Several clients of a Swiss bank receive a copy of their account statement with a note saying that they will be sent to interested parties unless they pay the blackmailer 1 million Swiss francs. The bank receives a similar ransom note asking for a cool 10 million Swiss francs not to reveal the bank’s list of customers. The manager enlists the help of an American private investigators to find out the culprit.

The fictitious 'Hunil Bank' is located at the end of Bahnhofstrasse in Zurich, the finest location for a bank in all of Switzerland. The building has a huge neoclassical facade facing Lake Zurich. The building used in the movie is located at Frauenmünsterstrasse in Zurich. We do not know who owned it when the movie was made. The scenes inside the bank could have been made anywhere, most probably in a Hollywood studio. An open hall with bankers sitting at writing desks welcomes the client, the bank's general manager having a posh office with leather seats and wood interiors.

Reality Check
The plot features a Swiss bank as a central element but not in a very realistic way. We have never heard of a Swiss bank having its clients blackmailed in such a way or any remotely similar. The bank would immediately turn to the police and to an array of private investigators to locate and terminate the blackmailers, and these would make sure that the clients’ privacy is preserved during the inquiry.

The movie speaks about numbered accounts in a relatively realistic way. For numbered accounts only the client advisor, one or two of his deputies, and the general manager have access to the actual name of the client. All others only see the pseudonym. This would make a bank statement with the client’s name impossible, but it implies correctly, as the private detective in the movie points out, that only a handful of the bank’s personnel could have this information, and thus be involved.

The portrayal of the bank is relatively accurate. Most exteriors appear to have been shot in Zurich and Graubünden, Switzerland. The bank’s building and location are very realistic.

The bank’s personnel looks realistic enough but every time there is a crisis they pull out drinks with a resounding ‘I need a drink’, not something one can see in Switzerland, and especially not in a bank.

At the very start of the movie, a man is seen going through customs at Zurich Kloten airport. The custom officials ask him if he has anything to declare, the man says no, but they open his briefcase anyway and see that there is about a million dollars in cash. They thank him and wish him a nice trip. This is a very intriguing scene but, at the time of the movie, rather realistic. Swiss customs do not work for foreign tax authorities and Switzerland has no currency controls. In 1976 there were no money laundering laws either. This would not happen exactly like this today, the custom officials would ask the traveler to step into an adjacent office and ask him some evidence the money is not derived from straight-out crimes.

Not the best movie ever made but very intriguing. There are several versions available on DVD, not all good. There is even a fan page about this movie at http://www.geocities.com/theswissconspiracy/