When a prostitute is murdered, suspicion falls on a young man from a prominent family. He believes that he has evidence implicating the son of the magistrate who is handling the case, but out of friendship withholds it, despite the danger to himself. Based on a play by a well known defense lawyer (Max Alsberg, who committed suicide during the Nazi years), the film has been described as a masterpiece of meticulous observation. Atmospheric and descriptive of its time, it was blacklisted by the Nazis in 1935. British Film Institute's John Gillett notes, “(In Voruntersuchung) we find further influences from Siodmak's German heritage (Lang and the Expressionists)--the discovery of the murder accompanied by a flurry of camera movement across a tenement well--coupled with a foretaste of Siodmak's American period in the scene where the magistrate tries to unsettle a suspect by rattling the pipes in his office. Yet another example of the assured technique of early German sound films....” Note: The film is in German; a written English synopsis will be provided.