Der Mord ohne Täter (1921)

The story is set in the newspaper world of the United States of America. After an innocent man is executed in the electric chair, Mr. Powell, publisher of the newspaper “Humanity,” decides to show his readers how easily someone can get caught up in the wheels of justice and end up on death row. He wants to demonstrate the possibility of a miscarriage of justice through a staged “murder.” Together with his employee, the young editor Murphy, he devises a plan. Murphy, who is supposed to disappear soon, will play the presumed murder victim, while a young man will play the suspected killer. Fabricated clues to the bloody deed are meant to substantiate the supposed crime. The young man set to play the alleged killer in this farce with a serious purpose is petty crook Bobby Stanley. In fact, everything goes according to plan. Stanley is arrested, the evidence points to him, and a sensational trial follows, in which Stanley is sentenced to death. This would be the moment to reveal the whole charade, but suddenly the “murder victim” is really dead: Murphy’s body is found; he has been shot. Murphy’s fiancée Alice and Powell’s lover Florence do everything they can to prove Stanley’s innocence, while Mr. Powell conspicuously holds back. He has good reason to: this “fake murder” is entirely his doing. Some time earlier, Powell had discovered that Florence was cheating on him with Murphy. The newspaper publisher then devised this complicated scheme to get rid of his rival elegantly, without arousing suspicion against himself. At the last moment, the newspaper mogul makes a confession, and Stanley is spared execution.