Uli Eichenberger

Theophil Läppli is a swiss patriot, who after a trip to Greece tries to recover the democratic roots of Switzerland. With much enthusiasm and idealism he's discovering, that corruption and greed are wide spread in his beloved country. This is the second movie about Theophil Läppli after HD-Soldat Läppli (1959).

Constable Studer of the Bern cantonal police is stubborn and gnarled. Because of his nature, he has few friends. He has this in common with the murder victim: James Farny was known by everyone as "The Chinese". The man had traveled the world and now he has been found shot dead in the village cemetery: was it murder or did he kill himself? He had the gun in his hand. Studer doesn't believe it was suicide...

Bingo and Sturzi became friends in prison and have big plans. After their release, they both want to turn their backs on a life of crime and emigrate to Brazil. When Sturzi is released from prison six months after Bingo, he discovers that his friend is still broke and even has criminal plans again. Sturzi, who has grown older and wiser in prison, is deeply disappointed, but wants to generously pay for the plane tickets out of his small fortune. His guardian disagrees: Sturzi is to go to a men's shelter and pay off his debts first. When he witnesses how amateurishly Bingo and his buddy Schorschi are planning a bank robbery, the old professional in Sturzi awakens.

The title of the film, set in Luxembourg in 1942, during the Nazi occupation, amalgamates the words Schacko (helmet) and chapeau claque (opera hat). The village, in which it is set, has not yet been feeling the effects of the war at this point.

In the 1770s, Swiss farmer Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi established a school for poor orphaned children in the Aargau. Up to total exhaustion he sacrificed himself for his pedagogical theories. Five years later, the project of the idealistic educator failed after bloody attacks of the French. In retrospect, the disappointed Pestalozzi experiences the last few months with "his" children.