Three Films Make A Post: YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO REMAIN SILENT...FOREVER.

The Fighting O’Flynn (1949): I suspect Arthur Pierson’s swashbuckler featuring Douglas Fairbanks Jr. as former Irish mercenary protecting Ireland (and the United Kingdom) from a Napoleonic plot, mostly doing so to woo Helena Carter, won’t be on anybody’s list of favourite swashbucklers, or even favourite swashbucklers with Fairbanks. It’s a bit slight even for a genre that doesn’t usually go for too much depth anyway, with nary a moment that actually feels dangerous for our hero and a tone that comes down slightly too much on the comedic side of the genre, undermining the melodrama and romance a little. The film is completely fluffy good fun, though, with Fairbanks giving an enthusiastic cliché Irishman that might even count as a racist stereotype, the plot zipping alone nicely, and boredom a faint memory while watching. So even though there’s little I’d call actually memorable about the film, it’s a very nice way to spend a lazy, too warm winter evening.

Der Fluch der gelben Schlange (1963): I probably should be all over Franz Joseph Gottlieb’s very pulpy Rialto Edgar Wallace krimi because of its pulpiness but it’s rather difficult to appreciate a film this unrelentingly racist. I know, it’s trying to shape itself after the Fu Manchu films and other Yellow Peril stuff but in a film made in 1963, this sort of thing just leaves a very bad aftertaste in the mouth particularly because the film doesn’t just use unexamined racist tropes like a lot of comparable material does, but seems really enthusiastic about its racial politics. That’s not much of a surprise in a German film, really, given the kind of racist wonderland Germany still is even 50 years later, with your typical German bourgeois losing all of the liberality he pretends to be so proud of when confronted with anybody who isn’t white, but that doesn’t mean I’ll be able (or willing) to enjoy it. It doesn’t help that Evil Eurasian™ Pinkas Braun’s yellowface is quite this egregiously bad, making even Christopher Lee’s version of Fu Manchu look authentic, that our heroine is a wet blanket even for a Wallace film, nor that our supposed hero Joachim Fuchsberger is as rude as he is racist. It’s all just so very unpleasant I really didn’t even found myself wanting to overlook the bullshit watching it.

Gallows Hill aka The Damned (2013): Victor García’s “stranded in an old house with a possessive witch” movie (that’s a sub-genre, right?) is perfectly fine entertainment for the 90 minutes or so it goes on. The acting’s fine all around, García knows how to pace this sort of thing, and the film does some neat things with the bilingual nature of some of its characters. Despite these virtues, I can’t say the film really grabbed me. The nature of its central evil is just a bit too played out right now, and the additional twist of a possessor who always hops into the body of the person who killed it doesn’t sit right with me, and feels more like a way to crank up the drama in easy ways than something that fits the monster’s background organically. I was also rather miffed by the film’s very clichéd hymns on family love even when it leads to Very Bad Things, and by the fact that the first act doesn’t do much work to actually prepare later character developments. It must have sounded like a good idea to have a monster that knows everyone’s dirty secrets, but it’s a wasted idea if a film never prepares these secrets but springs them on the audience with a “we needed a shocking plot twist here, so magic” gesture.

This doesn’t make Gallows Hill a bad film as much as one that wastes too many opportunities to be a great one.

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Die Tür mit den 7 Schlössern (1962)

aka The Door with 7 Locks

When safe cracker Pheeny (Klaus Kinski) comes to Inspector Dick Martin (Heinz Drache) of Scotland Yard to tell him a curious story about some people bringing him to a secret area to open a strange door with seven locks, Martin doesn’t really know what to think, and mostly shrugs the whole thing off. When he finds Pheeny dead in his cupboard, he’s sure something is going on.

It doesn’t take long until Martin and his intrepid assistant Holms (Eddi Arent) suspect Pheeny’s mysterious door is connected with the first two in what will soon become quite a series of murders, whose victims both carried two very similar keys around. A bit later, Martin encounters the proverbial unsuspecting young heiress in danger (Sabine Sesselmann), and finds himself wading through a lot of suspicious people, like mad scientist Antonio Staletti (Pinkas Braun), owner of a musical chair Betram Cody (Werner Peters) and his domineering and quite evil wife Emely (Gisela Uhlen), a frightening brute (Ady Berber), and so on, and so forth.

Die Tür mit den 7 Schlössern is only the second Rialto Edgar Wallace adaptation directed by series mainstay Alfred Vohrer. It doesn’t indulge quite as intensely in the director’s visual tics and obsessions, so there aren’t as many shots of peeping or enlarged eyes as usual (though Staletti has some very fine glasses), and the self-references and irony aren’t coming quite as thick and fast; probably because there just weren’t enough Wallace films made by Rialto to have finalized a house style to be self-ironic about.

There is still a lot going on that is very typical of Vohrer’s krimis, though, like the often creative, generally eccentric framing and blocking of shots and scenes, the director’s – and probably director of photography Kurt Löb’s – use of deep focus, and visual dynamics that emphasize the more grotesque aspects of any given scene and set, establishing early and often that the UK the film takes place in is a dream made out of cheap thriller novels and every cliché about the country Germans of the time probably not really believed in, yet still fancied quite a bit. At this point in the cycle, Vohrer operated with true verve, and while this is very close to the platonic archetype of what the Rialto Wallace formula would become, the resulting film feels fresh and lively, and as fun as these things come.

I was a bit surprised by the important role of the film’s mad scientist as played with great, sweaty enthusiasm by Pinkas Braun, or rather, I was surprised by the degree of mad science the Die Tür, quite atypical for the Wallace films, indulged in, with Staletti having already created his own mentally disabled brute and planning on continuing his good work by transplanting the head of a human onto an ape body (great shoddy ape costumes there, by the way), so that the geniuses of humanity can live on eternally, complete with as clear of an echo of certain Nazi “science” ideas as German pop cinema dared use at the time. As they say, SCIENCE! Staletti further recommends himself by taking the time to indulge in a little slide show presentation to inform the film’s heroine of a two-headed dog supposedly created by Pavlov, and gloating so intensely said heroine has ample time to slink away from him.

The film takes a bit of time to reach these heights of pulp nonsense (there’s, for example, also a gun hidden in an arm prosthesis to delight you if you like that sort of thing, and why wouldn’t you?). In fact, at first Die Tür seems a bit harmless and tepid. This is, however, Vohrer taking a run-up so he can then go as full out crazy as anything you’ll find in the cycle, with nary a second of the film’s latter half going by that does not contain a neat visual gag, or an absurd idea presented with the greatest matter-of-fact-ness. It’s a joy to watch, and, I can’t help but suspect after the resulting film, it looks as it was a bit of a joy to make too.

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Skeletons in the Closet: Im Banne des Unheimlichen (1968)

aka The Zombie Walks

In the first themed month of many, the members and agents of M.O.S.S. point their eyes/eye-stalks/tentacles/augmentations towards all things skeletal and skull-shaped. You can find our ever growing (at least throughout October) list of fleshless knowledge here.

 

The rich philanthropist Sir Oliver Ramsay has been killed in a plane crash, leaving his brother Sir Cecil (Wolfgang Kieling) as his inheritor. Sir Cecil isn't quite convinced that his brother is really dead, though, for the badly burned corpse supposedly belonging to Oliver was missing his scorpion ring. Something definitely is up with Oliver's death: during his burial, a terrible laughter fills the church, seemingly coming from Oliver's coffin.

Following this rather disturbing event, Cecil repeatedly sees a stylish skull-faced form wearing a broad-rimmed hat, skeleton gloves and a scorpion ring. That's enough to convince that his brother has turned into a zombie and is out for revenge for some undisclosed misdeed. Once the skeleton-faced form begins to kill the people - starting with Cecil's lawyer - around Sir Cecil with a rare poison hidden in the scorpion's tail of his scorpion ring, Inspector Higgins (Joachim Fuchsberger) of Scotland Yard gets on the case.

Poor Higgins will not only have to cope with a murderous zombie (if he is one)/skull-masked villain of impeccable style, the charming roving reporter Peggy Ward (Siw Mattson) who knows it's '68, and the "comedic" shenanigans of his boss Sir Arthur (Hubert von Meyerinck). Our hero will also have to sort through a whole bunch of suspects including a shady physician (Siegfried Rauch), a shady mortician (Wolfgang Spier), a shady and very ill green-faced white guy who is supposed to be a creole from the West Indies (Peter Mosbacher), a shady stranger (Pinkas Braun), a shady nurse (Claude Farell), a shady chauffeur (Jimmy Powell), a shady priest (Hans Krull) and his shady wife (Renate Grosser), and a shady expert (Ilse Pagé) on poisons who lives and works in the most preposterous home ever to be filled with prepared animals. Some of these people would be financially quite better off if something happened to Sir Cecil, which - this being an Edgar Wallace adaptation - of course means many of them will end up quite dead while Higgins is still trying to get his act together.

I'm not an expert on statistics, and therefore can't be quite sure, but I suspect Alfred Vohrer's Edgar Wallace krimi Im Banne des Unheimlichen (which translates to "under the spell of the uncanny" - or "under the spell of the uncanny one", rather than the more pedestrian "the zombie walks") might be the Rialto Wallace movie featuring at once the highest number of suspects and the highest number of corpses; as you know, there's only a thin line dividing suspect and corpse in these films.

Im Banne is a Wallace krimi far on the pop side of the tracks, a film whose stiffly conservative side is permanently subverted by Vohrer's playing up of the script's inherent silliness, as the stiffer and more conservative elements in Vohrer's directorial style are drowned out by his obvious enjoyment of finally being able to play around with colour now that the Wallace films had given up on black and white. It's 1968, after all, and even though Vohrer's idea of pop is pretty far from hippie dreams, it is one that has room for moments of utter psychedelic delight like his frequent use (some will say overuse) of red and green light, a very swank nightclub sequence, and lovingly hideous interior decorations that culminate in the nearly Bollywood-ripe place Professor Bound works in that looks as if a bunch of dead animals had invaded a 60s ethno kitsch bachelor pad.

There are also some very peculiar ideas about the West Indies on display throughout the film. The West Indies, you see, are filled with creole people, some of them very white guys with green faces, who spend their time making zombies with the help of Aztec poison when they're not creating shrunken heads or mixing a drink known as "the zombie". Culturally, the film further suggests, the West Indies are at once part of the Caribbean and of Mexico. Some people will probably find enough material in here to be insulted for life, but for that, you'll have to be able to take this stuff seriously - I certainly don't, nor does the film itself.

The camp quotient pretty much goes through the roof, yet Vohrer does also use the more typical accoutrements of the earnest side of the krimi: rather drab churches, cobwebbed crypts, a swank castle, and a creepy hospital are all there, accounted for and created with a loving look for detail as well, providing the film with as much contact with the style of 1948 as with that of 1968. This contrast works well for the film, since it underlines its slightly surreal streak and pushes its mood into the dream-like and artificial, which is the only way I personally can stand a film this camp. In fact, this works out so well for the film (and for me) that I found myself utterly enthralled by the silly nonsense happening on screen while watching it.

My enjoyment was heightened even further when realizing that Vohrer (or script writer Ladislas Fodor) for once in a Wallace film actually includes a semi-competent woman on the side of the good. Sure, Siw Mattson's Peggy Ward isn't above getting kidnapped and threatened repeatedly, but she's also shown to shrug these meaningless little issues off like a good heroine and do something useful again afterwards; she's also pretty aggressively (and sillily) flirting with Higgins, which is as far from the regular passive female leads of the series as is possible. We probably have to thank the pervading popularity of The Avengers and Emma Peel (who is even mentioned in the dialogue) in Germany for this particular change to the accustomed formula of these films; I give my thanks daily.

Also worth mentioning (what with this being part of Skeletons in the Closet and all), is the excellent, excellent Laughing Corpse/Skull-Faced Gentleman. This particular masked evildoer is one of my absolute favourites in the whole Wallace cycle because he manages to be at once campy and somewhat creepy in concept, and is realized with a fine sense for the importance of little details. There aren't many skull masks with a moveable jaw after all, and not many villains wearing a skull mask, a cloak and gloves would sew themselves actual skeleton gloves. (Am I the only one hoping for a costume sewing scene in one these films?). It's that sort of enthusiasm that makes the true villain as much as the ability to speak of oneself in the third person and build death traps.

The very same enthusiasm that created this wonderful villain get-up is running through the whole film, making it one of the most outrageous as well as one of the most entertaining films in the Wallace cycle.

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Der Bucklige von Soho (1966)

aka The Hunchback of Soho

A mysterious hunchback (Richard Haller) haunts Soho, strangling young women. All of the victims have curiously rough hands, but that's not a hint that leads Scotland Yard's leading puffed-up idiot Sir John (Siegfried Schürenberg), nor the notoriously crap at keeping people alive Inspector Hopkins (Günther Stoll) anywhere, probably because they don't actually seem to be looking. Hopkins repeatedly prefers to do his washing to investigation.

At the same time, young Wanda Merville (Monika Peitsch) arrives in London to accept the inheritance of her rich, estranged father. This being an Edgar Wallace adaptation, Wanda is promptly kidnapped by the shady Alan Davis (Pinkas Braun), who doesn't hide her away like a normal gangster would, but inters the girl in the home for young women who have come into contact with the wrong side of the law he's managing for the elderly Lady Perkins (Agnes Windeck). Lady Perkins also just happens to be Wanda's aunt, which may or may not be mere chance.

Davis (and one or more mysterious partners) has quite an operation going on: he uses the girls in his home as slave workers in the dry cleaning business (of course only using the cheapest detergents - yes, that's a plot point), and the best they can hope for (apart from getting killed by the strangler who of course works for Davis, too) is to become prostitutes in a friendly bordello.

How will Hopkins solve this difficult case?

Der Bucklige von Soho is the first film in Rialto Film's cycle of Edgar Wallace adaptations that was shot in colour, so of course it is often the film that is pointed out as the one beginning point of the series' downward spiral. I'd agree with that particular theory a lot more if the films following Der Bucklige had all been worse than those that came before, or if all Wallace films that came before it had been better. In truth, the Wallace films don't really lend themselves very well to that sort of narrative, because to me, their biggest weakness was their unwillingness to change their style very much over time, a handful of outliers notwithstanding.

Sure, the later films in the cycle were somewhat more convoluted than the early ones, and they did take themselves even less seriously than the early ones, but this isn't so much the case of a series of films changing for the worse over time than a series of films concentrating even more on their main characteristics. Even the change from black and white to colour as exemplified in Der Bucklige is not quite as extreme a change in visual style as it could have been - it's not as if the Wallace films were suddenly turned on their heads by the sensational new technology they found.

Having said that, I'll have to agree with general consensus that Alfred Vohrer's Der Bucklige von Soho just isn't a very entertaining movie. It's an example of a particular weakness in German genre filmmaking (something that has - generally - made German movies not produced for the arthouse rather crap), a weakness I can best describe as cowardice. Der Bucklige, like so many other films made in my native country, is a movie that seems to really, truly want to be a real, true exploitation film, seeing as it contains potentially lurid elements of women in prison cinema, sexploitation, horror, what was already the Eurospy movie, and so on, and so forth. However, also like so many other films made in my native country, it is also a film that does not dare take the final step into the lurid, that always promises to become sleazy, but always stops itself before it actually commits and never is anything more than a bit naughty.

It's this unwillingness to not just promise exploitational values, but to actually deliver them that can make some of the Wallace films (and most other German genre films) so very frustrating - they're always teasing, but never take themselves seriously enough to let their teasing lead anywhere.

The Wallace films didn't suffer from this problem quite as much as the rest of German cinema, and often seemed feeling just fine with being low-brow/trashy/what-have-you. Other films of the series somewhat manage to overcome this flaw by virtue of creative direction, a sense of weirdness that comes from their overexcited and confused plotting, and the general feel that everyone involved had a hell of a time making them. Der Bucklige, however, mostly feels tired and distracted, with Vohrer only managing to provide two or three scenes that actually feel as strange or as fun as the whole film should. There's some fine "look, Ma! I'm evil" acting by (usually playing "comic" relief parts in these films, so there's some creativity there) Eddi Arent, at least, and some of Vohrer's mandatory zoom lens mangling (I suspect in a different life, Vohrer would have loved to go the Jess Franco way and zoom in on female pubic hair a lot, instead of ending up directing Die Schwarzwaldklinik), but that's not really enough to make Der Bucklige von Soho one of the Rialto Wallaces I'd recommend to anyone but completists.

 

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