Der unheimliche Mönch/The Sinister Monk (1965)

Der unheimliche Mönch/The Sinister Monk (1965) was Rialto’s 20th Edgar Wallace production and the last to be filmed in black and white (though with full colour credits). 

It was based on Wallace’s play The Terror (1927) that he two years later also released in the form of a novella. And as if to illustrate Wallace’s seemingly endless ability to recycle his own material the play itself was actually also already a stage adaptation of his 1926 novel The Black Abbot (already filmed by Rialto as Der schwarze Abt in 1963). 

That play became his second most popular one after The Ringer and was also quickly adapted for the cinema. The first adaption The Terror (1928), shot the year before the novella came out, is now mainly known for being both the first horror talkie courtesy of the vitaphone system as well as the first lost film talkie. Contemporary critics were not generous and one described it as being “so bad it is almost suicidal”.

 Its accompanying slightly longer silent film version, now also lost, appears to have received slightly better accolades. 

A sequel, The Return of the Terror, followed in 1934, another new adaptation, The Terror, in 1938. 

 Play and book are set in an old country manor built on a monastery that is now being used as a lodging house. The owner and his daughter mysteriously only appeared on the scene just about a decade prior, just at the time of a robbery where the giant loot has not yet been discovered. 

Some of the villains that had been incarcerated for this appear on the scene just to be killed off by a strange hooded monk that haunts the grounds of the estate. 

Scotland Yard begins investigating. An unlikely romance blossoms. And nobody is what they appear to be.

 Whereas the first direct adaptations of this story more or less mirrored that plot, the Rialto movie differed quite extensively. Rialto at that time had reached the stage in their Edgar Wallace series where their films only borrowed some elements of the source novels and instead replaced large chunks with their own brand of successful Krimi tropes. 

What remained was the country manor (named Darkwood Castle in the film) and the murderous monk on a rampage. 

Darkwood Castle is now a boarding school for girls (well, young women by the look of things). Unbeknownst to most of his greedy family, prior to his death the previous Lord has changed his last will and made his granddaughter Gwendolin (Karin Dor) the sole heiress of his fortune. Gwendolin’s father is currently serving time in prison for murder. 

 Gwendolin’s scheming family plot to prevent her from gaining access to her inheritance when the testament appears to have vanished in the fires of a burning car. 

Girls get kidnapped and go missing and the hooded figure of a mysterious monk eliminates some of the main protagonists one by one by breaking their necks with the help of an Australian stock whip. 

 Directed for the last time in the series by Harald Reinl under the typically over the top, idiosyncratic Peter Thomas score, The Sinister Monk is one of the rare instances in the series where at least some parts of it were filmed directly in London. We clearly see some of the characters in front of well known landmarks and in actual fact during the filming some extras in Bobby outfits were spotted by real Bobbies and told to instantly change out of that costume. 

I think it’s safe to say that I’ll watch and rewatch every single one of the Rialto Wallaces whenever the opportunity arises but this film is one of the more middling examples that does just as much right as it does not. 

It yet again successfully mixes action scenes with bizarre murders committed by a masked villain, traditional crime elements with scenes of Gothic horror. The monk with the whip is genuinely one of the most iconic villains of the entire series and his method for murder truly memorable. 

And yet it also often misses the mark. 

The kidnappings and disappearances of young local women, seemingly the aspect that first connects Scotland Yard with Darkwood Castle, is barely mentioned or referenced at all in the first half of this movie so that the all out focus on it during the finale feels somewhat jarring and disconnected. 

Gwendolin would also prove to be Karin Dor’s final role in a Rialto Wallace production and she gives her trademark Damsel in Distress performance that had rightfully gained her the “Miss Krimi” nickname.

 What is missing, however, is someone like Joachim Fuchsberger as a male counterpart for her. Harald Leipnitz as Inspector Bratt excels in the later action scenes but initially has little to do and worst of all lacks any romantic chemistry with Dor. 

His part is so lacklustre that it’s even up to Siegfried Schürenberg’s Sir John to unearth a vital clue. 

The fact that Eddi Arent’s character is allowed to reveal a surprise aspect of his personality (no spoilers!) is to be recommended, however, for a large part his comic relief persona fades much more into the background than in other Wallace movies. 

It is up to some of the other supporting characters to truly shine. Rudolf Schündler’s creepy/eccentric resident “artist” Alfons Short is arguably the most memorable character in this production. He specialises in creating death masks for clients and keeps a collection of his favourites on a wall in his study. School girls he particularly lusts after also get invited for life masks and he also appears to have a penchant for cheesecake photos and carrier pigeons (who at some stage become so crucial to the plot that Scotland Yard uses helicopters to follow them... a bit of an overkill methinks). 

International audiences know Ilse Steppat mainly as the sadistic Irma Bunt in her final film On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969). In The Sinister Monk, however, she plays a totally different role as a caring matriarch, Lady Patricia, who protects Gwendolin against the vile male members of her clan: Siegfried Lowitz, previously seen as Inspector Warren in Der Hexer/The Ringer (1964), is now a scheming lawyer who attempts to bag the inheritance for himself and deprive Gwendolin of what is rightfully hers. Dieter Eppler’s Sir William is not afraid to use violence to serve his goals. Hartmut Reck as Gwendolin’s cousin Ronny is particularly odious. It is implied that he is Lady Patricia’s sadistic rapist son who may already have been behind the killing of one girl in the past, leaving his mother torn between love and repulsion for her own offspring. Ronny also openly lusts after his cousin and goes as far as offering his hand in marriage in his attempt to gain access to her inheritance.

 And just who is that mysterious new French tutor with zeeee reedeeculous heavy accent? 

Uschi Glas was one of the boarding school girls together with Uta Levka, Dunja Reiter and Susanne Hsiao. This was her first feature film and the beginning of a long career in German cinema and on TV.

 White slavery and exploitation perpetrated behind the gates of an all-female institution full with secret passageways was a popular trope for the Rialto Wallace Krimis just like seeing a heiress threatened or a greedy family with a strong matriarch. In a way this final black and white production was a potpourri of all that had made the previous Krimis so very popular and as such it is little surprise that The Sinister Monk quickly became one of the most popular and successful entries in the series, so popular in fact that just two years later Rialto remade this film in colour as Der Mönch mit der Peitsche/The College Girl Murders (1967) with Uschi Gras in the lead role. 

Guesting on THE BLOODY PIT OF ROD podcast

Seems like the 1960s Dr Mabuses have definitely become "my thing" as I have now also guested on The Bloody Pit of Rod podcast in a 2+ hour episode to discuss this series of movies,

Go check it out....

MAELSTROM 01 - French fanzine dedicated to the Edgar Wallace Krimis

 I was just browsing through some old files on my laptop and happened to come across a PDF of MAELSTROM 01 - numero spécial Edgar Wallace, a richly illustrated 124-page French language fanzine covering all 32 Rialto Edgar Wallace Krimis.

Other than that it was published more than ten years ago in April 2013 I have no further info about this. It was clearly a one-off and I don't think there were even any other issues of this magazine created. The only thing I found online about this is this French language blog post that had also provided a download link (long since expired). 

To the best of my knowledge this zine had only ever existed as a free PDF for fans of this subgenre.

I have now uploaded this fanzine to archive.org to make this wonderful publication more easily accessible again. Even if you don't speak French, it is well worth exploring and an utter joy.

German Lobby Card Set for DIE SCHLANGENGRUBE UND DAS PENDEL/THE TORTURE CHAMBER OF DR. SADISM (1967)

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. 

Christopher Lee and Lex Barker provide the international star power and are aided by a number of excellent German performers, most notably Carl Lange as Count Regula’s creepy trusted servant. Lange can also be seen in Der Frosch mit der Maske/Fellowship of the Frog (1959), Der Hexer/The Ringer (1964) and Die blaue Hand/Creature with the Blue Hand (1967).

Karin Dor (22 Feb 1938 - 06 Nov 2017)

“Miss Krimi”, Karin Dor was one of Germany’s most popular actresses and the female face and figure head for the German Krimi-wave, the female equivalent for her frequent partner in crime (or should that be: crime fighting) Joachim Fuchsberger. 

Yet ironically, even though her image was so closely related to Krimis she actually only featured in five of the original Rialto Edgar Wallace series in the early years of the Krimi wave (The Terrible People, The Green Archer, The Forger of London, Room 13, The Sinister Monk), however, did also star in a number of rival productions as well: The Invisible Dr. Mabuse, The Carpet of Horror, Die weiße Spinne [The White Spider], The Strangler of Blackmoor Castle (inspired by Bryan Edgar Wallace), The Secret of the Black Widow and Hotel der toten Gäste [Hotel of the Dead Guests].

She was so popular in that field that she even became one of the leads in the colour production Ohne Krimi geht die Mimi nie ins Bett (1962). Not a Krimi parody per se, the title as well as the popular title song, however, roughly translates as “Mimi never goes to bed without a crime novel” and references a Krimi addicted character, something very familiar to many in 1960s Germany.

Together with Joachim Fuchsberger she also helmed The Face of Fu Manchu (1965), the first of five Fu Manchu films starring Christopher Lee.

In her roles, Dor predominantly represented a non-threatening beauty that men could chastely admire and women could aspire to without ever feeling threatened. Known for her powerful screams, she was a genuine Scream Queen before that term was invented and was the quintessential damsel in distress that needed saving by the hero with whom her characters would typically become romantically involved by the end of the film. Her typical character was more passive victim than active participant and both in her Westerns as well as her Krimis (and especially when directed by her husband) she ended up frequently tied up.

For the most part there wasn’t much fatale about this femme and even when she starred as the first and so far only German Bond Girl in her biggest international success You Only Live Twice (1967), she did not display the Phoaaarrrr kind of sex appeal of that is often associated with that type of role.

Dor was so typecast with the role of the helpless victim that it came as a total shock when she was finally being outed as the razor blade wielding psycho serial killer in the proto-giallo scenes of Room 13 (1963).

Karin Dor was born Kätherose Derr in Wiesbaden.

As a school girl she already attended acting classes and worked as an extra in some movies.

In Harald Reinl’s Rosen-Resli (1954) she had a small role and only spoke one line but the 16-year old caught the attention of the director who was not only 30 years her senior but also one of Germany’s most influential and powerful film makers.

They got romantically involved and soon after married. In order to obtain her wedding licence Dor pretended to be 2 years older than she was which over the years led to misinformation as to her true year or birth.^⁠

In the early years her husband was the main driving force behind her career. Following Rosen-Resli he next cast her the same year in Der schweigende Engel [The Quiet Angel] in a more important role. They shot 20 movies together including the majority of Dor’s Krimi output starting with Die Bande des Schreckens/The Terrible People (1960) as well as Der Schatz im Silbersee/The Treasure of the Silver Lake (1962) and Winnetou - 2. Teil/Winnetou: The Red Gentleman (1964), two entries in the popular series of Karl May Westerns, and Die Schlangengrube und das Pendel/The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism (1967), a rare German Gothic Horror film re-uniting her with her Karl May co-star Lex Barker and Christopher Lee.

Dor and Reinl divorced in 1968. 

They had a son, Andreas Reinl, who was born in 1955 when Dor would only have been 17. Andreas Reinl also became an actor and had his first role in 1980 in the 13^th and final part of the Schoolgirl Report series of popular faux sex documentaries.

Karin Dor had her first involuntary international exposure with The Bellboy and the Playgirls (1962) when a very young Francis Ford Coppola was hired to re-cut and re-dub one of her German movies, 1958 production Mit Eva fing die Sünde an [Sin began with Eva], and added additional newly filmed nudie scenes for the American market.

Dor first gained popularity in a number of “Heimatfilme”, harmless comedies and other wholesome productions. Heimatfilme were a German phenomenon at the time. “Heimat” is a term that can roughly be translated with “homeland” or “motherland” and is a quintessential German term with lots of implications of home soil, being routed in the place you were born in etc. Heimatfilme were movies set in glorious countrysides, often in the mountains of Bavaria and depicting a clichéd perfect world and a naive antidote to the horrors of the recent war.

In the first half of the 1960s she became Krimi’s Leading Lady but also appeared in various other genres such as Western Movies (where she most prominently played Ribanna, Winnetou’s great tragic love interest in Winnetou: The Red Gentleman), adventure films and historical epics (the two-parter Die Nibelungen, at the time Germany’s most expensive production, was directed by her husband and a remake of a silent Fritz Lang classic), as well as Euro-Spy (The Spy with Ten Faces, 1966) and Euro-Horror (Paul Naschy’s Assignment Terror, 1970).

Her biggest international success next to You Only Live Twice - where she played a redhead hench-woman who ends up being killed in Blofeld’s piranha pool - was in Topaz (1969) where she is arguably at her most stunning as the head of a Cuban resistance group who is quite literally in bed with both sides. Even her death scene in a purple dress is beautifully staged by Alfred Hitchcock. It’s just a pity that, even though not devoid of some great set pieces, it’s still one of the lesser Hitchcocks.

Dor also appeared in a couple of popular US TV Shows: It Takes a Thief (next to Robert Wagner and Fred Astaire), Ironside and The F.B.I. 

With the 1970s the time of big international productions was slowly coming to an end. Still reeling from her divorce in 1968 and battling cancer, she returned back to Germany where German commercial cinema lay all but dead after a new wave of German film directors had declared that “Grandpa’s Cinema Is Dead”. 

Dor occasionally still played in smaller movies but until the end of her life became a semi-regular fixture in a variety of German TV series and also extensively toured Germany in a string of popular theatre productions.

Between 1972-74 Dor was married to Günther Schmucker, heir to the Asbach Weinbrand dynasty.

In 1985 Dor married stuntman George Robotham with whom she lived in residences in L.A. and Germany. The two of them stayed together until his death in 2007.

Following an accidental fall in 2016, Dor suffered brain injuries that ultimately required her to stay in a nursing home in which she passed away the following year.

Zimmer 13/Room 13 (1964)

 This is probably the least known Rialto Edgar Wallace and hardly ever gets discussed. From the moment it got released it didn't get any respect. It was the first over-18 Wallace movie, so only adults were allowed in whereas previous films were available to the teenage crowds. That new concept didn't gel well with the cinema audience and the film flopped and Rialto was soon back to producing films that appealed to more than just the adults. At least until they geared up the sleaze factor with some of the coloured productions.

Being an adult production the film has some scenes that were far more gritty or revealing than previous Krimis. Although on first glance the whole gangster scenario looks familiar from previous movies, the killer scenes involving a black gloved murderer with a razor blade were proto-giallo and should soon become more popular in Italian productions. We see the first boobs (albeit briefly) in an Edgar Wallace movie and some blood splashing in a black and white fountain (the scene with the stripper). Other tropes that would often feature in gialli are an abundant presence of weird mannequins in the most inopportune places and quick zooms to the eyes.

What I find extremely interesting is the way that giallo style murderer is revealed. Don't want to give away any spoilers, but the type of killer, the motivations for that person as well as the very interesting choice of music in the scene involving the family portrait are very much in line with later-day giallo productions.

As for the main plot about a great rain robbery.... 

Imagine how current this was at the time! The original headline grabbing robbery took place on August 8, 1963, yet the West German release of this movie was just about half a year later on February 20, 1964.

Die weisse Spinne/The White Spider (1963)

When her husband, a gambler, is found killed in a car crash with a white spider as a key ring in his possession (his talisman but also the symbol for one of London's most notorious contract killer gangs) the insurance company refuses to pay for his life insurance and his wife (Karin Dor) is forced to work for her living in a reform society for convicts where she meets Ralph Hubbard (Joachim Fuchsberger) who was recently released from Dartmoor. Scotland Yard strongly suspects the wife of being involved in the killing but also needs to take drastic measures when one leading policeman is found dead as well. They bring in a mysterious Australian crime fighter who prefers to hang on to his anonymity and conducts his interviews hidden from view by a couple of beaming lights. One-eyed men, strange Indians and oh-so altruistic priests all stand in the way of solving the mystery behind the killings that shock London.

Following the success of Germania-Film's Teppich des Grauens/The Carpet of Horror, two small German film companies, Arca-Winston Films and Hans Oppenheimer Film, decided to co-produce another Louis Weinert-Wilton Krimi: Die weisse Spinne/The White Spider based on his debut novel from 1929.

For Arca-Winston this was their debut production that they followed up a year later with another Krimi Das Wirtshaus von Dartmoor/The Inn on Dartmoor before focusing on a dozen pseudo-documentary sex education movies. Hans Oppenheimer Film also didn't exactly set the cinematic world on fire with the couple of productions that they helmed.

Despite its non-distinguished parenthood The White Spider ended up being quite a fun Krimi entry and a step up from The Carpet of Horror. They obviously learned their lesson from looking at Carpet and not only hired its director Harald Reinl and the stars Joachim Fuchsberger (relaxed and likeable as usual), Karin Dor (way too irrationally panicky for my liking) and Werner Peters (in a surprise part playing a cop for a change) but also went a few steps further in Wallacefying the experience.

From the first scene onwards it becomes painfully obvious to the viewer what Carpet had been missing: Peter Thomas' weird jazzy kind of soundtrack, a screenplay written by an Edgar Wallace veteran and also more familiar faces in the supporting roles (as opposed to the Spanish actors that were by and large unfamiliar to the German public).

And The White Spider has all that in spades.

Peter Thomas replaced Francesco De Masi and now again added his typical vibes to the production.

The screenplay was written by a certain Albert Tanner who was none other than Egon Eis who, under the nom de plum Trygve Larsen, had also been the writer of the very first Rialto Wallace, Der Frosch mit der Maske/Fellowship of the Frog and who provided just the right mix of secret doorways, hidden gadgets and men in masks galore for this movie.

And instead of Spanish unknowns we have familiar German faces in even the smallest roles:

Horst Frank surprisingly enough never appeared in a proper Wallace production but was a very familiar villain in many a German movie, the kind of guy who got hired when Kinski wasn't available and here plays a knife wielding ex-convict up to no good. Chris Howland in real life was a wise cracking English radio DJ who had tremendous success in Germany and was Eddi Arent's replacement in some of the Bryan Edgar Wallace movies. Also look out for Dieter Eppler as a lawyer, Friedrich Schoenfelder as Sir James, the head of Scotland Yard, and Mady Rahl as an ex-stripper past her prime who finds a very grisly death.

The movie is fast paced, good fun and just the right thing to watch when you have already gone through all the original Rialto productions. If anything it is actually quite brutal for the time in its on-screen depictions of strangulations courtesy of Reinl who just can't keep his paws off a good piece of rope.

One of the most fun scenes must certainly be when we see Fuchsberger's character interview an old lady who ends up being anything but and involves him in a furious fight sequence.



There are two things, however, that could be listed as The White Spider's main shortcomings.

First of all the budget does not seem to have expanded to a trip to London or to the nearest stock library and as such is missing the all familiar clips of Big Ben, Tower Bridge et al. Instead we have typical German side streets trying hard (and failing badly) to pretend they're Soho and wintry scenes of an icy Hamburg harbour standing in for the Thames.

To make up for this lack of authentic scenery the crew appears to have taken every possible opportunity to plaster pictures of Queen Elizabeth II on every available office wall. Have a whisky for every time you spot a portrait of the Queen in The White Spider and you are bound to reach the end of the film in a comatose state.

Worst of all, however, is the complete and utter lack of proper mystery. If you have found my blog you already know enough about the typical roles played by each actor to know who in truth is the mysterious Australian inspector. And does anyone really trust Werner Peters as a fighter on the side of law and order?

Also, if you read this blog it is proof that you still have your proper eye sight. As such you will not find it remotely difficult to see through all those disguises of the master villain's attempt at being a Man of Half a Dozen Faces (or more to the point: a RINGER replacement).

None of that, however, matters much as the fun that can be had from this Krimi far outweighs weaknesses in the story department. After all, one does not really watch those movies for Nobel Prize winning plots but for a certain sense of mood and intrigue that is available here in bundles.

Again, this production has never been released on DVD but if you venture into Soho's darkest alleys you just may come across some one-eyed men able to locate a copy with English subs provided you swear ever lasting allegiance to the secret society they represent.

Louis Weinert-Wilton and Der Teppich des Grauens/The Carpet of Horror (1962)

German mystery author Louis Weinert-Wilton is a peculiar case. There are very few people (even in Germany) who have ever heard of him, even less who have read him. And I challenge you to come up with just one single person who would name him a favourite author.

Yet his books appear to have been successful enough to remain in print in Germany until the 1980s and spawn a series of four adaptations in the wake of Rialto's popular Edgar Wallace series.

He was born Alois Weinert on May 11, 1875 in Weseritz (Bezdružice), a small village in Bohemia, today part of the Czech Republic. Weinert was a Sudenten German, i.e. a member of the large group of ethnic Germans in that part of Europe and visited the military school in Pola, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (today belonging to Croatia).

From 1901 he was first editor, later editor-in-chief with the “Prager Tageblatt”. During his time with the newspaper he also started writing a couple of primarily humorous plays for the stage. From 1921 on he managed the “Neues Deutsches Theater” in Prague.

Starting from 1929 on and under the slightly anglicized name of Louis Weinert-Wilton he published eleven mystery novels that were clearly inspired in style and substance by Edgar Wallace who was then one of the most popular authors in Germany. In actual fact Weinert-Wilton's novels were published by Goldmann, the very same publishing house that had made Wallace's novels so immensely popular throughout Germany and were only too anxious to also give a home grown author a chance. Especially if that author also had his plots play out in a smoggy London full of mysterious villains and courageous Scotland Yard officers.

Some of his books at the time were translated into Dutch, Portuguese and Italian, though none appear to have been published in English.

Drafted in to the war Louis Weinert-Wilton unfortunately died on September 05, 1945 in a Czech POW camp in Prague, at a time when Germany had already surrendered to the Allies and the war was effectively over. As such he would not see the continuing success of his books that resulted in four movie adaptations in the early 1960s.

These four movies - Der Teppich des Grauens/The Carpet of Horror (1962), Die weisse Spinne/The White Spider (1963), Das Geheimnis der schwarzen Witwe/The Secret of the Black Widow (1963), Das Geheimnis der chinesischen Nelke/Secret of the Chinese Carnation (1964) - can only very loosely be described as a series as they all were produced by different German companies in co-production with yet another bunch of different International production houses which probably explains at least part of the reasons why these films never received any proper DVD releases anywhere. The rights issues may very well appear to be a bit of a legal nightmare.

Der Teppich des Grauens/The Carpet of Horror was adapted from Louis Weinert-Wilton's second last book, written in 1938. And without a doubt carries what must be one of the most ludicrous titles in the entire cinema history especially given that the carpet scenes aren't actually all that horrific. The couple of instances that we see a carpet is when vials of poison are thrown on them causing near instantaneous deaths of the intended victims.

Germania-Film GmbH co-produced this Edgar Wallace clone with the Italian Domiziana Internazionale Cinematografica and Spanish Época Films S.A. As a result of this the film was not shot in Germany (as the usual case with the majority of Wallace productions) but in Spain though the film still easily retained the familiar faux English flair of the Krimis.

Helmed by Krimi and action veteran Dr. Harald Reinl it also featured a number of familiar faces from the Rialto series, namely Joachim Fuchsberger and Reinl's then-wife Karin Dor in the leads and Werner Peters and Carl Lange in important supporting roles. (The English language version of this movie that is occasionally available has some of the names misspelt as Harold Reinl, Joachim Berger, Karen Dor or Werner Peter).

Most of the other actors in this production are Spanish. Watch out for Fernando Sancho, a familiar face from a number of Jess Franco movies and Spaghetti Westerns who also appeared in Amando de Ossorio's Return of the Blind Dead.

The most surprising fact with the cast is that Fuchsberger's sidekick Bob is played by a black actor (Pierre Bresari). I initially cringed when I noticed this as I suspected he'd be used as a replacement for Eddi Arent or even Chris Howland and shuddered at what the writers may have had in store for him but his is actually a relatively straight forward part even assisting Fuchsberger by apprehending a couple of baddies with some well placed judo throws. At no stage is anything ever made of his skin colour which makes for a nice change of pace from other productions of its time.

Eugenio “Gene” Martin, director of Horror Express, is named as one of the co-writers of this movie. The plot is pretty similar to that of other Krimis. A series of poison attacks of otherwise upstanding members of society reveals a connection to a cult of Kali and illegal gang activities by veterans of the British occupation in India. The gang leader behind the killings gives the orders from a giant TV screen. Those scenes ever so remotely bring back memories of similar scenes from Fritz Lang's M or the Mabuse movies.

The red herrings are thrown around left, right and centre and are actually quite successful in throwing a suspicious light on most of the supporting cast. The final reveal as such can therefore be considered a relative surprise. The only issue is that at the time the viewer may not give too much of a damn anymore as most of the characters are relatively bland and the film as a whole is not too involving. Part of the reason for this is that the soundtrack by Francesco De Masi is pretty moribund if at all existent. The film could have done with some of the disctinctive jazz influenced lunacy of Peter Thomas as opposed to the sedate barely noticable tunes of De Masi.

The more I watch movies by Reinl the more I am fascinated by the fact that he just seems to thrive on bondage scenes. Most of his films have characters strung up and often abused or tortured; and a lot of times he seems to share a morbid delight on inflicting this kind of torture on his real-life wife. And true to form this is no exception: Several characters are tied up badly and even killed while bound and Dor is only barely saved. Hmmm, I wonder whether this kind of cinematic abuse was part of the reason for the eventual divorce between this show star couple.

Overall, Der Teppich des Grauens/The Carpet of Horror is a very average but watchable Krimi. Not on a par with the best examples of this genre it still is entertaining enough to check out if you ever come across a copy. Watching the likes Fuchsberger, Dor & Co in a Harald Reinl directed movie is never a real waste of time. As such it is only regrettable that more could not have been achieved by an otherwise intriguing promise.

Der Würger von Schloss Blackmoor /The Strangler of Blackmoor Castle (1963)

On the eve of his knighthood, Lucius Clark’s (Rudolf Fernau) dodgy colonial past comes back to haunt him. He is in illegal possession of millions worth of raw diamonds that are hidden amongst the secret vaults of Blackmoor Castle and that an anonymous strangler is aiming to unearth.

Overall The Strangler of Blackmoor Castle is a very pedestrian affair. Action director Harald Reinl does not shine in a lot of scenes and the film just keeps plodding along at a very leisurely pace. Most of the actors (Hans Reiser, Harry Riebauer) are unfamiliar faces without the slightest bit of charisma and even Karin Dor is very mousy and unmemorable in this production. Dieter Eppler also shows up from the Rialto series as a diamond obsessed butler.

Composer Oskar Sala wrote a track that unlike most other Krimi scores just uses electronically manipulated sounds. Though interesting as a concept and well ahead of its time, this is an experiment that ultimately fails as these sounds are incredibly slow and monotonous and only underline the film’s general lack of direction. Sala put a similar concept to much better use for Hitchcock’s The Birds.

The identification of the killer also centres on the fact that he only has nine fingers, yet no-one seems to have been aware of this more than revealing missing digit in the case of the true perpetrator of these crimes.

But all is of course not lost with this production: The film features a scene in which a biker gets decapitated by a steel line cast across the street, a scene more violent than usual for the time. Decapitations appear to be quite common around Blackmoor Castle. One of the victims who manages to keep his head on then has the letter M cut into his forehead, a nice homage to Fritz Lang. Walter Giller in kilt and massive handle bar moustache makes for one of the most entertainingly ludicrous Teutonic Scotsmen the Krimiworld has ever seen. And Ingmar Zeisberg as a fake blonde and gangster moll oozes sex appeal out of her low cut tops. Even a telephone operator manages to identify her as a Blonde just by listening to her voice! Zeisberg was to return back to Krimi territory that same year with The Inn on Dartmoor (1964).

The Strangler of Blackmoor Castle proved to be a resounding commercial success and pathed the way for further Bryan Edgar Wallace adaptations: Next on the list was the strange Mabuse/Wallace hybrid Dr. Mabuse Vs. Scotland Yard (1963).

Die Bande des Schreckens/The Terrible People (1960)

Just minutes before being executed Clay Shelton (Otto Colin) vows he will take revenge from the grave and kill all those responsible for his capture. He swears it by his “gallow’s hand”. Inspector Long (Joachim Fuchsberger) who is present and a known gambler places a bet against this, but will soon start doubting the sanity of this judgement when several murders are committed under the sign of the gallow’s hand. Shelton is seen present at some of the crime scenes and his corpse has mysteriously left his coffin.

The Terrible People from all the Wallace movies until then has by far the highest body count. Within the first 20 minutes of the movie hardly a scene goes by without a more or less ingenious murder: The hangman ends up in a noose. A telephone shoots bullets. We also have a gal in a swimsuit (Karin Kernke) who caresses a cheetah and is very adept at throwing knives. Kernke had previously lost her head in 1959’s wacky production of The Head where she plays a hunchbacked nurse whose (you guessed it) head gets transplanted to the body of a stripper.

The final solution again comes as quite a surprise, though doesn’t bear too much thinking about as it really doesn’t make a lot of sense.

This is Harald Reinl’s second Wallace Krimi, and the first that he shot with his wife Karin Dor. Dor gets tied and bound twice in this film. Those bondage scenes are something of a specialty for Reinl who later on relished in these with his stint for the Jerry Cotton movies.

Eddi Arent plays a police photographer who faints every time he sees a corpse. Fritz Rasp for a change plays a relatively positive and less sinister figure than in his previous outings. He is Inspector Long’s aristocratic father. Long’s friends call him “Blacky”, i.e. Fuchsberger’s real and well known and publicised nickname. Elisabeth Flickenschildt, the Grande Dame of German stage and film, has her glorious Wallace debut has Mrs Revelstoke, a domineering lady who does not appear to be afraid to be on Shelton’s Death List and lives in a manor full of quaint gadgets.

Der Frosch mit der Maske/Fellowship of the Frog (1959)

The Harald Reinl directed film that started the whole Krimi wave already has all the ingredients one came to expect from the series.

A criminal master mind dressed up in an off beat costume - ever thought anyone could be scared of… a frog? – terrorises foggy London with his dock side murder gang. Red herrings and dodgy characters are abound; several plot layers cleverly intertwined.

Siegfried Lowitz plays an underappreciated Inspector Elk - Hedge in the English version - who turns deaf at convenient moments. Joachim Fuchsberger is Sir Archibald’s (E.F. Fürbringer) American playboy nephew and amateur detective and teams up with Lowitz to expose the Frog and woo the leading lady (Elfie von Kalckreuth, later to become a very popular German TV announcer, plays under her then pseudonym Eva Anthes). Eddi Arent is his butler and comic relief who also gets to practise some judo tricks on him.

Fritz Rasp plays Maitland, a genuinely scary boss from Hell and prime suspect who teaches Ray Bennett (Walter Wilz) how not to apply for a pay rise. The menace of his character is further highlighted by the fact that – bar a couple of sentences in his last scene – he never utters a word and only communicates through frightening glances. Eva Pflug gets to sing - or at least lip synch - a song about not being left alone on a foggy night at the Thames.

With the mysterious and even tragic figure of Old Ben, the executioner (Carl Lange), Fellowship of the Frog manages to capture one of the series most fascinating and memorable characters.

One of the suspects of the film (and the true culprit of the source novel) is called Harry Lime. Though Orson Welles’ Third Man is the more famous name sake, Wallace created his character nearly a quarter of a century before Graham Greene wrote the script for Carol Reed’s movie.

The film was shot in Copenhagen. Stock footage of London was shot over two days and added in to create more genuine British atmosphere.

Overall this was an excellent start to the Wallace series and rightly acted as a pattern for further episodes of the series. In the characterisation of its protagonists, this film still has a bigger emotional impact and slightly more depressive mood than any of the other later Wallace Krimis that are more action oriented.