MovieChat Forums > Armchair Thriller (1978) Discussion > A dog's ransom

A dog's ransom

posted 11 years ago by lunar11
4 replies | jump to latest

I enjoyed the episodes to this film, but I was a little confused at the end. The murderer turned out to be a police inspector, but where does the point of asking for a ransom for the dog come in.

[–] Advatra 11 years ago

the old Polish man was doing the ransoming not the cop. This was noir, nobody expected to kill anybody, it just spiraled out of control. The only person the cop killed was the other cop as a form of vigilantism, and because he hated the poor guy.

[–] Deej551 8 years ago

I think it was mainly because he hated and felt threatened by the poor guy (although I was't crazy about his or anyone's character in this- Patricia Highsmith wrote it after all, didn't she?) - and was insecure. The less "educated" cop killed the Polish man, while the younger cop had just beaten him. My question, as I missed it, is did the Polish guy burn the 50 pouds because he had spent 150 pounds of it and hadn't yet gotten around to spending the rest? Or did he mean to frame the cop-was that his plan? Because I couldn't quite figure out how he knew THAT cop would be framed.

[–] drednm 7 years ago

He burned the money so he could accuse Clarence of taking the money as a bribe. The Polish guys was nuts. The ugly killer cop was nuts. Everyone else was basically a victim that started with the dognapping. Really odd story but it sure was not predictable.

[–] Deej551 7 years ago

Thanks! I appreciate the answer!