / int_14beeefd	featureApplicability	1.0
The Pledge / int_14beeefd	featureConfidence	1.0
The Pledge	hasFeature	The Pledge / int_14beeefd
The Pledge / int_22cf536c	type	Chekhov's Gun
The Pledge / int_22cf536c	comment	Chekhov's Gun: The murder victim's drawing, originally dismissed as a product of her imagination.
The Pledge / int_22cf536c	featureApplicability	1.0
The Pledge / int_22cf536c	featureConfidence	1.0
The Pledge	hasFeature	The Pledge / int_22cf536c
The Pledge / int_234fa9ba	type	Mayâ€“December Romance
The Pledge / int_234fa9ba	comment	Mayâ€“December Romance: A retired police officer in his 60s (played by Jack Nicholson) begins a relationship with a single mother (played by Robin Wright) who's his junior by about 30 years. The relationship ends disastrously when he decides to use their daughter as bait to catch an elusive child murderer. It's strongly implied that his main motive for the relationship was to have access to his "bait".
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The Pledge	hasFeature	The Pledge / int_234fa9ba
The Pledge / int_25b4ad2f	type	Surprisingly Happy Ending
The Pledge / int_25b4ad2f	comment	Surprisingly Happy Ending: Tag ends with the killer getting shot by the police and an unsuspecting Annemarie getting entertained by MatthÃ¤i, who has taken the killer's place as â€˜the wizard'. Her mother doesn't mind so much, either.
The Pledge / int_25b4ad2f	featureApplicability	1.0
The Pledge / int_25b4ad2f	featureConfidence	1.0
The Pledge	hasFeature	The Pledge / int_25b4ad2f
The Pledge / int_2d50bb66	type	Perp Sweating
The Pledge / int_2d50bb66	comment	Perp Sweating: Done to von Gunten, for 20 hours, to get him to confess.
The Pledge / int_2d50bb66	featureApplicability	1.0
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The Pledge / int_372bc105	type	Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism
The Pledge / int_372bc105	comment	Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism & Sliding Scale of Shiny Versus Gritty: Tag is very much in the middle with an upward tendency. Its novelisation and its adaptation are near the bottom. DÃ¼rrenmatt did a good job of actually letting the Swiss Alps, of all places, seem gritty.
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The Pledge / int_40cc0c7e	type	Bittersweet Ending
The Pledge / int_40cc0c7e	comment	Bittersweet Ending: In the novelisation, through a crass coincidence, the murderer dies in a car crash while driving to the police setup. The police end up thinking MatthÃ¤i was wrong all along, Ms Heller and her daughter leave him out of pure detestation, while he persists that the murderer will still show up and spends the rest of his miserable and lonely life waiting for him. Years later, when his superior finds out he was, in fact, right all along, he tries to apologise and tell him he was right, but MatthÃ¤i is already too addled to understand.
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The Pledge / int_4345806d	type	Black Comedy Burst
The Pledge / int_4345806d	comment	Black Comedy Burst: The book indulges in some situational comedy when Da Chief goes to visit the Schrott widow for a Deathbed Confession (a major revelation in the story), only for her to derail multiple times reminiscing and stumbling over minor details, all while the priest (who's waiting to give her the final anointment) keeps telling her to get on with it.
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The Pledge / int_4a5fcde	type	Adaptational Alternate Ending
The Pledge / int_4a5fcde	comment	Adaptational Alternate Ending: The endings of Tag and The Pledge are substantially different.
The Pledge / int_4a5fcde	featureApplicability	1.0
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The Pledge / int_4e3d253b	type	Downer Ending
The Pledge / int_4e3d253b	comment	Downer Ending: See Bittersweet Ending. It is pretty much one for the protagonist, though not for the audience.
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The Pledge / int_54c29754	type	Serial Killer Baiting
The Pledge / int_54c29754	comment	Serial Killer Baiting: Retired homicide detective Jerry Black continues pursuing an elusive child killer because of a promise he made to one of the victims' mothers. His obsession drives him to use his own unwitting stepdaughter as bait. Not only does it fail to draw in the killer (who died in a random car accident), it also drives an irreparable wedge between him and his second wife when she finds out what he did.
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The Pledge / int_60194b82	type	Spanner in the Works
The Pledge / int_60194b82	comment	Spanner in the Works: Some random idiot motorist crashed with the Serial Killer, killing him before he could get to the trap. This is the biggest trigger for the subsequent Downer Ending.
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The Pledge / int_6a0b03a6	type	One Last Job
The Pledge / int_6a0b03a6	comment	One Last Job: This case was supposed to be MatthÃ¤i's last job before his relocation to Arabia.
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The Pledge / int_6b2b3b59	type	The Reveal
The Pledge / int_6b2b3b59	comment	The Reveal: In the novelisation, years after the murders took place, an elderly woman receiving her holy unction summons Da Chief to her death bed and confesses to him that her husband was the child murderer and died in a car crash on the day of the setup, revealing to the audience and Da Chief that MatthÃ¤i was right all along. Too bad it's too late for MatthÃ¤i.
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The Pledge	hasFeature	The Pledge / int_6b2b3b59
The Pledge / int_72852a93	type	Henpecked Husband
The Pledge / int_72852a93	comment	Henpecked Husband: Schrott's wife is making his life miserable in varying degrees in every adaptation. She is always more or less to blame for her husband's Freudian Excuse.
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The Pledge / int_80a7d3e2	type	Convicted by Public Opinion
The Pledge / int_80a7d3e2	comment	Convicted by Public Opinion: The villagers easily jump to the conclusion that the peddler committed the crime, though there was no evidence against him at this point.
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The Pledge	hasFeature	The Pledge / int_80a7d3e2
The Pledge / int_8767b1f3	type	Black-and-Gray Morality
The Pledge / int_8767b1f3	comment	Black-and-Gray Morality: A serial killer who rapes and murders girls is pursued by an obsessive detective who's willing to use unethical and illegal means - namely, endangering a little girl by using her as bait to capture his quary.
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The Pledge	hasFeature	The Pledge / int_8767b1f3
The Pledge / int_8ae880f7	type	Deconstruction
The Pledge / int_8ae880f7	comment	Deconstruction: The Pledge is one of the crime story genre, as well as of the movie on which it was based. It subverts many of the tropes used in popular crime fiction and rides them into the ground (such as the ending). Thus the subtitle Requiem for the Detective Novel.
The Pledge / int_8ae880f7	featureApplicability	1.0
The Pledge / int_8ae880f7	featureConfidence	1.0
The Pledge	hasFeature	The Pledge / int_8ae880f7
The Pledge / int_8fe78cef	type	Enhanced Interrogation Techniques
The Pledge / int_8fe78cef	comment	Enhanced Interrogation Techniques: Yes, interrogating someone until he is psychologically unable to bear it anymore counts as torture as well.
The Pledge / int_8fe78cef	featureApplicability	1.0
The Pledge / int_8fe78cef	featureConfidence	1.0
The Pledge	hasFeature	The Pledge / int_8fe78cef
The Pledge / int_9099c21c	type	GPS Evidence
The Pledge / int_9099c21c	comment	GPS Evidence: The capricorn drawn by the little girl helps MatthÃ¤i narrowing down the location of the murderer. Gritli Moser took inspiration from her murderer's license plate, which bears the coat-of-arms of the Canton of Grisons.
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The Pledge / int_9099c21c	featureConfidence	1.0
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The Pledge / int_9a11f9cf	type	Informed Species
The Pledge / int_9a11f9cf	comment	Informed Species: In the film, the toys and candies referred to as "porcupines" look a lot more like hedgehogs, especially the one hanging on the rear view mirror of the presumed killer's car (other than both being spiny, hedgehogs and porcupines don't look similar at all).
The Pledge / int_9a11f9cf	featureApplicability	1.0
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The Pledge	hasFeature	The Pledge / int_9a11f9cf
The Pledge / int_a4be7043	type	Da Chief
The Pledge / int_a4be7043	comment	Da Chief: In all adaptations, he is MatthÃ¤i's Friend on the Force after the latter quits. In the novelisation, he even is the narrator of the framework story.
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The Pledge / int_a63fd70f	type	The Promise
The Pledge / int_a63fd70f	comment	The Promise: Duh. The thing that keeps plot rolling, given by MatthÃ¤i to the murdered child's parents.
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The Pledge	hasFeature	The Pledge / int_a63fd70f
The Pledge / int_a88d99c2	type	Vengeance Denied
The Pledge / int_a88d99c2	comment	Vengeance Denied: MatthÃ¤i pledged to avenge the death of a little girl at the hands of a Serial Killer to her parents. After a long time figuring out the man's tactics, he sets up what he thinks is a fool-proof trap.... and the man never arrives. And the detective spends many years afterwards waiting for him, having destroyed his career and relationship with everybody he ever cared about once the fact he used the daughter of a woman he befriended as bait. Turns out that the serial killer was going to fall into the trap, but some random idiot driver hit his car and killed him instantly â€” a fact that is told to the other detective in charge of the case by the wife of the killer, as a Deathbed Confession. The story ends with the detective that made the pledge, now so addled from senility that he can't really think of more than maintaining his vigilance of the trap, refusing to accept that it was All for Nothing.
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The Pledge / int_ab292220	type	The Stakeout
The Pledge / int_ab292220	comment	The Stakeout: The garage MatthÃ¤i uses as his headquarters
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The Pledge / int_af4d6174	type	Setting Update
The Pledge / int_af4d6174	comment	Setting Update: The American film version, made almost five decades after the book, predictably moves the story to the States and the Present Day.
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The Pledge	hasFeature	The Pledge / int_af4d6174
The Pledge / int_beb9a361	type	Anti-Hero
The Pledge / int_beb9a361	comment	Anti-Hero: MatthÃ¤i, who first fails to stand up for von Gunten, and then uses an unsuspecting mother and her young daughter as live bait to catch a serial killer. In the Darker and Edgier novelisation, he also smokes and drinks excessively. He (and his colleagues) hit Annemarie out of pure frustration. And in the end, he goes insane and ends up a senile old drunkard.
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The Pledge / int_c868a42a	type	Freudian Excuse
The Pledge / int_c868a42a	comment	Freudian Excuse: In Tag, the murderer lives under the tyranny of his wife, and vents his spleen on his victims.
The Pledge / int_c868a42a	featureApplicability	1.0
The Pledge / int_c868a42a	featureConfidence	1.0
The Pledge	hasFeature	The Pledge / int_c868a42a
The Pledge / int_cb9aeb6a	type	Vigilante Man
The Pledge / int_cb9aeb6a	comment	Vigilante Man: MatthÃ¤i quits the force and builds up a gas station business for the sole purpose of finding the killer.
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The Pledge / int_d39e327f	type	What the Hell, Hero?
The Pledge / int_d39e327f	comment	What the Hell, Hero?: In the novelisation, and especially in the 2001 movie, the mother gives on to MatthÃ¤i when she finds out why he even engaged her in the first place; to endanger her daughter's life by serving her as bait for a violent murderer.
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The Pledge / int_dbca2c99	type	Red Herring
The Pledge / int_dbca2c99	comment	Red Herring: It is established pretty early that von Gunten wasn't a murderer as much as a victim of popular judgement.
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The Pledge	hasFeature	The Pledge / int_dbca2c99
The Pledge / int_dc579c91	type	Contrived Coincidence
The Pledge / int_dc579c91	comment	Contrived Coincidence: Deliberately played straight and lampshaded by DÃ¼rrenmatt just to avoid a Happy Ending. According to him, this was his way of showing that in real life, chances of catching such killers are lower than probable.
The Pledge / int_dc579c91	featureApplicability	1.0
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The Pledge / int_dca70c44	type	Reasonable Authority Figure
The Pledge / int_dca70c44	comment	Reasonable Authority Figure: MatthÃ¤i is the only person in charge believing in the peddler's innocence.
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The Pledge / int_e1cc36	type	The Bait
The Pledge / int_e1cc36	comment	The Bait: Annemarie, and she doesn't even know.
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The Pledge / int_e2ccee25	type	Animal Motifs
The Pledge / int_e2ccee25	comment	Animal Motifs: Fish and fishing (mentioned in the book, underscored in the movie) - just as a fisherman uses bait to catch fish, MatthÃ¤i (Jerry in the film) uses a little girl as human bait in an attempt to catch a serial killer.
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The Pledge / int_e3add455	type	Children as Pawns
The Pledge / int_e3add455	comment	Children as Pawns: In the various versions, the retired detective befriends/marries a single mother before he decides to use her daughter to lure in an elusive child murderer he never caught. The murderer is killed in a random car accident on the way to the girl, which means it was All for Nothing. The mother also finds out, and justifiably cuts all ties with the detective.
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The Pledge / int_e529d5c3	type	Torches and Pitchforks
The Pledge / int_e529d5c3	comment	Torches and Pitchforks: The population of the murder victim's hometown. In the novel, they even try to physically hinder von Gunten and the policemen escorting him from leaving by blocking the road with the local fire brigade's engine.
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The Pledge / int_e567510d	type	Determinator
The Pledge / int_e567510d	comment	Determinator: MatthÃ¤i sets out to find the murderer even if it means losing his job and becoming a Vigilante Man.
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The Pledge / int_eb251937	type	Dirty Cop
The Pledge / int_eb251937	comment	Dirty Cop: The police examining the murder. They want the case closed as fast as possible, and shift all the blame on the old peddler.
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The Pledge / int_name	type	ItemName
The Pledge / int_name	comment
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The Pledge / int_name	itemName	The Pledge

The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

The Pledge	hasFeature	Children as Pawns / int_1d4e9a1d
The Pledge	hasFeature	No Delays for the Wicked / int_1d4e9a1d
The Pledge	hasFeature	Serial Killer Baiting / int_1d4e9a1d
The Pledge	hasFeature	The Promise / int_1d4e9a1d
The Pledge	hasFeature	Vengeance Denied / int_1d4e9a1d

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