Suspenseful, Intriguing, Unconventional
Year Released: 2019
Directed by: Umut Dag, Robert Dornhelm
Starring: Matthew Beard, Jürgen Maurer, Jessica De Gouw, Luise von Finckh
(Not Suitabl for all Audiences. approx 139 min. per episode)

“I can paint you an image of the killer.” Dr. Max Liebermann

Who knew that Sigmund Freud, or at least one of his fictional pupils, was the first FBI profiler? Well not exactly. It’s not the FBI, but the Vienna Police, and we are way back a century or so as well. But the atmosphere and witty banter are to die for.

Max Liebermann, a student of Sigmund Freud, helps Detective Rheinhardt in the investigation of a series of disturbing murders around the grand cafés and opera houses of 1900s Vienna.

Max (Matthew Beard) is keen to understand the criminal mind and begins to observe Oskar Rheinhardt (Jürgen Maurer), a Detective Inspector in the Vienna Police Department, who is struggling with a perplexing case. Max’s extraordinary skills of perception and forensics, and his deep understanding of human behaviour and deviance, help Oskar solve Vienna’s most mysterious cases. –BBC

The series is based on the Max Liebermann novels by Frank Tallis, who adds his insight into the characters…

It is through Rheinhardt that Liebermann becomes involved with police investigations, applying his psychoanalytic knowledge – particularly when suspects are interviewed. Liebermann’s technique, of course, is to allow unconscious processes to betray their misdemeanours ‘through every pore’.

And, of course, Different Drummer is not the only one who sees similarities between Lieberman and Freud. The author of the novels intends that, and perhaps that is why Sherlock writer Steve Thompson is bringing us this new drama following a Victorian-era English doctor who solves some of Austria’s most unusual crimes.

Novelist Frank Tallis adds, “There are many commonalities that link detection and psychoanalysis. Fundamentally, Sigmund Freud and Sherlock Holmes were in the same business.”

Of course, in our first case we have some of the mystery genre’s greatest enigmas: the murder in a locked room, an apparent suicide, except for the absence of a weapon, and a bullet wound without any bullet in the body.

No wonder the put upon Vienna detective, Oskar Reinhardt (Jürgen Maurer) does not take kindly to having a young doctor shadow him, the politically connected Dr. Liebermann (Mathew Beard).

Their first ride together in a horse drawn carriage, the doctor and the detective, is very reminiscent of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson. For a while at least, we might as well be in Arthur Conan Doyle’s Victorian London with the foggy night air, the snap of the whip, and echoing hoof beats piercing the darkness.

But here it’s a bit of a rough ride. The detective sets the tone immediately when he asks how Liebermann wishes to be addressed.

Inspector Reinhardt: What do I call you, Doctor?
Dr. Leibermann: Call me Max. And you?
Inspector Reinhardt: Inspector

Another difference from our Sherlock analogy is that the one who will do the deep analysis is the doctor not the detective, a nice, slightly dissonant note, making the parallel more interesting.

Of course, for all his “Call me Max” bonhomie, the good doctor is arrogant in his own way. He quickly moves out of his shadowing role at crime scenes and begins to ask his own questions or even worse, provide some answers. And what really irks, is that he actually proves to be right most of the time.

Just like Holmes, Max assesses so much just by observation. The inspector, he notes, is extremely anxious. He chews coffee beans, slams doors, forgets the name of his longtime assistant, and wipes his sweaty palms on his rumpled suit. In fact, Max notes, the inspector is not just anxious; he is desperate. Has it been a while since he has solved a case?

So here is the crux of the series. The relationship between the two. Unlike the average detective bested by an amateur, instead of being merely insulted by Max’s correct analysis, our detective decides he needs the help of someone so talented.

But it is not just Max making all the right moves. He has a lot to learn in terms of real police work, such seeing the sights of Vienna in a new way as the two chase a suspect over perilous rooftops, or visiting the seedy side of town with its grubby pubs and courtesans to interview suspects.

Along the way we peer into the dark recesses of asylums of the day, complete with electroshock “therapy,” straight jackets, the resident lunatics wandering around muttering, mute, screaming, or laughing hysterically. And often they are tied down or caged in their beds. Not quite the stuff of Freud’s enlightened psychoanalysis yet, and Dr. Liebermann does not approve.

In fact, he gives some alternative hypnotic therapy to a young patient covertly, and promptly begins to fall in love with her, in spite the fact that he is almost engaged to a perfectly lovely girl who has all the right connections, plus the complete approval of his socially conscious parents. Where do you think this is going, right?

And don’t miss the finale of the first of three in the series – very reminiscent of the Ferris wheel scene between Orson Welles and Joseph Cotton in The Third Man. Except now it’s not just two old pals talking up there. One of the pair is our killer and he means to have more than a conversation about Michelangelo and cuckoo clocks.

Not to miss! A cut above even the best of mysteries, this is an instant classic. Only not for the little ones. Let them watch the Disney channel in another room. (Oops! That recommendation is past its expiration date.)

–Kathy Borich
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Trailer

Film-Loving Foodie

Our recipe draws on the Freudian and Jewish connections of Dr. Max Liebermann, a significant part of our crime fighting duo in Vienna Blood. It’s Sachertorte, the Jewish Masculine Chocolate Cake from Vienna’s Lost Coffeehouse Past: Sigmund Freud’s Beloved Dessert.

A LOVE-HATE relationship with Vienna is (how) Sigmund Freud connected with the city’s food and culture as a whole. He loved every bit of Viennese cuisine — except, for example, its popular baked chicken. He loved sausages, and he shared the city’s love for gravies and fatty food. But above all, he regularly indulged in his favorite sweet treat, Sachertorte, at the Hotel Sacher itself, where he would smoke cigars and accompany the torte with a Kapuziner (Vienna’s predecessor to the cappuccino that bestowed the name upon the Italian coffee drink). This cake must have been to him, as for its Jewish inventor Franz Sacher, a sign of successful Jewish assimilation par excellence.

Sachertorte at Café Central where Hitler and Trotsky were patrons in 1913 Vienna, along with Lenin, Stalin, Tito, and Freud. The coffeehouse used to be a men’s world, as opposed to the Konditorei, the pastry shop, where the women used to gather. As such the Sachertorte, intended as a masculine counterpart to fluffy and creamy tortes, is the coffeehouse’s cake par excellence. –Nino of Schibboleth.com

Freud’s Favorite Dessert

Ingredients

1/2 cup chopped dried apricots
1/2 cup amaretto
1 package devil's food cake mix (regular size)
3 large eggs
3/4 cup water
1/3 cup canola oil
FILLING:
2/3 cup apricot preserves
1 tablespoon amaretto
GLAZE:
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1/4 cup light corn syrup
12 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped
4 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup toasted sliced almonds, optional

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Combine apricots and amaretto; let stand 15 minutes. In another bowl, combine cake mix, eggs, water, oil and apricot mixture. Beat on low speed 30 seconds; beat on medium 2 minutes.
2. Pour into two greased and floured 9-in. round baking pans. Bake until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, 22-27 minutes. Cool in pans 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.
3. For filling, heat apricot preserves and amaretto on low in a small saucepan, stirring occasionally, until preserves are melted; set aside.
4. For glaze, combine cream and corn syrup in a small saucepan. Bring just to a boil. Pour over chocolate; whisk until smooth. Stir in vanilla.
5. Using a long serrated knife, cut each cake horizontally in half. Place one layer on a serving plate; spread with half of the filling. Top with another layer; spread with a third of the glaze. Cover with third layer and remaining filling. Top with remaining layer; spread top and sides of torte with remaining glaze. If desired, spread toasted almonds on sides of torte. Refrigerate several hours before slicing.

Taste of Home.com