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 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.
This is the first in (hopefully!) a series of guest contributions about everyone’s favourite Krimis (Rialto, Wallace or otherwise) that I am hoping to publish here on this blog.
I first got to know Doug via the Euro Trash Paradise (ETP), a Yahoo Group - remember those? - dedicated to Eurocult productions of all kind. Long gone and deeply mourned by practically everyone who was involved in it, this was and will forever remain my favourite cinematic online hangout. Nothing that ever came in its wake, ever had the friendly and casual but also seriously well informed vibe that I encountered in this group and I am still in touch with many of its regular members.
It was there that I first learned that a) there are Krimi fans outside of Germany and other German language countries and b) that the non-availability of decent English friendly prints is by far the biggest drawback and hurdle for new fans of this genre.
Over the last couple of years Doug penned the series of Monster Killer books, fast quick reads about contemporary Monster Killer Morgan St. Cloud. Based on online reviews I seem to be the only person who actually ever reads those which really is a pity as they are so much fun and contain an incredible amount of world building packed into its short reading time.
Doug is also a big fan of micro budget film making and when he doesn’t direct his own No-Budget oeuvres, he writes about film makers like the Polonia Brothers.
On his YouTube channel he does his “Old Man Comic Book Reviews” or presents “The Basement of Baron Morbid”.
Doug, thank you so much for this article!
If anyone else would like to pen a few virtual lines about their favourite Krimis, please let me know. I really would love if we could create a little roundtable for other international Krimi-Fans.
When a Scotland Yard detective gets killed with a nylon noose in a seedy nightclub after incorporating the victim of a blackmail attempt, the few hints point to a shareholder meeting of an oil consortium in Elford Manor. Inspektor Harvey (Dietmar Schönherr) goes to investigate and soon discovers that one by one all the share holders receive blackmail notices and anyone not paying up is faced with the same gruesome death.
There's something to be said about journeyman directors, directors who never really truly shine but keep showing up and regularly produce watchable fare.
I generally have nothing but the greatest respect for those cinematic work horses. The downside, however, is that this type of director tends to rise and fall with the material and supporting talent that is given to them.
A true master may elevate average stories into something magnificent and even hide tremendous plot holes from the viewer.
A hack on the other hand highlights all those faults and amplifies them to the nth degree and thereby may come up with some involuntary entertaining results.
A journeyman? Well, they just plod along in that case and neither properly thrill nor entertain.
Rudolf Zehetgruber is exactly one such director.
In the two years of 1963/64 he shot a handful of standalone Krimis before directing two Kommissar X and other action movies and finally finding his calling in a series of Herbie clones about a VW superbug called Dudu in which he also played the leading role, a character called Jimmy Bondi.
Die Nylonschlinge/Nylon Noose (1963) in all its averageness is probably the best of the lot as it does successfully incorporate some of the much loved tropes like secret passageways, catacombs and eccentric scientists.
Nylon Noose is a standalone Krimi and not based on any novel.
Produced by Erwin C. Dietrich, who in the 1970s would be in charge of a range of German sex comedies, it’s fairly statically filmed with only two actors more widely known for an International Krimi audience: Dietmar Schönherr and Ady Berber.
And Ady Berber’s already imposing features are further disfigured by having his face covered in gruesome scars from an accident. His character is told to always stay out off sight from all the guests in the manor so as not to frighten them which explains why he is always seen lurking about in the catacombs or climbing up the outside walls as opposed to just enter the place through the front door. Ultimately he is, however, more of a gentle giant type with a heart of gold.
Individually there is a lot to be enjoyed in this production: We have an eccentric professor type (Gustav Kloster) who experiments on mummies for the secret to a prolonged life. We got creepy underground passageways and a bit more skin on show than normal for a film of its time. It is indeed the actresses that mainly remain in the viewers' memory:
Real life dancing sensation Laya Raki brings an exotic touch to the story by… playing an exotic dancer. Whenever the lights quickly go off during her performance, either money changes hands or someone gets killed, though it is never quite clear a) why the nightclub doesn’t get closed down with such a death count at this very moment and b) why from all the places in good ol’ foggy London Town it is this sleazy establishment that gets chosen all the time for this transaction. (Well, there are some possible hints about this towards the end but I’ll be damned if I understood them.)
And finally we have a wonderfully scheming pair of mother (Hedda Ippen) and daughter (Chris Van Loosen). The younger of the two even has no compunction about going after her mother’s Beau (Kurt Beck) who at one stage is being described as young, handsome and ruthless when to my mind he came across as middle-aged, bland and out of his wit.
The soundtrack is also of interest as it combines traditional swinging Krimi tunes with experimental sound effects.
So, it all sounds great.
And yet as a whole the film doesn’t really quite blend it all together all that well. Various of the narrative strands have little to nothing to do with the case and its solution which is indeed ultimately more than mundane and in contrast to some of the set pieces.
The direction is quite flat and lifeless and at times it feels as if they’re just ticking off a check list of motions to go through. We even have a bowler hatted comic relief (Denys Seiler) who actually really does nothing remotely funny and for the most part plays everything straight.
The remaining group of male supporting characters are all united in just being presented as being a very unpleasant bunch one and all that as a viewer one can’t ever hope that any one of them will remain alive. In one particularly head scratching and icky moment the uncle of Sommerfeld’s character (Gustav Knuth) is clearly hitting on his own niece which leaves Schönherr’s Inspector to comment that he really can’t blame him. As much as I am enamoured by Sommerfeld myself, I still draw a line at praising incest.
All in all this is a good but not a great production.
Though one of the lesser known Krimis, in contrast to other similar films the English dubbed version of this film is easily available but that cut runs six minutes shorter than the original.
Yes, I know I pilfered Serge Gainsbourg's oeuvre for the title of this blog post but it really does feel as if 2023 will be the year where Marisa Mell will finally get her long overdue recognition... at least in her native Austria as there is a ton happening there right now.
Best known as Eva Kant in Mario Bava's Danger: Diabolik (1968), she also featured in scores of International productions as well as playing in Das Rätsel der roten Orchidee/Secret of the Red Orchid (1962) and Das Rätsel des silbernen Halbmonds/Seven Blood-Stained Orchids (1972). She was one of the most stunning women of her time and yet her (ultimately tragic) life story had somewhat faded into oblivion.
Singer/Actress/Author Erika Pluhar wrote a beautiful German language book, Marisa, about their friendship and Mirko Di Wallenberg kept the flame alive on his blog, but other than that there was very little.
I recently came across two little known German language productions from the 1960s that both feature Jack the Ripper.
Neither one is a traditional Krimi but both have elements of that genre that warrant an inclusion on this blog.
First up Lulu/No Orchids for Lulu (1962), a new adaptation of Frank Wedekind’s plays Erdgeist/Earth Spirit and Die Büchse der Pandora/Pandora’s Box and as such a remake of the classic silent movie Pandora’s Box (1929) with Louise Brooks.
In line with the original drama, a Jack the Ripper like character - he is never really named as such and though all the tropes are there the time period is wrong - is only introduced towards the end of this “burlesque tragedy” as a cipher for the rise and dramatic fall of the title character.
This Austrian movie is purposely theatrical and presented as a morality play, even down to having a narrator (a bald Charles Regnier who in real life was actually married to Frank Wedekind’s daughter Pamela) speaking into the camera and commenting on events in this movie.
When a teenage flower girl tries to steal Dr. Schön’s (O.E. Hasse) pocket watch, he takes her on Pygmalion style to make a lady out of her and eventually marry her off to an influential older medical officer (Hogan’s Heroes’ Leon Askin). Though not explicitly shown it is implied that he didn’t just introduce her to the ways of the world alone.
The first five minutes of this film are entirely without dialogue and instead filmed dreamlike through a blurry lens and underlined by cheerful music. We never see the face of the girl until we finally cut to her as an adult where she is shown to be portrayed by Austrian actress Nadja Tiller who would eventually appear in eleven movies by Rolf Thiele, the director of this movie.
All the men in her life project so much into her that throughout the film they all address her differently (Lulu, Nelly, Eva) and yet she eventually leaves a trail of dead husbands and destroyed lives behind her.
Lulu is portrayed as being both innocent but scheming, temptress and self destructive, Angel and Devil all in one. Her relationship with Hasse’s character bears traces of The Blue Angel and her rise and eventual downfall is mirrored in her appearance and the contrast to a portrait that was done of her by her second artist/husband (Sieghardt Rupp) and her being shaven haired after an escape in a coffin from a prison signals her downward slide.
Speaking of mirrors: They are ever present for her narcissistic glances.
Hildegard Knef plays an enigmatic Countess with more than just a maternal interest in Lulu who, to her own detriment, also succumbs to her destructive charms.
Also watch out for Mario Adorf as a sleazy acrobat, Rudolf Forster as a bum and the one constant companion of Lulu’s life from teenage years on and Herbert Fux in a bit part as a visitor to a nightclub.
Overall, Lulu is probably more interesting than genuinely good but definitely well worth a watch. It does appear to at one stage have seen an English language release as No Orchids for Lulu (a play on the then popular No Orchids for Miss Blandish) so there may be an English language version around out there somewhere.
In the meantime you can watch the original German version on YouTube (embedding on other websites is blocked so you need to visit the site directly).
So just did a thing and uploaded a slideshow to YouTube with posters, lobby cards and promotional images for the Rialto Edgar Wallace Krimi DER HEXER aka THE MYSTERIOUS MAGICIAN based on Wallace's novel THE RINGER.
Hope you like. I may do more along those lines sometime in the future.
