In Sachen Timpe Review: The Weirdest Detective Cobbler You Will Ever See

So, In Sachen Timpe is one of those bizarre relics from the 1930s that you stumble onto by accident late at night.

If you are into quirky, physical comedies where German old-timers solve crimes through literal clowning, this is a goldmine. Anyone else will probably find it incredibly annoying within ten minutes. 🤷‍♂️

The whole plot revolves around some missing gold spoons from the boss's house.

Our main guy, the cobbler Timpe, gets blamed for the theft almost immediately because he's poor and nearby.

Instead of doing the logical thing—like finding an actual lawyer—he decides to clear his name using pantomime and wordplay.

It is honestly as ridiculous as it sounds.

I kept thinking about how different this is from other mysteries of the era, like Return of the Terror, which actually tried to keep you on the edge of your seat.

Here, any potential tension is constantly broken because Timpe won't stop juggling words or making weird faces at the camera.

The Art of the Cobbler Clown

There is this one scene in the workshop where he explains his innocence by pretending to be a grandfather clock.

The bit goes on for a solid two minutes without a single cut.

The other actors just stand there in the background, looking slightly embarrassed, waiting for him to finish his routine.

You can almost feel the director behind the camera waving his hands to keep the energy up.

Also, the gold spoons look incredibly fake.

They look like they were spray-painted yellow five minutes before the camera started rolling, and they don't even clink like metal when they hit the table.

But honestly, there is a weird charm to how cheap it all feels.

It feels less like a studio film and more like a regional theater group who got a tiny budget to play around for a weekend.

• The Audio: There is a constant background hiss that makes everyone sound like they are speaking through a tin can.
• The Dog: A random stray dog sits in the background of a street scene, staring directly at the camera the whole time. It is easily the best performance in the film. 🐶
• The Laughs: Hugo Fischer-Köppe has this incredibly loud, grating laugh that made my cat jump off the couch.

The writing by Walter Wassermann is... well, it is very pun-heavy.

Even if you do not speak German, you can feel the sheer desperation in the physical comedy to make sure you get the joke.

It is definitely not a forgotten masterpiece of world cinema.

But if you want to see an old man turn a serious court case into a circus act, it is worth a look just for the sheer oddity of it.