Tim Bergfelder: International Adventures

I first heard about Tim Bergfelder’s International Adventures - German Popular Cinema and European Co-Productions in the 1960s when reading Nicholas Schlegel’s excellent German Popular Cinema and the Rialto Krimi Phenomenon: Dark Eyes of London. International Adventures makes a fantastic companion piece to Schlegel’s book as it provides the general cultural and business framework that Schlegel then focuses on specifically for the Krimi genre. Bergfelder includes a chapter on Krimis in his book but also includes Karl May and other adventure and genre movies as well as the wave of sex movies that started in the late 1960s. 

International Adventures is again an academic book so it’s not necessarily easy reading but it rewards the patient reader with a plethora of otherwise hard to obtain info. 

It also generally doesn’t come cheaply though I managed to get my copy for a measly tenner during a special promotion on Book Depository so it may be worth setting up an alert for other similar promotions. (At the time of writing though it still can be obtained fairly cheaply... at least for my neck of the woods.) 

Though the main focus is on the 1960s, the book also provides a wealth of info on the German film industry in the decades before and after, specifically the 1950s and 1970s. 

In contrast to a lot of other film books, this work is not so much about the creation of individual films (i.e. directors, stars or individual reviews) but on film as a business. As such this book has a much bigger slant on the big business of production and distribution companies as well as their marketing and general societal shifts and sociological acceptance of film as a product. 

One of biggest insights is how little Hollywood was of importance to German cinema goers up until the 1970s. Despite being faced with a potential avalanche of US productions after the end of WW2, Hollywood movies only on occasion featured in the Top 10 of the top grossing films each year. 

Instead the (West) German audience favoured homegrown or European productions or even older German movies that were being re-released. Even the most popular stars then were rarely American but usually German or European. 

Following an initial phase of more depressing Trümmerfilme (rubble films), more similar in line to Italian Neo Realism, the audience demanded more carefree entertainment to help them forget about their troubles so after an initial reluctance to support a new German movie industry, the Allies started granting permissions to build that industry back up from scratch, often with the assistance of de-nazified talents from the Hitler era or German writers and directors that had emigrated to Hollywood during the Third Reich and now gradually returned home. 

One popular genre during the 1950s were the Heimatfilme (often saccharine weepies set in German and Austrian mountain ranges). It was often symptomatic that the most successful productions were set abroad or in past times. This was gradually helped by a complex system of European co-productions that ensured that the films could be produced at higher budgets and be guaranteed to also sell abroad. Looking at a lot of German films at the time, it does appear that Germany may not have welcomed US movies that much but instead still celebrated a newfound cosmopolitanism regardless as displayed in the settings the films are based in and the stars featured there. 

The high time of those co-productions was during the 1960s and the author makes a very poignant claim that even ostensibly “German” films and series could not have been possible without this newfound cosmopolitan mindset. 

A case in point are indeed the Krimis. The Rialto series of 32 Edgar Wallace productions e.g. started off as Danish-German co-productions and ended up as Italo-German Giallo/Krimi hybrids and in between also saw mutual deals with French and English companies. 

 And needless to say their plots were also not based in Germany but in an imaginary England full of clichéd but sympathetic aristocratic and eccentric characters, based on the works of an author who had long since fallen out of favour in his home country but had still remained popular in Germany. 

Other similar productions would include the Mabuse, Jerry Cotton or Kommissar X movies. 

International Adventures features a lot of detail on the main business people behind distribution companies like Gloria (Ilse Kubaschewski) and Constantin as well as production companies such as Rialto (Horst Wendlandt) and CCC (Artur “Atze” Brauner) and even dives into some of the later bargain basement producers such as Wolf C. Hartwig’s Rapid. 

The author even makes a highly unusual but valid point that Harry Alan Towers’ co-productions may even count as “German” genre films given their often significant financial and talent involvement from there and as some of his movies were released much earlier in Germany than in the UK. 

He also highlights that Krimis and other German popular cinema usually tends to be reviewed from a typical Hollywood B-movie perspective, yet in their home country these were the most successful mainstream productions at the time so the traditional Anglo-American division of A and B pictures is just not suitable when analysing those films. 

All in all, a lot of food for thought in this book (this review really only covered the broad surface) and I for one will often return back to it. 

Ann Smyrner (03 Nov 1934 - 29 Aug 2016)

Ann Smyrner is a familiar face amongst Krimi fans…. provided they are willing and able to dig deeper than just the series of Rialto Wallaces as she did not star in any of those but did instead featured in three other classic Krimis where for the most part she was predominantly cast as attractive eye candy next to the main male lead. 

 Smyrner is Adrian Hoven’s love interest in the Austrian standalone Krimi Die schwarze Kobra/The Black Cobra (1963). Directed by Rudolf Zehetgruber this film featured Hoven as an ex-con and also starred Klaus Kinski. 

That same year Smyrner re-united again with Zehetgruber and Kinski for Piccadilly Null Uhr 12 [Piccadilly Zero Hour 12] (1963), another standalone Krimi, and again she plays the romantic interest for Helmut Wildt’s lead, yet another character who had spent time behind bars. 

Both of those films are at best very middling productions and Smyrner ended up with her biggest and most interesting Krimi related role in Das siebente Opfer /The Racetrack Murders (1964), the final Bryan Edgar Wallace film of the 1960s. She quite literally played the lead role here as her character, part of a family of race horse owners who one by one get killed off, is revealed to become the seventh and final victim of this serial killer. In some of the scenes she is also clearly seen riding at one of the races. 

 Born in Denmark, Smyrner was raised in Aarhus where her parents were working at the theatre, her father as an actor, her mother a singer. 

She started modelling as a teenager and visited the local drama school where she won an acting award at the age of 21 before moving to Munich. 

After a supporting role in a comedy, she straight away bagged her first lead in Lilli - ein Mädchen aus der Großstadt [Lilli - a Girl from the Big City] (1958). This film was based on a very popular tabloid cartoon about a quick witted call-girl. In actual fact the cartoon was so popular that it spawned a series of Lilli dolls which in turn inspired the creation of the Barbie Doll.

 Smyrner was chosen for the part after winning a highly publicised casting process and despite some fans of the character voicing concerns that such a German icon should not be played by a Danish actress with at the time just a rudimentary command of the German language. 

 Given that her voice was going to be dubbed, this didn’t seem to matter too much but regardless of it all, the film flopped. This, however, did not stop Smyrner featuring in a good number of lightweight fluffy German comedies in the subsequent years. 

One of those comedies, Frühstück im Doppelbett/Breakfast in Bed (1963), first teamed her up with Lex Barker who played against type and in a supporting role in this star vehicle for German Dream Couple Liselotte Pulver and O.W. Fischer. Smyrner also appeared next to Barker in Das Todesauge von Ceylon/The Death Eye of Ceylon (1963) and Code 7, Victim 5 (1964). 

Smyrner and Barker were often seen together and throughout the 1960s Smyrner appears to have also become quite infatuated with a number of her other male co-stars. 

 Denmark is not exactly known for their Science Fiction B-Movies but in the early 1960s the country produced two of those and Smyrner starred in both of them: Reptilicus (1961) was the country’s only Kaiju film. Poul Bang shot the Danish version, Sidney W. Pink the English language one and Pink, a year later, also directed Journey to the Seventh Planet (1962) in Denmark. 

During the 1960s Smyner moved away from the comedies and can be spotted in a range of different popular genres: 

 She featured in the second Kommissar X movie Drei gelbe Katzen/Death is Nimble, Death is Quick (1966), based on a German pulp series. 

Another German pulp adaptation was …4 ...3 ...2 ...1 ...morte/Mission Stardust (1967), this time based on the immensely popular Perry Rhodan series that over the decades was going to become the longest running literary Science Fiction series of all times with currently more than 3200 issues and several spin offs to its name. 

Smyrner can be seen in minor swashbuckler L'uomo di Toledo/The Captain from Toledo (1965), modern adventure film Jagd auf blaue Diamanten/Diamond Walkers (1965) or a Euro Spy comedy such as Un killer per sua maestà/The Killer Likes Candy (1968). 

She also had a small part in Angelique et le roy/Angelique and the King (1966), the third part in an immensely popular series of adventure movies set in the time of Louis XIV and based on the novels of Anne Golon, and also featured in the Vincent Price movie House of 1,000 Dolls (1967). 

 Towards the end of the 60s and into the early 1970s, the quality roles stopped coming in and she was mainly asked to perform in soft sex films and bargain basement comedies in which she also occasionally appeared topless. The first of those was Das Go Go Girl vom Blow Up [The Go Go Girl from the Blow Up] (1969), also featuring Eddi Arent and Fritz Wepper. 

 Das gelbe Haus am Pinnasberg/The Yellow House on Pinnasberg (1970) was directed by Alfred Vohrer. She had previously acted under him for Mit 17 weint man nicht [One doesn’t Cry at 17] (1960) but never appeared in any of his more famous Krimis. 

Tante Trude aus Buxtehude [Aunt Trude from Buxtehude] (1971) reunited Smyrner with director Franz Josef Gottlieb who had previously already directed her for Das siebente Opfer/The Racetrack Murders (1964). 

At the time Ann Smyrner also appeared in roles for TV, most notably an episode of Robert Wagner vehicle “It Takes a Thief” (The Beautiful People, October 09, 1969) and the second episode of “Der Kommissar” (January 17, 1969), a series that was going to become one of Germany’s most famous TV Krimis and was developed and written by Herbert Reinecker who had also contributed scripts to several Krimis, most famously for Der Hexer/The Ringer (1964). 

Her last feature film appears to have been little seen Italian Euro-Crime Thriller Ore di Terrore [Hours of Terror] (1971) about three escaped prisoners on board of a luxury yacht. 

 When asked about her films later on in life she replied: 

“You just went home and that was it. I'm also aware that a lot of the movies were just plain shit, but I was just a girl with a lust for life looking for fun, men and money. And I've enjoyed my life accordingly.”

 Disappointed about the way her career was going and following a stint in a hospital Smyrner found religion and in 1973 started studying theology and subsequently penned books and articles and held lectures about a variety of esoteric matters. 

In the latter part of her life she lived in Benalmádena in Spain and had a long distance relationship with Danish journalist Ole Hansen who visited her once a month. 

It is there that she died on August 29, 2016 at the age of 82.

Piccadilly Null Uhr Zwölf (1963)

When Mike Hilton (Helmut Wildt) gets released from prison after eight years behind bars, he swears revenge on those responsible for it and vows to prove his innocence. He teams up with Jack Bellamy (Hanns Lothar), the policeman responsible for his capture at the time, who has now become an alcoholic and left the service. Hilton learns that his previous landlady has since passed away but in no time at all starts flirting with her niece (Ann Smyrner). Bellamy on the other hand gets financial assistance from his lover Della (Marlene Warrlich), a happy hooker with a heart of gold who gets killed by her pimp Lee Costello (Karl Lieffen) when she wants to leave the business. 

Hilton’s former lawyer Sir Reginald Cunningham (Pinkas Braun) and the sadistic albino “Whitey” Skipper (Klaus Kinski) play a crucial role in Hilton’s thirst for revenge. 

And then we also have a large inheritance, a client suffering a heart attack while visiting a callgirl, some dodgy mask play and a few confusing narrative strands more. 

 A German Noir…. kind of 

 Francis Durbridge (1912-1998) was for German TV what Edgar Wallace was to the cinema. 

Wallace’s Krimis were incredibly successful at the box office but also saw a few less impressive TV adaptations at the time. And where Durbridge had resounding success on German TV screens, his oeuvre also inspired a lesser known German cinematic feature film. 

Durbridge was one of the prime source authors for a series of incredibly popular TV mini series that were widely known as “Strassenfeger”, i.e. “street sweepers”, productions that when they were broadcast quite literally emptied the streets as practically everyone with a television set ended up watching it. 

The most famous as well as notorious of those was Das Halstuch (1962), starring past and future Wallace veterans like Heinz Drache, Dieter Borsche, Horst Tapper, Albert Lieven and Margot Trooger, and based on Durbridge’s novel The Scarf. 

 This series was involved in a famous scandal when just the day before its eagerly anticipated final episode, comedian Wolfgang Neuss posted a large size newspaper advert in which he revealed the identity of the main culprit, a stunt that shook up the nation and resulted in him getting death threats and being branded a traitor to the country by the yellow press. 

 Though some sources claim that Piccadilly Null Uhr Zwölf (1963, translation: “Piccadilly, Zero Hour 12”) was based on a novel or story by Durbridge called 12 Past 12, nothing under that title seems to exist and, similarly to the Bryan Edgar Wallace series, only the name of the author was employed to drum up interest in this production. The closest Durbridge came to being involved in this film was a discussion in London with producer Eberhard Meichsner at the height of the Profumo affair in which the two of them were throwing around some story ideas for a possible movie. 

Piccadilly Null Uhr Zwölf is in many ways an anti-Wallace. 

 Rather than focus on outrageously masked super villains, bizarre angles and Gothic moods, this production is much more realistic and in many ways even somewhat Noir with its classic tale of a man seeking revenge in gritty urban streets and its depiction of a policeman haunted by his past and reverting to alcoholism. 

On paper (or: celluloid) this film has so much going for it. It’s very rare e.g, to see one of the leads being financially supported by their escort-girlfriend and then, when she is being threatened, forgetting about their promise to protect her in favour of some more booze in a local bar and thereby carrying some responsibility for her brutal murder. 

And yet there is a total lack of tension. Director Rudolf Zehetgruber proves yet again that even though his main cinematic output at the time were Krimis and thrillers, he missed more than he managed to hit. The film just plots along without a genuine main, central mystery. Despite a variety of narrative threads there is a distinct loss of focus. It never even becomes quite clear what exactly happened eight years prior that led to Hilton’s incarceration and Bellamy’s descent into alcoholism. Indeed everybody and their mother seems to know that Hilton was innocent, so why did he need to spend that much time in prison? 

All the other individual plot elements (the corpse of a man who hasn’t really died, several murders, an inheritance) just get listlessly thrown around and for the most part we never even get to see when yet another character gets killed. Instead, in its one single bit of comic relief we see a young boy (Ilja Richter, later to become presenter of Disco, Germany’s equivalent to Top of the Pops) discovering the bodies floating in the water and meticulously describing their state to a Bobby. 

 Oh, and the boy’s name? Edgar Wallace. (Har har!) 

 Though a lot of the advertisement for this production focussed on Klaus Kinski and Pinkas Braun, the actual lead actors, Helmut Wildt and Hanns Lothar, are virtual unknowns within the Krimi genre and not really able to carry the emotional weight and charisma required for what are essentially tragic and hardboiled roles. Especially Lothar as the alcoholic ex-cop looks genuinely out of his depth and is too dull and chinless to elicit any kind of interest in the viewer. 

As such it is up to Kinski and Braun to instil any kind of interest in the production, a task they aimlessly master as usual. 

Other more familiar faces in supporting roles include Ann Smyrner (The Black Cobra, The Racetrack Murders, Kommissar X: Death Is Nimble, Death Is Quick) as a photographer and Hilton’s love interest and Rudolf Fernau (e.g. The Strangler of Blackmoor Castle, The Mad Executioners) as Inspector Craddock as well as Dieter Eppler and Albert Bessler. 

 Needless to say none of the scenes filmed in Berlin looks like anything resembling Piccadilly and the music by Russell Garcia (another person not genuinely associated with this genre) also just tootles along with little impact. 

All in all there probably is a reason why this production never appears to have had an English language release. Kinski and Braun alone make this essential viewing but other than that this production could have been so very promising but ultimately just disappoints.

TRAILER (in German)

FULL FILM (in German)

Book review on CINEPUNKED

 

CINEPUNKED just published my review of Nicholas G. Schlegel's German Popular Cinema and the Rialto Phenomenon: Dark Eyes of London, the first full length English language book on Rialto's Edgar Wallace Krimis.

Check it out and while you're at it also explore their podcast and everything else they have happening right now.

Der Würger vom Tower/Strangler of the Tower (1966)

When a woman gets killed, suspicions are aroused that the “Strangler of the Tower” may be on the loose again, a serial killer who preferably strangled his victims in the vicinity of the Tower of London. A stolen emerald that forms part of a larger stone reported to have divine healing powers provides the first clue that the owners of the other pieces are now in danger as well. The murders are organised by a Secret Society in KKK style hoods that attempt to reunite all the existing emeralds. A mysterious book, long since out of print, about the history of the stone may provide the solution to the mystery. 

 Der Würger vom Tower/Strangler of the Tower (1966) is one of the lesser known Krimis. It’s a standalone entry not based on any literary source. Instead Swiss exploitation legend Erwin C. Dietrich, who also produced this film, wrote the script under the pseudonym “Michael Thomas”.

 For director Hans Mehringer this would prove to be his one and only feature film. Mehringer would go on to focus exclusively on TV work.

 No doubt about it, Strangler of the Tower is a fun film that at first glance ticks off all the right boxes: Adi Berber as the brutish killer, a complex mystery, bizarrely masqueraded members of a secret society congregating in underground chambers, some innocent striptease scenes and less innocent whippings combined with a superior jazzy soundtrack by Swiss composer and electronic music legend Bruno Spoerri ensures that time passes in a breeze. 

And yet, one also cannot shake off the feeling that something is often amiss and with just a few minor tweaks this could have been elevated from a passable time waster to an all time cult classic.

  The film’s biggest drawback is its total absence of a proper protagonist. There are intriguing characters galore but none of them feature consistently enough to qualify as a passable hero (or even anti-hero) for the audience to identify with or root for. They sort of all just come and go from time to time until they vanish again.

 The powers of Scotland Yard are primarily represented by Hans Reiser as Inspector Harvey, one of the least charismatic detectives in Krimiland.

 Fresh from the first Kommissar X - Jagd auf Unbekannt/Kiss Kiss, Kill Kill (1966), Christa Linder here plays the daughter of the first victim who inherits her mother’s jewellery and quickly gets abducted and tortured in an underground cavern. Linder’s character is introduced as a potential leading lady but then disappears again for far too long.

 Another potential heroine is played by Kai Fischer (from Zimmer 13/Room 13 (1964) and a small number of other Krimis). Her Grace Harrison is the prolific author of some popular crime novels, a kind of modern day Edgar Wallace. In a jibe to rival medium TV she tells a postman that writing “more than two books in a week is too tiring. Otherwise I’d be writing for television.”

 Linder, Fischer and Ellen Schwiers (as Lady Trenton) make up a female triumvirate that is a joy to watch, even though each one of them is simply not given enough to do in this production to properly shine.

 Their male counterpart is Charles Regnier in a double role both as a dubious jeweller and his louchy twin brother who lives an alcohol fuelled life on the run from the police after some dodgy business deals went wrong.

 Released posthumously Strangler of the Tower would prove to be Ady Berber’s final film. He had passed away from cancer at the untimely age of 53 on January 03, 1966.

 All those as well as a range of other characters ensure that the viewer is never bored, even though one would have wished there’d be more of an anchor character to focus on in a story that at times gets quite muddled up and borderline incomprehensible.

 Special mention must go to the “Brothers of Poetic Justice” (“Brüder der ausgleichenden Gerechtigkeit, in the English dub: “Brothers in the Holy Order of Righteousness”), a most unfortunately named Secret Society with members who have no calms removing their hoods in front of witnesses when enraged. As secretive as they are, they also keep approaching rich sponsors in trying to convince them to sign over their possessions to them as if they were a registered charity. And then we even discover how badly they were manipulated by a truly raving madman!

 This film is at times a mess but it’s a joyful and fast moving mess that is worth exploring once you already took some large sips of the regular Edgar Wallace drink and have also tasted some of the other better known copy cats. 

 Both the original German version as well as the English language dub are currently available on YouTube.

TRAILER

GERMAN VERSION

ENGLISH VERSION

Spanish Film Posters

 I recently ventured into the attic that swallows all and retrieved some of my film memorabilia: stuff that I hadn't seen in years, things that I forgot I had and then even collectibles that I can't even remember I ever bought like those three Spanish film posters.

La marca del escorpión, the Spanish version of the Rialto Wallace Im Banne des Unheimlichen/The Zombie Walks (1968).

Der Fluch der gelben Schlange (1963) was released in Spain as La maldición amarilla. This is an adaption of Edgar Wallace's The Curse of the Yellow Snake. It was produced by Rialto rival CCC-Film and to the best of my knowledge has never been released in English.

And last but not least a Spanish film poster for Jerry Cotton film Der Mörderclub von Brooklyn/Murderers Club of Brooklyn (1967) aka El club de asasinos de Brooklyn.

Looking at all those posters reminds me about all the films I still need to write about....

Krimi Podcast Alert - The Bloody Pit of Rod

Over the last few years I had my ear to the ground and now seem to detect a remote rumbling sound that indicates that the German Krimi genre is slowly - ever so slowly - getting more recognition amongst International cult film admirers. 

Case in point: Bloody Pit of Rod's new podcast episode dedicated to Der grüne Bogenschütze/The Green Archer (1961) in particular and the Krimi in general.

For this episode Rod invited Nicholas Schlegel, author of the excellent German Popular Cinema and the Rialto Krimi Phenomenon: Dark Eyes of London, the recent (and first!) English language book on the subject.

German Lobby Card Set for DER GORILLA VON SOHO/THE GORILLA GANG (1968)

A colour remake of Rialto’s own Die toten Augen von London/Dead Eyes of London (1961), again directed by Alfred Vohrer. 

 Though entire scenes and lines of dialogue are lifted almost verbatim and set design (e.g. the water tank) as well as certain directorial ideas (such as the reflections in a pair of dark glasses) look more than familiar, Der Gorilla von Soho/The Gorilla Gang (1968) eliminated the entire main plot line involving a gang of blind beggars. Instead of messages in Braille, the corpses now carry small dolls with African writing, leading Insp. David Perkins (Horst Tappert) and Sgt. Jim Pepper (Uwe Friedrichsen) with the help of Susan McPherson (Uschi Glas) to The Gorilla Gang whose main henchman operates in a gorilla costume right in the middle of London. 

 Which admittedly is pretty ridiculous even within the Edgar Wallace universe that thrives on masked villains. 

The film also features nudity and a workhouse for young women replaces the home for the blind in the original. 

Whereas Dead Eyes of London is a classic within this genre, The Gorilla Gang lacks any of that movie’s moodiness and mystery and replaces it with a brightly coloured mix of silliness that makes it fun to watch even though one would be hard pressed to call it genuinely good. 

 The investigating team of Perkins and Pepper would return in the next Rialto Wallace, Der Mann mit dem Glasauge/The Man With the Glass Eye (1968), yet another remake (of sorts). In that film Sgt. Pepper would, however, be portrayed by Stefan Behrens.

Death Match: THE PHANTOM vs. GLASS EYE

In my recent review of Der Mann mit dem Glasauge/The Man With the Glass Eye (1968) I wrote: 

 “The Man With the Glass Eye is one of those Wallace films that doesn’t even pretend to be based on any of his novels anymore. Its development, however, is probably way more interesting than a straight forward adaptation would have been as this is an example where a rival production from a different studio initially influenced by the success of the Rialto Wallaces in turn influenced a film in the original series back again. 

Ladislas Fodor, an author who had been very influential in creating the 1960s series of Mabuse movies, had also provided a screenplay for Artur Brauner’s CCC Film production Das Phantom von Soho/The Phantom of Soho (1964), allegedly based on Bryan Edgar Wallace’s novel Murder by Proxy, a book that does not, however, seem to exist. In his screenplay Fodor focused on a string of knife murders in London’s red light district, committed by a masked killer in revenge for the actions of a gang of drug and girl smugglers. 

Which kind of is the entire premise of The Man With the Glass Eye as well! (Right down to the exact nature of the reason for the revenge.) 

For Rialto’s production Fodor supplied a treatment under the title “Die grausame Puppe” [The Cruel Doll]. His involvement went uncredited and his treatment was reworked by Paul Hengge whose name features in the credits of Rialto’s 28th Wallace movie. 

There is speculation as to whether Phantom of Soho’s screenplay may have simply been sold over to Rialto at the time. Whatever exactly happened remains unknown but the similarities between both movies is striking (and possibly a subject for a future blog post).” 

 I have just rewatched Das Phantom von Soho/The Phantom of Soho (1964) so now thought it would be neat to have a little death match between those two movies to see which comes out the superior production. 

 Mind you, this is just a fun little exercise. Both movies are thoroughly enjoyable in their own right and get a thumbs up from me but this kind of exercise may help highlight some of the differences between the two rival series as well as how the Krimi genre ended up progressing over time. 

I have come up with a number of categories under which I will have a quick look at the two movies before announcing the winner in each category. At the end of this post, I will count up those individual wins and announce the ultimate champion of this Death Match. 

Nicholas G. Schlegel: German Popular Cinema and the Rialto Krimi Phenomenon

Just finished reading Nicholas G. Schlegel's new book German Popular Cinema and the Rialto Krimi Phenomenon, the first full length English language book dedicated to the 32 films that make up the Rialto Edgar Wallace series.

A proper review will be published elsewhere (and then also announced here) but in short: This is a quintessential book for anyone even remotely interested in those films. It's an academic publication but in no way a dry read. The only drawback is its price which will be unaffordable for most but if you can make do without a few meals to pick up the required shekels to purchase this, do. Else, see if you could at least possibly get a loan of it from a public or university library.

Kiss Kiss, Kill Kill (German Film Program)

Illustrierter Film Kurier 101

In contrast to a lot of the more common four-page programs that mainly displayed collages of images together with in-depth plot synopsis often revealing major spoilers, this 12-page program for Kommissar X - Jagd auf Unbekannt/Kiss Kiss, Kill Kill (1966) also contained a number of short articles:

• Teaser plot written from the perspective of a majorly annoyed Tom Rowland 
• How Tito supported the production in Yugoslavia by also offering the use of his private villa as well as filming in a power plant
•  Tony Kendall's film career. He first role was seemingly in 1951 (sic!) in The Whip and the Body (1963) by "Y.M. Old" (even Mario Bava's alias John M. Old was mixed up)
• An interview with Maria Perschy who bemoans the fact that she is always considered a starlet and not a genuine actress
• A stunt by Brad Harris gone wrong in front of 5000 spectators while filming in Dubrovnik

Die schwarze Kobra/The Black Cobra (1963)

The availability of Krimis in an English friendly version has always been one of the main talking points amongst fans of the genre. 

True, about two thirds of the Rialto Wallaces can be purchased from Germany via the import route but definitive Blu Ray (or even DVD) collections for the international audience are still nowhere to be seen. (Are you listening, Synapse or Severin?) 

It gets even more frustrating when you realise that the German DVD of a standalone Krimi like Die schwarze Kobra/The Black Cobra (1963) does not contain an English track or subtitles even though the credits on this release are in English (“Director: Rudolf Zehetgrube” [sic]). 

So clearly at some stage this was released abroad but, alas, for now the German version is all that is currently officially available…. unless one opts for the old Euro-Fantastico Double Feature DVD from 2010. 

In a nice bit of synchronicity while I was preparing this blog post, YouTube’s ever reliable Old Movies B/W & Colour channel, however, has also come to the rescue and posted the English dub of The Black Cobra. 

 When Peter Karner (Adrian Hoven), a truck driver, is unknowingly transporting drugs, he becomes witness to a killing amongst two rival gangs (one of them run by the mysterious Mr Green) and is subsequently chased by both of the gangs and the police who suspect him of being the killer himself. 

 This Austrian Krimi is not based on any literary source and suffers from a confusing plot that ultimately does not make too much sense. For the most part we see various parties chasing someone who is not doing much hiding and instead pretty much operates in plain sight. 

The direction overall is very pedestrian and the cinematography fairly flat, however, this production does come with a sufficient number of intriguing moments that will please the Krimi aficionado. 

“The Black Cobra” is the name of the truck stop restaurant in which our hero openly hides for most of the time and that just also happens to be next door to a little animal show featuring the titular snake. In one otherwise unrelated scene the cobra goes on a rampage, threatens some of the bystanders and ultimately gets chased away by a mongoose. The fight between mongoose and cobra seems to be stock footage taken from a different movie and is one of the rare examples of mondo style animal cruelty in this genre. 

A giant man-monster called Guba (Michel Ujevic in his one and seemingly only role) provides the right amount of chills. 

The mysterious gang leader Mr Green offs his victims with the help of a retractable blade inside a walking stick. 

 And just who is Secret Agent X15? 

We also get a secret passageway, a lunatic Baroness and the boobs of a nude desk statue provide some politically incorrect thrills (as well as clues). 

Rudolf Zehetgruber is a journeyman director who never reached the heights of more identifiable auteurs like Harald Reinl or Alfred Vohrer. He shot a handful of lesser known Krimis as well as two Konmissar X movies. In the 1970s he wrote, directed and starred in a Herbie “inspired” series of German comedies about a VW Beetle, one of which also featured Joachim Fuchsberger. 

On top of the occasional gonzo scene that helps to brighten up the more lacklustre elements of the plot, the film is also chockablock with genre familiar actors. 

Adrian Hoven makes the most of a fairly one-dimensional hero role. Much is made out of the character’s previous run-ins with the law, however, it appears that he only ever spent a few short weeks in prison so we’re talking more unpaid TV licence rather than seriously hardened criminal. 

During the 1950s Hoven was the charming romantic lead in numerous movies. For Rialto he starred in Das Rätsel der roten Orchidee/Secret of the Red Orchid (1962) before alternating between art house (several films with Rainer Werner Fassbinder) and Eurotrash (his own produced, co-written and co-directed Mark of the Devil as well as a number of Jess Franco films). 

Ann Smyrner is Hoven’s character’s love interest in this movie. She can also be seen in the Bryan Edgar Wallace film Das siebente Opfer/The Racetrack Murders (1964). 

The main surprise of the movie is Ady Berber. Usually confined to small non-speaking supporting roles with a menacing presence (this film’s Guba character would normally be his forte), in The Black Cobra he has a fairly substantial speaking part as the owner of the mini-zoo providing regular assistance to our hero on the run. Softly spoken and very much a gentle giant Berber seems to relish the chance to finally demonstrate more of his talents. Hell, he is even allowed to tenderly play with some puppies! Needless to say, though, we still also get to see him wrestling some villains, most notably in a big bar room brawl. 

Of course, every film just gets better with Klaus Kinski in it. And here he is a drug addicted pianist who tries to play all sides as long as they can finance his addiction. 

It is rare that Kinski acts alongside someone who can outcreep him but Klaus Löwitsch definitely gives him a run for his money. In later years Löwitsch would be on the right side of the law as macho crime fighter Peter Strohm in a popular German TV series. For The Black Cobra, however, he convincingly plays a psychotic killer on drugs who seems to relish his work quite a lot and at one stage hisses back at a wild cat which tries to threaten him. 

1960s Dr Mabuse Wolfgang Preiss is the gentlemanly successful owner of a scrapyard with a sideline in drugs. Günter Meisner (Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse/The Terror of Doctor Mabuse (1962), Der Mönch mit der Peitsche/The College Girl Murders (1967)) is his mysterious helper. And Herbert Fux early in his career as a popular bit part film villain is still borderline frightening before he fully turned into a sneering parody. 

Peter Vogel, Paul Dahlke and Hans Richter play the by and large colourless representatives of the law who find it difficult to stick out in comparison to the heroes and villains of this film. In the final showdown in a scrapyard they do get to shine a bit when the movie anticlimactically switches the focus away from the main heroes.

 All in all, The Black Cobra is a very average standalone Krimi, however, with a number of infrequent standout scenes and performances that will lift this up to somewhat ever so slightly above average enjoyment. 

For a quick rundown of some of those highlights watch this lengthy German trailer:

For the full English dub, venture here: