A journey through Krimiland. Read all about the Teutonic fascination with Edgar Wallace, Bryan Edgar Wallace, Dr Mabuse, Jerry Cotton, Kommissar X, Father Brown or even Louis-Weinert Wilton and discover a world of hidden vaults, madmen in masks and bumbling butlers.
I came across this article today that celebrated a new typeface called “Edgar”. It was designed by Tobias Frere-Jones (*August 28, 1970) and named after Edgar Wallace who happens to be Frere-Jones’ great-grandfather.
I did a double take when I read this as so far I had only considered Bryan Edgar Wallace and Penelope Wallace when it comes to Wallace offspring that left a creative mark.
To my shame I must admit that I had never heard of Tobias Frere-Jones who just happens to be one of most influential contemporary type designers and amongst other achievements had also created the “Gotham” typeface that was famously used by Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign.
Tobias’ brother is Sasha Frere-Jones (*1967), a music critic and essayist, best known for his long tenure at The New Yorker (2004–2015), where he wrote about pop, hip-hop, and indie music with a mix of cultural theory and personal reflection. (And yes, he too was a cultural black spot for me until now.)
So then I started digging a little deeper and fell into a little genealogical rabbit hole…
Their parents were Robin Carpenter Jones (April 01, 1933-March 7, 1997), an American writer for adverting agencies, and Elizabeth Frere who had moved from England to Brooklyn.
Elizabeth Frere was the daughter of Alexander Stuart Frere-Reeves (November 23, 1892 – October 03, 1984). He was a highly influential English publisher who had been responsible for looking after the likes of Noel Coward and Eric Ambler, Graham Greene and D.H. Lawrence, Thomas Wolfe and…. way too many other famous writers of the time. In 1939 he legally dropped the “Reeves” part of his surname.
In 1927 Stuart Frere married Patricia Marion Caldecott Wallace (September, 07, 1907 –September 1995), a journalist and Edgar Wallace’s daughter from his first marriage to Ivy Maude Caldecott, which makes Patricia Bryan Edgar’s younger sister and Penelope’s half sister.
Apart from Elizabeth they also had two sons: Alexander and Vice Admiral Sir Richard Tobias Frere KCB (June 04, 1938 – March 05, 2020) who had a distinguished naval career and served as Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic in NATO, yet another illustrious descendant!
Below a summary, of Edgar Wallace’s children and the Frere lineage in particular.
Please let me know if there are any corrections I need to make to this tree as at this stage my eyes are getting blurry from the dates and connections.
Given how much of a focus we (read: I) usually place on Bryan Edgar and Penelope Wallace, it is refreshing to see just how successful the descendants of Wallace’s other child, daughter Patricia, had actually become.
Super curious now to see if this tree cannot be expanded further in the future.
After having so far covered three of the four Louis Weinert-Wilton Krimis (and aiming to fill the last remaining gap shortly), I have started getting a bit more curious about him as an author.
None of his books have ever been translated into English but these are the eleven crime novels he wrote:
Die weiße Spinne ("The White Spider", 1929
Teppich des Grauens ("Carpet of Fear", 1929)
Die Panther ("The Panthers", 1930)
Die Königin der Nacht ("The Queen of the Night", 1930)
Der Drudenfuß ("The Druid's Foot", 1931)
Der betende Baum ("The Praying Tree", 1932)
Licht vom Strom ("Light from the Stream", 1933)
Der schwarze Meilenstein ("The Black Milestone", 1935)
Die chinesische Nelke ("The Chinese Carnation", 1936)
Spuk am See ("Haunting at the Lake", 1938)
Der Skorpion ("The Scorpion", 1939)
Most if not all of his books are currently available in Germany but I was curious about seeing some older book covers. Here are a choice that Google has offered me. Note that I have yet to find covers for some of his books, an indication that he is indeed an author who has somewhat fallen into obscurity but I am planning to change that a bit over time.
Also note that by and large these are covers from the iconic series of red Goldmann Krimi paperbacks published from the 1950s on and not from first editions.
The experimental issue of Krimi! 0 that Boris Brosowski and I created in record time last year was a resounding success. We got great feedback and sold way more than we had initially anticipated.
So next up: The official premiere issue that will come out at the end of this month.
That issue will have around 200 pages with a smaller font than the Number 0 so is chockfull with very in depth research: Check out the overview that Boris provided.
I personally provided about 35 pages for it, including a piece that I am super proud of: a biographical overview of writer Ladislas Fodor.
Up until now close to nothing was known about Fodor's life but with this piece we will now have a very solid basis for future research. It's no exaggeration to say that this will for quite a while remain the most complete biography about him available!
Krimi! 1 will be out on September 30 on Amazon and only available on print (again both soft- and hardcover). Unfortunately pre-orders are not possible for this one so keep your eyes peeled (and if I don't forget I will update this post with a link to it when it's out.
A number of London business- and newspapermen get killed by poison via an airgun that propels an artificial Black Widow spider. What those men all have in common is that they were all members of an expedition to Mexico that brought them riches but also united them over a dark secret. Reporter Wellby (O.W. Fischer) tries to solve the killings… much to the annoyance of his boss (Werner Peters) who was also a member of that expedition.
Black Widow is again a Spanish co-production by International Germania Film and based on Weinert-Wilton’s novel Die Königin der Nacht (tr. “The Queen of the Night”, 1930).
The film follows the plot in broad strokes with one notable difference: The murders aren’t committed by a mysterious killer with an airgun shooting fake black widows carrying real poison - highly cinematic though also very impractical in real life - but by a female killer calling herself the “Queen of the Night” through a similarly puzzling killing method.
In the book the victims also don’t receive missives that tell them to “Talk or Die!”. Instead they get lyrically whispered alerts that “the Queen of the Night from the Fountain of the Seven Palm Trees will wait to the day until the moon enters into its last quarter” that serve as warnings of impending doom.
Book and film also differ in that characters often get redefined.
Karin Dor’s character in Black Widow is… yet another typical Karin Dor character: the beautiful heroine who works in an antique shop for one of the potential victims and falls in love with the hero.
In the novel Clarisse is a colleague of Wellby, a female wallflower who walks hunched over, does nothing to appeal to any of the male characters and on one side of her face is even disfigured by a large birthmark making her downright ugly from that angle. From the other angle, as the novel describes it, she may, however, appear as beautiful.
Klaus Kinski’s character Boyd also does what Kinski does best. He stands threateningly in the background smiling maliciously while also on occasion helping Wellby out of a conundrum.
In the book Boyd is an elderly gentleman with a passion for fly fishing who even gave up a promising career in pursuit of his hobby.
O.W. Fischer, the film’s lead, is a breath of fresh air for the Krimi genre.
Austrian actor Fischer was one of the highest paid German language film stars in the 1950s next to Curd Jürgens. Black Widow would become his only classic Krimi and one of his final films. Even though he still occasionally appeared on German television, he effectively decided to retire at the height of his fame.
His most famous parts were Bavarian King Ludwig II and the infamous clairvoyant Erik Jan Hanussen, two troubled and eccentric real life characters.
And troubled and eccentric he is also in Black Widow… albeit in a very entertaining way.
His Wellby is constantly besozzled, slovenly dressed, prone to grandiose gestures and hiding his intelligent reporter’s instincts behind a facade of befuddlement that would make a Columbo proud. Somewhat a coward and clearly not a fighter, if he lands a punch it is by pure luck. He lives on a house boat and at the start of the film is even seen wearing a Van Dyke beard!
Eddi Arent plays an archivist who helps Welby uncover some crucial information, absolutely incorruptible … unless he is offered the right amount of money for his services.
Werner Peters is the director of the newspaper, for all appearances on a power trip but in reality way over his head and in deep trouble. He can neither manage Wellby, nor the other members of the expedition nor indeed his wife (played by Doris Kirchner), who quietly sits amongst the group of powerful men and on occasion contributes a wise throwaway remark that always calms the waters.
Kirchner in real life was married to director Franz Josef Gottlieb and had previously also appeared in his CCC Wallace Der Fluch der gelben Schlange/The Curse of the Yellow Snake (1963).
It is all those German actors that mainly make this an enjoyable watch. The Spanish actors in comparison aren’t given that much chance to shine.
The direction itself is workmanlike but not overly exciting. We do get a few interesting camera angles here or there but for the most part the production just plods along.
Visually the most stunning part is a nightclub scene in which chanteuse Belina sings a song (music by Martin Böttcher, lyrics by Ute Just and F.J. Gottlieb) that perfectly reflects the film’s mystery. That performance is full of mirrored reflections, shadow work and closeups to hypnotically staring eyes.
All in all, this is one production that - in line with the other three Louis Weinert-Wilton films - may not reach the heights of the Rialto Edgar Wallace series but is enjoyable enough that it is worthy of a proper rediscovery.
AVAILABILITY
Coming at no surprise for anyone reading this blog, Black Widow is easily available in Germany on DVD and Blu-ray though not in an English friendly version.
The German version of the film with English subs can be viewed on YouTube.
YouTube also has the English dub of the film, albeit in a horrendously looking upload.
I am currently in Germany and picked up some lobby cards for Das Geheimnis der schwarzen Witwe/The Secret of the Black Widow, a Louis Weinert-Wilton adaptation from 1963 by Franz Josef Gottlieb and starring O.W. Fischer, Karin Dor, Klaus Kinski, Werner Peters and Eddi Arent.
There are 24 lobby cards in a full set and I now have 13.
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