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.
Say Count Regula three times fast and see what that sounds like…..
Sumptuously filmed with stunning set design this is a gorgeous looking production reuniting director Harald Reinl again with his wife Karin Dor. It is one of only a very few German horror productions from the 1960s.
Pilfered from a number of different classic tropes (Dracula, Edgar Allan Poe, Mario Bava’s Black Sunday to name but a few), this production was aimed at a family audience and as such is more a Fantasy Adventure film rather than an outright horror movie, bearing certain similarities in style with Reinl’s own Karl May movies and the Gothic elements of the Wallace films.
Just discovered this YouTube channel and playlist with a range of Krimis with English subs: Edgar Wallace, Bryan Edgar Wallace, Mabuse and others.
Well worth checking out given how difficult it is to come across English friendly versions of those movies otherwise. If only some of the niche labels would finally come around to release proper box sets of those films for the International market.
To access the relevant Rialto Wallaces I had to change my region via VPN as they weren't available in my area.
When Josef Stief (Klaus Kinski) escapes from the mental clinic he is held in after killing four women wearing red coral necklaces, he finds refuge in a little village near an Eastern European border. There he calls himself Martin and is mistaken as a refugee from behind the Iron Curtain. The shy “Martin”, prone to wildly erratic behaviour, is subjected to the suspicions of the locals but manages to befriend a woman (Brigitte Grothum) whose husband, also called Martin, has gone missing for years after operating near the border and is presumed dead, forcing her to raise her daughter (Christine Ratej) on her own. “Martin” has no recollection of the killings he had committed but a trip to the nearby city reveals the truth of his past to him and results in a full blown manhunt in which emotional villagers decide to take the law into their own hand.
The best and most important Kinski role you (likely) haven’t seen.
Filmed at the height of the Edgar Wallace boom in Germany, Der rote Rausch (tr. “The Red Rage”, a term used by a psychologist to describe Martin’s temporary murderous impulses) is as far removed from the Rialto series as a contemporary German language crime drama can be. Yet, despite (or maybe: because) of this, the film is highly fascinating for a variety of different reasons.
This is Klaus Kinski’s first leading role.
The film dispenses of any gimmicky effects and plot twists. It’s a serious drama, more M (1931) than Edgar Wallace.
Rather than being set in an imaginary London, the film takes place in a very real contemporary Germany/Austria. Just a year after the Berlin Wall was begun, this production uses the plight of refugees from East Germany as part of its narrative.
Der rote Rausch was not a commercial success and after its cinematic release had only once been shown on German television in 1967 and subsequently been considered lost until its rediscovery in 2002 when the original negative was found in a mislabeled can.
It features a number of supporting players that will be familiar from other more typical Krimis.
For a Krimi this is also a fairly bloodless affair. The only murders take place off screen and prior to the beginning of this plot. The focus is much more on the drama between the characters and yet always with a constant threat of possible lurking danger.
The original serialised magazine novel this has been adapted from is from 1952 and featured Martin as a possible war returnee. Filmed in 1962, this was updated for the film.
Shot in rural Austria and Vienna, it is never explicitly stated what border area this film is exactly set in. Instead we get constant references to “von drüben” (=“from over there”), a popular catch phrase to describe East Germany in particular but also neighbouring Eastern European countries in general.
Very likely it is the Hungarian/Austrian border that is depicted, a popular area at the time for East German residents trying to escape into the West though it may just as well have been similar looking border areas in Germany itself.
Though by then he had already appeared in a handful of supporting roles in Edgar Wallace Krimis, Rialto itself would not avail of Klaus Kinski as the leading man until later in the 1960s.
In 1961, a year before production to Der rote Rausch began, the German weekly news magazine Der Spiegel had featured him in a very prominent 14-page lead article and cover story. The focus of this piece was very much on Kinski’s theatrical performances and recitations of classic authors. Far from being hero-worshipping, the tone was often quite derogatory and highly critical in its appraisal of Kinski as a performer.
And yet unsurprisingly having such a prominent piece in a major magazine, was the best possible PR for him and ensured that his profile was instantly raised so a move to a lead role in a movie was the next logical step.
And true to form this film cleverly played with both facets of Kinski’s public persona at the time as we get Kinski, the resident madman, as well as Kinski, the reciter of classic works of fiction.
His Martin is a major tour-de-force mixing moments of bug eyed intensity with subtle shy cues full of sadness and desperation. The truth of Martin’s violent past is only gradually revealed in full to both the character and the audience. Martin, despite his obvious anguish and mental difficulties and fits of violence, always remains a sympathetic though tragically doomed character.
In one scene we see Kinski performing the tale of Oscar Wilde’s The Selfish Giant in a puppet theatre for a young girl. This was one of his popular recitations and is a piece that is available in whole on Spoken Word collections.
Der rote Rausch stands and falls by Kinski’s performance. All the other actors are highly capable but some of their scenes sans-Kinski can drag a little bit.
By far the weakest part of this production is the relationship between quasi-widow Katrin (Brigitte Grothum) and Martin. Her sympathy and borderline romantic feelings for him just don’t appear realistic even given the fact that his assumed name and his fate reminds her of her long lost husband. He is just way too unhinged to ultimately make this relationship believable.
The previous year the two actors had first appeared alongside each other for Rialto-Wallace Die seltsame Gräfin/The Strange Countess and in 1962 they also acted together in Das Gasthaus an der Themse/The Inn on the River. The next year Grothum also played the female lead in the non Rialto-Wallace Der Fluch der gelben Schlange/The Curse of the Yellow Snake.
Grothum seems to have got on well with the notoriously difficult Kinski and says that a lot of his behaviour was just a publicity stunt.
For Der rote Rausch he apparently spread the rumour that he was going back to nature and sleeping in a tent on the lake, causing paparazzi to try and capture some sneaky tabloid fodder while Kinski was indeed quietly staying in the crew hotel where he also had his regular breakfast in polite company with the rest of the cast and crew.
In the 1950s director Wolfgang Schleif was mainly known for a series of lighthearted comedies. Der rote Rausch was one of the last feature films he made before predominantly switching to a career in television.
Schleif had directed Grothum already in her star making performance as Das Mädchen Marion (tr. “The Girl Marion”, 1956).
For Der rote Rausch he together with cinematographer Walter Partsch successfully captured moody black and white reed fields in stark contrast to most of his usual films. This style of photography appears to have been inspired by some of the more realistic films coming out of Italy and Continental Europe at the time.
Internationally Sieghardt Rupp is best known for his part in A Fistful of Dollars (1964). In this film he plays Katrin’s long suffering admirer and eventual leader of the mob against Martin.
Born in 1919, Jochen Brockmann is one of those actors who only started appearing in films fairly late in life. He was around 40 when he began making an impact in mainly villainous roles and can be seen in the very first Rialto-Wallace Der Frosch mit der Maske/Fellowship of the Frog (1959) as well as maybe the quintessential Krimi Der Hexer/The Ringer (1964) and standalone non-Edgar Wallace Krimi Das Rätsel der grünen Spinne (tr. “The Mystery of the Green Spider”, 1960). In Der rote Rausch he can be seen in a more sympathetic but equally authoritarian role as Katrin’s father, desperately attempting to help his daughter overcome her feeling of loss over her missing husband.
The interplay between all the characters, the sense of suspicion and paranoia surrounding Martin, the increasing levels of hostility towards him and his ultimate fate (no spoilers here), are as well presented and tragic as they are understandable.
For all intends and purposes Der rote Rausch should feature in any Top 10 list of best or most important Kinski performances. It does feature all his typical mannerisms but way before they became routine and cliché and also serves as a cinematic reminder of his classic dramatic skills.
And yet this is one production that is practically unheard of outside of Germany due to it not being available in an English friendly versions (a popular complaint for this blog) and even in Germany this film has been under appreciated and unduly forgotten for far too long. A flop at the time, the public obviously preferred their Krimis to be less realistic and instead demanded more Edgar Wallace type movies.
It is, however, definitely a film in dire need of a reappraisal.
You know you've drunk the Jess Franco Kool-Aid when you find an old review from 2009 in which you slate this film and yet even though 13 years later all the points still hold true, they are now the reason you get such a great kick out of it.
Watched this film again at 4 o’clock at night. Maybe being spaced out from insomnia had a part to play as well, but this time I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, its odd angles and occasional hallucinatory day-for-night shots.
In order to pay penance for my prior lack of respect for Señor Franco, here are some German lobby cards for this last in the series of Bryan Edgar Wallace films by Artur Brauner’s CCC Film, a remake of its first entry (Das Geheimnis der schwarzen Koffer/The Secret of the Black Trunk, 1962), and also arguably the last classic Krimi.
Austrian actress with a versatile career that brought her from German productions to Hollywood blockbusters until she finally starred in a series of Euro Cult movies that ultimately were responsible for her longterm and still ensuing popularity amongst fans of Eurotrash. She is a graduate of the prestigious Max-Reinhardt-Seminar school of acting in Vienna.
Perschy started her career in bit parts and on early German TV productions. Her breakthrough came in Nassser Asphalt/Wet Asphalt (1958) next to then heartthrob Horst Buchholz and Gert Fröbe in a plot about fake journalism and war criminals in post-war Germany.
She followed this up in a series of light hearted German comedies and had her first international role in Giorgio Bianchi’s Il moralista/The Moralist (1959).
Her first English language film was the war drama The Password Is Courage (1962) next to Dirk Bogarde.
In the 1960s Hollywood came calling and for fans of Classic Hollywood Perschy is probably best known acting side-by-side with Rock Hudson and Paula Prentiss in the Howard Hawks directed comedy Man’s Favorite Sport? (1964) in which Hudson’s tie gets entangled in Perschy’s zip. She also had a small role in John Huston’s Freud: The Secret Passion (1962) with Montgomery Clift but ultimately never hit the big time in US productions.
Instead Perschy focused on bigger parts in smaller European movies aided by her faible for speaking foreign languages. At the time she predominantly appeared in a mix of action/adventure, war (633 Squadron (1964)) and Euro western (Die Banditen vom Rio Grande (1965)).
Over the years she also on occasion featured in some popular TV dramas of the time such as “General Hospital”, “Paul Temple” and “Hawaii Five-O”.
Der Henker von London/The Mad Executioners (1963) is a Bryan Edgar Wallace film that switches from being a typical Krimi to a Frankensteinan shlock fest with Maria Perschy as the token blonde love interest and decoy to help catch the decapitating mad scientist.
She spends most of her time in the first Kommissar X movie Jagd auf Unbekannt/Kiss Kiss, Kill Kill (1966) wearing a lavender wig and quickly changes allegiances from being one of the henchman’s assistants to being instrumental in saving a private army of Amazon warriors from his influence.
Prior to Kiss Kiss, Kill Kill she had already starred alongside Brad Harris in Weiße Fracht für Hongkong/Mystery of the Red Jungle (1964), about combatting a drug ring in modern day Hong Kong. Harris would subsequently also be involved in her film Mister Dynamit - Morgen küßt euch der Tod/Spy Today, Die Tomorrow (1967), a somewhat lame German Eurospy production with Lex Barker.
Right after the Kommissar X movie Perschy starred in Las 7 magnificas/The Tall Women (1966), a Spanish filmed Eurowestern that may or may not have also been directed by Gianfranco Parolini. According to some sources it is likely that though nominally credited to Rudolf Zehetgruber, it may indeed have instead been filmed by Sidney W. Pink with Parolini also being mentioned in order to satisfy legal requirements by Italian financiers.
Perschy is one of many familiar faces in Five Golden Dragons (1967), a British-German co-production loosely based on Edgar Wallace “Sanders” stories. One of her co-stars there was Christopher Lee with whom she also appeared in the final Dr Fu Manchu film of the 1960s, The Castle of Fu Manchu (1969, directed by Jess Franco).
During the 1960s Perschy lived in Spain.
In 1971 while shooting promotional photos in a petroleum field near Madrid disaster struck. Covered in oil she was cleaning herself up with petrol while a woman in the same room as her lit a gas oven causing an explosion. Perschy turned into a human torch but managed to extinguish the flames herself before being rushed into hospital with life threatening wounds.
Despite the severity of her injuries, her wounds managed to heal and she was able to resume her career.
It appears that Maria Perschy was tested but did not make the cut for Los monstruos del terror/Assignment Terror (1970). In the subsequent years she did, however, appear in five other productions featuring Paul Naschy (Hunchback of the Morgue/El jorobado de la Morgue (1973), Los ojos azules de la muñeca rota/Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll (1974), Exorcismo (1975), La diosa salvaje/Kilma, Queen of the Jungle (1975), Último deseo/The People Who Own the Dark (1976)).
In 1974 she also starred in El buque maldito/The Ghost Galleon (1974), the third of Amando de Ossorio’s four Blind Dead movies.
Privately she was involved in an on again/off again relationship with fiancé Joachim Hansen (from Bryan Edgar Wallace Krimi Das Geheimnis der schwarzen Koffer/The Secret of the Black Trunk (1962)) with whom she had acted together in Lebensborn/Ordered to Love (1961), a German war time drama about Nazi breeding farms, before marrying Stanley Torchia, the Executive Producer of her film A Witch Without a Broom (1967). That marriage ended in a divorce.
The couple had a daughter together in 1967.
During the 1970s Maria Perschy briefly moved back to Austria when the Spanish government repeatedly demanded of her to take on the Spanish citizenship. She then moved to Hollywood where she got married for a second time, this time to screenwriter John Melson (Battle of the Bulge (1965), Cauldron of Blood (1970)). This marriage lasted until Melson’s suicide in 1983.
During her time in L.A. Perschy also worked as a translator and in the antiques business.
She returned back to Austria in the mid-1980s and acted on stage there while also appearing in German TV shows.
In the last five years of her life Maria Perschy had to undergo 15 cancer related operations. She passed away in 2004 at the age of 66.
