Madness Rules (German: Matto regiert) is a 1946 Swiss crime film directed by Leopold Lindtberg and based on a novel by Friedrich Glauser. It is one of Lindtberg’s Wachtmeister Studer films and was later screened at the Zurich Film Festival.
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Background
Madness Rules is based on Friedrich Glauser’s novel Matto regiert. Heinrich Gretler plays Wachtmeister Hermann Studer. He had previously played the character in Leopold Lindtberg’s 1939 film Constable Studer, which was adapted from a novel by Glauser.
Glauser drew on his own experience of psychiatric institutions, and the film presents both a crime story and a conflict between modern and outdated psychiatric methods.
Synopsis
Wachtmeister Studer investigates a disappearance at a psychiatric clinic after a dance for the patients. The young patient Herbert Caplaun had wanted to attend, but the clinic director Ulrich Borstli refused permission, and by the next morning Borstli has vanished.
Cast
The cast includes:
Heinrich Gretler as Wachtmeister Hermann Studer
Heinz Woester as Dr. med. Ernst Laduner
Elisabeth Müller as Irma Wasem
Olaf Kübler as Herbert Caplaun
Irene Naef as Margrit Laduner
Johannes Steiner as Dr. med. Ulrich Borstli
Adolf Manz as Georg Caplaun
Zarli Carigiet as Patient
Hans Kaes as Portier Dreyer
Mathilde Danegger as Dr. med. Spühler
Hans Gaugler as Leibundgut
Emil Hegetschweiler as Pfleger
Reception
Writing in Geschichte des Schweizer Films (1987), Hervé Dumont described the film as visually aligned with film noir and argued that its psychological density outweighs suspense and plot. filmo described the film as a suspenseful crime story with a dense film-noir atmosphere, and wrote that while the criminal plot recedes, Lindtberg focuses on the complex network of relationships within the psychiatric clinic.
Digitisation
The film was digitised in 2009 by Schweizer Fernsehen in Zurich and the Cinémathèque suisse in Lausanne.
Festival screenings
The film premiered in 1946. It was later screened at the 21st Zurich Film Festival in 2025.