''Graf Yoster gibt sich die Ehre'' (French title: ''Le comte Yoster a bien l'honneur'') – which translates to English as ''Count Yoster has the Honour'' – was a television series produced between 1967 and 1976. Starring Lukas Ammann and

Wolfgang Völz Wolfgang Otto Völz (16 August 1930 – 2 May 2018) was a German actor. He is known for his roles in theatre plays, TV shows, feature films (especially German films based on Edgar Wallace works) and taped radio shows. He was also a very prolifi ...

, the series followed the adventures of the title's aristocratic

gentleman detective The gentleman detective, less commonly lady detective, is a type of fictional character. He (or she) has long been a staple of crime fiction, particularly in detective novels and short stories set in the United Kingdom in the Golden Age. The heroe ...

and his working-class butler. It was a success, in particular in

West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...

and in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

. Originally the show was a West German production in

black-and-white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white in a continuous spectrum, producing a range of shades of grey. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, and as technology improved, altered to color. ...

but it evolved into a

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

an co-production in colour.

Main character

Lukas Ammann plays Graf (Count) Yoster, who is presented as an impeccable gentleman. He wore a traditional suit and bowler hat, and carried an umbrella, similar to

John Steed Major The Hon. John Wickham Gascoyne Beresford Steed usually known as John Steed, is a fictional character and the central protagonist on the 1960s British spy series '' The Avengers'' and its 1970s sequel '' The New Avengers'', played by Pa ...

in the TV series '' The Avengers''. Although he lived in a castle in

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...

(where, especially in the beginning, a great deal of the show was shot) he had no Bavarian accent and his appearance was as British as his Rolls-Royce.

Sidekick

played Ioan (or in German: Johann), the count's butler. The idea that a butler could be a hero was for German audiences already established by Butler Parker. Ioan would sometimes engage in investigations and then bring the count up to speed on the case as well as literally while h
drove the count's Rolls-Royce
Moreover, he would instantly transform into the count's bodyguard whenever anybody endangered the count's well-being by trying to approach him in an inappropriate manner. Ioan applied his highly efficient close-combat techniques in a very businesslike way, completely different from any Hollywood boxing or Hong Kong martial arts style, and rather resembled the way British soldiers are taught to tackle similar situations. He was portrayed as a man of modest origins and it was repeatedly implied that he had been entangled in criminal activities before entering the count's employ.

Genre

Graf Yoster was very much an amateur detective in the tradition of Dorothy Sayer's Lord Peter Wimsey. His cases were accordingly

whodunit A ''whodunit'' or ''whodunnit'' (a colloquial elision of "Who asdone it?") is a complex plot-driven variety of detective fiction in which the puzzle regarding who committed the crime is the main focus. The reader or viewer is provided with the c ...

s although in the end Ioan would frequently have to give him a hand disarming the detected offenders.

Directors

Among the directors was Imo Moszkowicz, who had also directed a German TV series starring

Josef Meinrad Josef Meinrad (21 April 1913 – 18 February 1996) was an Austrian actor. From 1959 until his death in 1996, Meinrad held the Republic of Austria's Iffland-Ring, which passes from actor to actor — each bequeathing the ring to the next holder, ju ...

Father Brown Father Brown is a fictional Roman Catholic priest and amateur detective who is featured in 53 short stories published between 1910 and 1936 written by English author G. K. Chesterton. Father Brown solves mysteries and crimes using his intui ...

Guest stars (selection)

External links

*{{IMDb title, 59990
Krimi Homepage (German only)
* ttp://beatrice.romand.free.fr Homepage of Béatrice Romand Black-and-white television shows German crime television series 1960s German television series 1967 German television series debuts 1977 German television series endings German-language television shows Das Erste original programming