Krimi on TV: Das Halstuch (1962)

When actress and model Faye Collins is found murdered in a village near London, a silk scarf proves to be the most crucial lead to the identification of her killer. 

What Edgar Wallace was for the cinematic Krimi genre, Francis Durbridge (1912-1998) was for TV. 

In contrast to Wallace, English writer Durbridge was still an active writer of crime thrillers and mysteries in the 1960s. But just like Wallace, Durbridge was also equally as popular (if not more so!) in Germany as he was in his home country. 

From 1959 on several of his novels were adapted as TV mini series in Germany and so popular that they were nicknamed “Strassenfeger” (street sweepers) as they swept the streets clean of pedestrians whenever they were being transmitted. In their heyday they had a viewership of 90%. At times when not every household owned a television set yet, they were often community events where friends and family gathered to watch the episodes together. 

The most successful of those mini series was the third one: Das Halstuch, based on the Durbridge novel The Scarf which initially was a 1959 BBC 6-parter with Donald Pleasance before it was novelised in 1960. 

When Das Halstuch was shown in January 1962, German streets were literally deserted. Companies even changed their shift rotas to ensure that their staff was able to watch the new episodes. Absolutely everybody was speculating about the murder of Faye Collins, a phenomenon that was similar to the later “Who shot JR Ewing?” craze or to a lesser degree “Who killed Laura Palmer?”. 

But then it came to a scandal, a notorious éclat that would make national TV history. 

The day before the transmission of the final episode, the well known actor and cabaret artist Wolfgang Neuss placed an advert in a popular tabloid in which he revealed the name of the killer and encouraged everyone instead of staying in and watching the final reveal to leave their homes and visit the cinema again (where he - no doubt accidentally- also starred in a new film). 

The nation was up in arms. Neuss received death threats and Bild, the biggest tabloid, branded him a “Vaterlandsverräter” (traitor), a term that incidentally carried very nasty historical implications. 

I have attached a copy of that advert to this blog post but disguised the name so as not to spoil anything from my side.

Now I got a confession to make myself: Even though Das Halstuch was still much talked about and incredibly popular 15 years or so after its first transmission, ie. around the time when I finally reached the age where I could watch it myself, up to now I have never actually got around to checking it out myself.

 Yes, yes, I know: I need to get my membership to the Krimiclub revoked. 

But it’s never too late to make amends so I finally caved in and binged this on YouTube. 

True, if shown nowadays this 6-part series would hardly sweep the streets any longer given that the audience taste as well as TV production values have since changed but it is still easy to see why this production was so successful. 

Whereas other German TV films often remained very static for years to come (see e.g. Der Mieter from 1967 or the 1963 TV adaptation of Der Hexer/The Ringer), Das Halstuch is much more dynamic and not just studio bound but also features outdoor scenes and even quite an action packed finale. 

In contrast to the Rialto Wallace Krimis, the Durbridge adaptation is more a classic Whodunnit without Gothic or other bizarre elements and whereas a lot of the Wallaces have an urban setting, this mini series is more rural or small town based. 

Hans Quest directed not just this series but also three other Durbridge adaptations. 

The main reason for the tremendous success of this show is undoubtedly the preponderance of incredibly popular actors that were (or later would be) associated with the Krimi genre and that could now be appreciated on a smaller screen as well: 

 • Heinz Drache first featured in the non-Rialto Wallace Der Rächer/The Avenger (1960) before starring in six Rialto Wallaces as well as in one of the Sanders movies. In Das Halstuch he is a charmingly manipulative inspector who enjoys setting little traps like making a hames of his French when he actually speaks it rather well. 

 • Albert Lieven, a German actor with British passport, is the shady but elegant publisher Clifton Morris, the owner of the scarf and main suspect. Lieven would appear in three Rialto Wallaces and the Merton Park production Death Trap (1962). 

 • Horst Tappert plays a vicar. Tappert would for decades dominate the German TV screens as Chief Inspector Derrick and even though he was often cast as a policeman in the 1960s he also played one of the Great British Train robbers in a German mini series and featured in three Rialto Wallaces as well as Jess Franco’s Der Todesrächer von Soho/The Corpse Packs His Bags and Der Teufel kam aus Akasava/The Devil Came from Akasava (both from 1971). 

 • Margot Trooger would play Cora Ann Milton, the Hexer’s/Ringer’s wife. In this series she is the glamorous owner of a fashion salon. 

 • Dieter Borsche was one of the genre’s most versatile actors, be it the Reverend in Die Toten Augen von London/Dead Eyes of London (1961), parts in Der schwarze Abt/The Black Abbot (1963), Bryan Edgar Wallace Krimis Der Henker von London/The Mad Executioners (1963) and Das Phantom von Soho/The Phantom of Soho (1963) or Scotland Yard jagt Dr. Mabuse/Dr. Mabuse vs. Scotland Yard (1963). In Das Halstuch he portrays an artist who frequently strays from a life of marital bliss with some of his models. 

 • Hellmut Lange is the victim’s physically handicapped brother. Lange only appeared in one Wallace Krimi, Der Fälscher von London/The Forger of London (1961), but would later become the host of a popular German quiz show about cinema. 

 • Even the small part of Diana Winston was cast with Eva Pflug who also had a supporting role in the very first Rialto Wallace Der Frosch mit der Maske/Fellowship of the Frog (1959). 

Unfortunately to the best of my knowledge there is no English friendly version of this show around but with the advances in auto-translated subtitles it should gradually become easier now to appreciate foreign language productions like this one.