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)