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[August 16, 1967] Boxes, Big Steel Boxes: The Rise of the Shipping Container

August 16, 2022 Cora Buhlert 6 Comments

by Cora Buhlert

A Strangely Familiar Monk

A few days ago, Der Mönch mit der Peitsche (The Monk with the Whip), the latest movie in the Edgar Wallace series, premiered in West German cinemas. Director Alfred Vohrer delivers the best colour film in the Wallace series to date (the series switched to colour last year) and creates striking visuals as a scarlet robed monk stalks the fog-shrouded grounds of an exclusive girls' school. The organ-heavy score by Martin Böttcher contributes to the eerie atmosphere

However, the plot seems strangely familiar, probably because we've already seen this very same film one and a half years ago under the title Der unheimliche Mönch (The Sinister Monk). Star Uschi Glas even played a supporting role in the earlier movie.

Monk with the Whip: Uschi Glass — Sir John (Siegfried Schürenberg) and Inspector Higgins (Joachim Fuchsberger) comfort Ann Portland (Uschi Glas) after a run-in with the monk.

So has it finally happened? Has the Edgar Wallace series run out of ideas after a stunning twenty-nine movies in the past eight years? On the other hand, Edgar Wallace was a very prolific writer and much of his work remains unadapted. So maybe there is life in the old warhorse yet?

However, not just the Edgar Wallace movies have switched to colour. West German television will begin broadcasting in colour later this month to coincide with the Internationale Funkausstellung (International Radio Exhibition) in Berlin.

Magic Boxes

Meanwhile, a revolution just as significant as the switch from black and white to colour is quietly happening in a completely different sector. At the centre of this revolution is an unassuming 20 x 8 x 8.5 foot box of aluminium or corrugated steel: the shipping container.

Cargo ships may not be as glamorous as the big ocean liners and cruise ships or as impressive as a Navy destroyer or aircraft carrier, but they are the backbone of international trade. Pretty much every product from overseas, whether it's cars from Japan, import paperbacks and comic books from the US, coffee from Brazil, tea from India, canned pineapples from Hawaii or even that fanzine mailed from America, comes to you by cargo ship, because air freight is much too expensive and only reserved for the most urgent of cargos.

However, shipping cargo from one port to another takes time. Now unless there is a revolution in engine technology, which is currently not in sight, the speed of a modern ship has reached a maximum. The SS United States set The Blue Riband record for the fastest crossing of the Atlantic fifteen years ago, and this achievement is not likely to be broken anytime soon.

But the actual sea voyage is only a part of cargo transport. Freighters spend a large chunk of time in ports, because loading and unloading the cargo takes a lot of time and manpower (roughly twenty longshoremen are needed to load or unload a single freighter). Hereby, a large part of the problem is that cargo comes in all shapes and sizes. Cars are different from sacks of coffee, which are different from cans of pineapples, which are different from bales of cotton, which are different from boxes of books, which are different from bags of mail. All of these differently sized cargos must be individually unloaded, with the help of cranes, where necessary.

Loading the MV Rothenstein in Port of Sudan — Longshoremen are loading bags aboard the MV Rothenstein in Port of Sudan in 1960.

Bags being unloaded in the port of Bremen — Bagged cargo is being unloaded in the port of Bremen.

Cotton bales being unloaded in the port of Bremen — Bales of cotton are being unloaded in the port of Bremen.

Damaged coffee bag — Another drawback of breakbulk cargo is that the cargo can get damaged, such as these coffee beans spilling out of a bag in the cargo hold of a freighter.

Father of the Modern Shipping Container

The slow loading and unloading process is a constant source of frustration for shipping companies. Among the frustrated was a man named Malcom McLean, co-owner of a trucking company from North Carolina. Some thirty years ago, McLean had the brilliant idea that instead of the current time-consuming process, it would be much quicker to just load a trailer with the cargo onto a ship and then unload trailer and cargo at the destination and connect it to a tractor unit.

Eventually McLean refined his idea to load not entire truck trailers onto a ship, but simply transport the cargo in boxes of the same size that are easy to load, unload and stack, whether they contain books or shoes or sacks of coffee or bales of cotton or canned pineapples or bags of mail. And thus, the shipping container was born.

Malcom McLean overlooks his empire in Newark in 1957.

Initially, the shipping industry was sceptical about McLean's idea – after all, a box would add extra weight and reduce the available payload – and he had problems finding backers. So in 1955, he sold his share in his trucking company, bought a steamship company he named Sea-Land Corporation Ltd. and two decommissioned US Navy tankers, which he had converted for transporting containers. The first of these two ships, the SS Ideal X, disembarked on its first voyage from Newark to Houston on April 26, 1956.

Container aboard the Ideal X — Containers being loaded aboard the Ideal X for its first voyage in 1956.

The breakthrough for the shipping container and a lucrative contract for Sea-Land finally came with the Vietnam War, because McLean's containers turned out to be ideal for transporting supplies to the US troops in Vietnam.

The Container Comes to Bremen

But while McLean and Sea-Land were slowly revolutionising cargo shipping in the US, European and particularly West German shipping companies remained sceptical of this new-fangled container idea. And so it took until May of last year for Sea-Land to start a regular transatlantic cargo service and for the first container vessel, the MV Fairland, to come to Europe.

The Fairland's first port of call was Rotterdam. Her second port of call was my hometown of Bremen and this is why I was lucky enough to see the Fairland and her cargo of miracle boxes in person. A friend of mine works as an engineer at the AG Weser shipyard and was asked to stand by with a team of technicians and electricians in case there were any problems while unloading the Fairland's cargo of containers. He invited me along to serve as an interpreter in case of language issues.

Fairland in Bremen port — The MV Fairland moored in the port of Bremen last year.

And there definitely were problems unloading the Fairland, because the port of Bremen is not set up for the handling of containers and German trucks turned out to be not all that well equipped for transporting containers with American dimensions. And because containers are still very new in Europe, things like corner castings and twist-locks, which keep the container in place aboard a ship or on a truck bed, are unknown here.

Another look at the MV Fairland in the port of Bremen last year. Note the containers on deck.

The first of the 226 containers on board was unloaded without a hitch. However, disaster struck when the second container, a refrigerated unit called a "reefer container", carrying frozen chicken legs from Virginia, slipped from the hook of the on-board cargo crane of the Fairland and crashed down onto the driver's cab of a brand-new truck waiting below. Thankfully, the driver was not seriously injured. The container survived the fall as well, as did the chicken legs, though the truck did not.

While the Fairland was being unloaded, several Bremen merchants and representatives of West German shipping companies were watching the proceedings with great interest. Initially, the merchants and shipping companies were highly sceptical and the accident during the unloading of the second container did not help matters. However, when the Fairland was fully unloaded after only sixteen hours and two shifts rather than the customary several days or even weeks, depending on the size of the ship and the type of cargo, the gentlemen were intrigued.

The Container Revolution

The Fairland would not remain the only container freighter to moor at the port of Bremen. But while there was still a lot of scepticism towards the metal box, Bremen senator of harbours Georg Bortscheller (nicknamed "Container Schorse" for his championing of container shipping) and Gerhard Beier, head of the Bremer Lagerhaus Gesellschaft, the company which manages the loading, unloading and storage of cargo in the harbours of Bremen and Bremerhaven, were both convinced by Malcom McLean's idea and also saw great potential for Bremen's harbours in the introduction of the shipping container. Because if Bremen's harbour was better set up to handle containers than competing harbours like Hamburg, Rotterdam or Antwerp, container ships and the resulting business would go here. And indeed, the United States Line and the Container Marines Lines now have a regular container service to Bremen in addition to Sea-Land.

Senator Bortscheller — George Bortscheller a.k.a. "Container Schorse", Bremen's senator of harbours.

As a result, the first specialised container bridge was installed in Bremen harbour in October 1966, only five months after the arrival of the Fairland. Now container vessels could be unloaded even faster than before. Last months, the 100,000th container was unloaded in Bremen harbour, a remarkable number considering that the first 100 containers were unloaded from the Fairland only a little more than a year ago.

First container bridge in the harbour of Bremen — The first container bridge in the port of Bremen began operations in October of last year.

But West German shipping companies were also taking note. The first container vessel built in West Germany, the Bell Vanguard, was launched in March 1966 in Hamburg, two months before the Fairland arrived in Bremen. But though the Bell Vanguard was commissioned by the West German shipping company Jürgen Heinrich Breuer of Hamburg, it was chartered out to the Irish shipping company Bell Lines and it currently in service between Ireland and continental Europe.

Meanwhile, two of the biggest West German shipping companies, the Hamburg-Amerika-Linie a.k.a. Hapag of Hamburg and the Norddeutscher Lloyd of Bremen are also getting into the container business. Initially, Hapag had some of its fast freighters of the Westfalia und Nürnberg classes converted to be able to transport containers in addition to regular breakbulk cargos, while the Norddeutscher Lloyd is doing the same with Burgenstein class vessels and the brand-new fast freighters of Friesenstein class. My friend, who works at the AG Weser shipyard, is in charge of these conversions and is currently overseeing the freighters being outfitted with twist locks, plugs for reefer containers and rails to allow for moving and storing containers on deck.

HAPAG's MV Alemannia, retrofitted for container transport.

The Norddeutscher Lloyd's MV Bayernstein, retrofitted for container transport.

MV Birkenstein — The Norddeutscher Lolyd's MV Buntenstein, retrofitted for container transport.

But both companies have even bigger plans and the long-time rivals are cooperating to make them a reality. For Hapag and the Norddeutscher Lloyd are planning to order four dedicated container vessels of their own and will jointly operate them under the name Hapag-Lloyd. The first two of these ships, the MV Weser Express and MV Elbe Express, are expected to go into service next year. This is good news, particularly for the troubled Hapag, since one of their ships, the freighter MV Münsterland, is currently stuck in the Great Bitter Lake in the Suez Canal due to the Six Day War. It is unknown when the Münsterland will be able to return to Hamburg.

Freighters trapped in the Suez Canal due to the Six Days War — Hapag's MV Münsterland and several other freighters stuck in the Great Bitter Lake in the Suez Canal due to the Six Days War.

Will the container revolution continue or will it fizzle out? So far, the future is still up in the air. However, the rapid growth of container turnover in the harbour of Bremen, the fact that Senator Bortscheller has announced that a brand-new container terminal will be built in the harbour of Bremerhaven as well as the fact that big shipping companies such as Hapag and the Norddeutscher Lloyd are jumping into the container business indicate that the shipping container is not a passing fad, but here to stay.

The container does have its drawbacks. For example it endangers the jobs of many longshoremen, but overall the world will profit from the rise of the container and the faster turnover times it makes possible, because it means that goods from overseas, whether coffee, tobacco, cotton, canned pineapples, Japanese cars and radios, frozen chicken legs from Virginia, books and magazines, and yes, even the postage for that fanzine mailed from the US, will become more plentiful and cheaper. And this is something that will benefit us all.

Freighters may be the backbone of the shipping industry, but the glamour still plays a role as well, as exemplified by the Norddeutscher Lloyd's flagship, the beautiful MV Europa, which is offering both liner service between Bremerhaven and New York as well as cruises.

MV Europa in the foggy outer Weser — The MV Europa on the foggy outer Weser. However, she'll soon reach sunnier climes.

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Book, Movies, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[January 22, 1966] Monks, Demi-Gods and Cat People: The Sword of Lankor by Howard L. Cory

January 22, 2021 Cora Buhlert 2 Comments

by Cora Buhlert

German Beats:

Sony and Cher on Beat-Club — Sony and Cher are performing on Beat-Club.

Beat music is invading the West German single charts and getting steadily more popular, particularly among the young. In September, I reported about the launch of Beat-Club, a brand-new music TV program made right here in my hometown of Bremen. Since then, Beat-Club has become a must-watch among young West Germans and is also beginning to attract international stars. For example, the December edition featured both the British band Gerry and the Pacemakers and the US duo Sonny and Cher.

Outside the teen and twen demographic, however, Schlager, that uniquely German genre of pop music with sentimental lyrics and catchy melodies, is still king. And now, a nineteen-year-old singer named Drafi Deutscher has managed to combine beat style music and Schlager type lyrics with his number one hit "Marmor, Stein und Eisen bricht" (Marble, stone and iron breaks, but our love will not). Does the combination work? Judge for yourself.

Whip-Mad Monks:

Meanwhile, West German cinemas are dominated by the latest instalment in the Edgar Wallace series of spooky thrillers. Der unheimliche Mönch (The Sinister Monk) came out late in 1965, but I only got around to seeing it after new year.

In many ways, The Sinister Monk is a very typical Edgar Wallace thriller. The wealthy Lord Darkwood dies and leaves his entire estate to his granddaughter Gwendolin (Karin Dor), whose father is in prison for a crime he did not commit. This infuriates the remaining relatives so much that they try to murder Gwendolin for her inheritance.

A large part of the movie is set in an exclusive girls' boarding school run by Gwendolin's aunt Lady Patricia (Ilse Steppat). However, Lady Patricia has problems of her own, for some of her students have gone missing and a sinister hooded monk wielding a bullwhip is stalking the grounds. Soon, cast members are dropping like flies, strangled to death by the monk's bullwhip. However, for reasons best known to himself, the monk seems determined to protect Gwendolin from assassination attempts by her villainous relatives.

The Sinister Monk is a delightfully spooky gothic romp and the whip-wielding monk is certainly one of the more colourful Edgar Wallace villains. However, the true shock comes once the monk is unmasked in the finale. For the face under the hood is none other than that of Eddi Arent, a regular of the Edgar Wallace movies who normally specialises in playing comic relief characters and was about the least likely suspect.

This proves that even after twenty-four movies, the Edgar Wallace series still has a surprise or two up its sleeve.

Planet of Apostrophes:

Surprises may also be found in the spinner rack of my local import bookstore. And so I picked up what the backcover promised was a science fiction adventure in the tradition of Edgar Rice Burroughs.

The Sword of Lankor by Howard L. Cory plunges us right in medias res with our hero, the mercenary Thuron of Ulmekoor embroiled in a tavern brawl in the city of Taveeshe on the planet of Lankor. Thuron is certainly the perfect protagonist, because – so the author assures us – "adventure followed him around like a friendly puppy". He's also tall, strong and a skilled swordsman.

During the tavern brawl, Thuron saves the life of Gaar, a member of a race of furry cat people called Kend. As a result, Gaar is now Thuron's servant for a year and a day, as the customs of his people demand. But Gaar brings other skills to the partnership as well, for he is an oracle, conjurer and pickpocket. Gaar is also the brains of the duo, while Thuron is the brawn.

If you are reminded at this point of Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories, you are not alone. And indeed the Burroughs comparison on the backcover is misleading, for there are many authors that The Sword of Lankor is more reminiscent of than Burroughs.

When Thuron and Gaar are ambushed, Gaar declares in a spur of inspiration that his companion is the son of the battle god Wabbis Ka'arbu, as has been prophesied by a hovering golden sphere that suddenly appeared in the temple of the battle god a few days before. But while Gaar had only intended to get both of them out of a tight spot, Thuron likes the idea of being the son of a god and decides to take part in the battle games that will determined the true son of Wabbis Ka’arbu.

Son of the Battle God:

Even though Thuron starts out as an underdog, he nonetheless wins the contest and – with the aid of a convenient solar eclipse – is pronounced the true son of the battle god. But that's not the end of Thuron's troubles, for he now has to deal with the conflict between King Xandnur and the treacherous high priest Yang T'or as well as with Princess Yllara who has been given to him as a not entirely unwelcome gift. The mysterious golden sphere also sends Thuron on a quest to meet the battle god in his invisible palace atop the mountain Thona.

Unfortunately, Thuron remembers nothing of the meeting with his godly father and wakes up on the mountain with a headache, a magical ring on his finger, a refurbished sword that can even cut through stone and his "father's" voice in his ear. He also has a dream that sends him on a sacred quest the Isle of Crystals in the Forbidden Sea to procure a shipload of red crystals, a quest that is of course fraught with many dangers.

If you're beginning to suspect at this point that what happened to Thuron was not divine intervention at all, but that something quite different is going on in Lankor, you're not alone. And indeed, the mysterious dialogues about Thuron's quest between an unnamed captain and an equally unnamed navigator that are interspersed between the chapters strengthen those suspicions.

Gaar, who is after all the brains of the team, is also beginning to have his suspicions, especially after the supposed battle god turns out to be unaware of things he should know, such as that Thuron's ship has been hijacked by pirates in the employ of Yang T'or, complete with its cargo of crystals as well as Thuron's beloved Yllara. Furthermore, why does the battle god only speak to Thuron three times a day, always at the same time? And what does a battle god need those red crystals for anyway? So Gaar and Thuron decide to test the supposed battle god and persuade him to do their bidding, if he wants those crystals.

To cut to the chase, the hovering golden sphere that appeared in the temple of the battle god is not a divine omen at all, but a probe sent to explore the planet Lankor. The invisible palace atop the mountain Thona is not a godly dwelling, but a cloaked spaceship. And Thuron is not the son of the battle god either, but just a convenient pawn used by the merchant crew of said spaceship to procure the priceless red crystals. As for why the spaceship crew can't just mine the crystals themselves, Lankor is a high gravity world, where the crew would be instantly crushed, if they were to land. So they use the godhood ruse to recruit the strongest man on Lankor to retrieve the crystals for them.

Thuron does indeed the deliver the crystals to the supposed battle god (though he in turn gets the golden sphere's aid in reconquering the city of Taveeshe), slay the treacherous Yang T'or and rescue his beloved Yllara from Yang T'or's dungeons. In the end, Thuron remains in Taveeshe to rebuild the cult of the battle god without greedy priests or human sacrifices. Meanwhile, Gaar, who after all was the one who figured out the truth about the golden sphere, elects to travel with the spaceship crew to have further adventures among the stars.

A Fun Romp

The Sword of Lankor is an action-packed and thoroughly enjoyable science fiction and fantasy hybrid. The novel is chock full of great action scenes, whether it's the initial arena contest, a battle against giant crystalline spiders, a ship to ship fight with a pirate crew or the climactic duel inside the temple of the battle god.

Even though The Sword of Lankor is set on an alien planet and is a science fiction tale masquerading as fantasy or vice versa, the novel is closer to Robert E. Howard's Conan the Cimmerian and Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser than to Burroughs' Barsoom. We still don't have a good term for the type of action and adventure fantasy that Robert E. Howard, C.L. Moore and Clark Ashton Smith pioneered in the pages of Weird Tales more than thirty years ago. Michael Moorcock suggested "epic fantasy", Lin Carter prefers "heroic fantasy", while Fritz Leiber proposes "sword and sorcery". Personally, I prefer the latter term.

We have even less of a term to describe the kind of vaguely science fictional interplanetary adventure that Edgar Rice Burroughs pioneered more than fifty years ago and that Leigh Brackett and C.L. Moore perfected in the 1930s and 1940s, until science put a stop to fantastic adventures on Mars and Venus. "Planetary romance" seems to be the most common term. Fritz Leiber suggests "sword and superscience", while Donald Wollheim used "sword and wonder" on the backcover of the recent anthology Swordsmen in the Sky.

But whatever you want to call them, it's obvious that both subgenres are having a moment. Ace and Ballantine are eagerly reprinting Edgar Rice Burroughs stories that have been out of print for decades. Burroughs pastiches such as the recent Mars trilogy by Edward P. Bradbury a.k.a. Michael Moorcock are also popping up.

On the sword and sorcery side, Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and Gray Mouser and John Jakes' Brak the Barbarian are regularly gracing the pages of Fantastic. Michael Moorcock's Elric stories are a frequent feature in Science Fantasy and The Wizard of Lemuria by Lin Carter also came out last year. So did the Thurvok and Kurval series, my own humble contributions to the subgenre. Even Robert E. Howard's Conan the Cimmerian is set to be reprinted soon, thirty years after Howard's untimely death.

The Sword of Lankor is part of that revival and manages to combine good old-fashioned science fantasy adventure in the tradition of Leiber, Howard and Burroughs with a modern sensibility. For while the golden age was full of faux gods and science masquerading as religion, I doubt that the motives of the spaceship crew would have been quite so mercenary in the 1940s. Isaac Asimov's Foundation at least wanted to stave off the dark ages. The spaceship crew in The Sword of Lankor just wants to make a profit.

Sin Ship by Larry Maddock — When he's not writing science fiction, Jack Owen Jardine a.k.a. Larry Maddock a.k.a. one half of Howard L. Cory pens this kind of fare.

So who is Howard L. Cory, author of The Sword of Lankor? It turns out that Howard L. Cory is a joint pen name used by Jack Owen Jardine and his wife Julie Ann Jardine. Jack Owen Jardine is a radio disc jockey who published a couple of science fiction short stories under the pen name Larry Maddock as well as several erotic novels. His wife Julie Ann is an actress and dancer who performs under the stage name Corrie Howard. Until now, I was not familiar with either of them, but based on The Sword of Lankor, I wouldn't mind reading more stories by Jack Owen and Julie Ann Jardine.

The fact that one of the authors of The Sword of Lankor is a woman also explains why The Sword of Lankor offers more and better realised female characters than many other stories of that type. True, Yllara is a space princess stereotype and also mostly absent for the last third of the novel, when she is held prisoner by Yang T'or. However, on their quest to rescue Yllara, Thuron and Gaar also form an alliance with the Amazon queen Sh'gundelah and her impressive battle maidens.

The Sword of Lankor is not the sort of book that will win Hugos or other accolades, but it's a highly entertaining romp that had me smiling throughout. If you like Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and Gray Mouser, Robert E. Howard's Conan the Cimmerian or John Jakes' Brak the Barbarian, give The Sword of Lankor a try.

Four stars.

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Movies, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[August 14, 1965]: A Killer Thriller Double-Feature: Again the Ringer and The Face of Fu Manchu

August 14, 2020 Cora Buhlert 5 Comments

by Cora Buhlert

Scenes from Germany

So far, it's been a cool and rainy summer here in West Germany. Perfect to read a book or go to the cinema, the latter of which I'll be talking about today.

But first, the news: Two days ago, tragedy struck in the West German town of Lampertheim, when the Trans-Europ-Express "Helvetia", en route from Zurich to Hamburg, crashed into a freight train. Four people died, forty-five were injured. The cause of the accident seems to have been an error of the train dispatcher.

Lampertheim train disaster — The aftermath of the Lampertheim train crash

In happier news, the current number one in the German music charts is "Il Silenzio" ("Abschiedsmelodie" in German), a haunting instrumental piece by Italian trumpeter Nini Rosso, that is perfect for a slow dance on a summer's night.

The 15th annual (West) Berlin International Film Festival concluded last month. The Berlinale, as it is commonly known, is one of the most prestigious film festivals in the world, on par with Cannes and Venice, and therefore not normally focussed on the kind of movies we discuss here at the Journey. However, the winner of this year's Golden Bear is a dystopian science fiction film, Alphaville by French director Jean-Luc Godard. Other winners include Le Bonheur by young French director Agnés Varda and the divisive thriller Repulsion by young Polish born director Roman Polanski. Satyajit Ray from India won the Silver Bear for the best director. The two acting awards went to Hollywood star Lee Marvin for his performance in the western Cat Ballou and Madhur Jaffrey, also from India, for her performance in Shakespeare-Walllah.

Alphaville poster — The dystopian science fiction film "Alphaville" by Jean Luc Godard, winner of the 1965 Berlin International Film Festival.

Agnes Varda Berlinale — Young French director Agnés Vrada, winner of the Silver Bear at the 1965 Berlin International Film Festival

Shakespeare-Wallah cast Berlinale 1965 — The cast of the British Indian movie "Shakespeare Wallah", Felicity Kendal, Shashi Kapoor, Madhur Jaffrey and Jennifer Kapoor, pose in front of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in West Berlin

It will be a while before we will get to the see the Berlinale winners in cinemas. So let's take a look at what audiences can watch in West Germany's movie theatres right now.

The Ringer is Back

The wave of movies based on the novels of British thriller author Edgar Wallace shows no sign of abating. To date, twenty-three official Edgar Wallace adaptations and a number of unofficial ones have been made. And the series shows no signs of exhaustion. Indeed, last year's Der Hexer (The Ringer), about the exploits of the eponymous vigilante and master of disguise, was a new highpoint for the Edgar Wallace series.

Program book "Again, the Ringer" — The program book for "Again, the Ringer".

The Ringer was also a big financial success, so it was perhaps inevitable that there would be a sequel. And so part of the original cast reunited for Neues vom Hexer (Again the Ringer).

As most Wallace movies, Again the Ringer begins with a murder, in this case that of the wheelchair bound aristocrat Lord Curtain. Unusual for the mystery genre, we see not only howdunnit but also whodunnit, namely Lord Curtain's nephew Archie Moore (Robert Hoffmann) collaborating with Butler Edwards (Klaus Kinski, who was sorely missed in The Ringer). In order to deflect suspicion from themselves, Archie and Edwards leave a card next to the body inscribed with the words "News of the Ringer".

Klaus Kinski in Again, the Ringer — Butler Edwards ("Klaus Kinski" serves up tea and murder."

This turns out to be bad idea, because it attracts the attention of the real Ringer Arthur Milton (played once again by René Deltgen) who has retired from his vigilante ways and is now living in Australia. However, the Ringer is not at all pleased that criminals are using his good name and so he travels to London together with his wife Cora Ann (Margot Trooger) and trusty secretary Archibald Finch (Eddi Arent).

Eddi Arent in Again, the Ringer — Archibald Finch (Eddi Arent) is on the case.

The involvement of the Ringer also attracts the attention of Scotland Yard, represented here by the delightfully dim-witted chief of police Sir John (Siegfried Schürenberg in a recurring role) and Inspector James Westby (Heinz Drache, reprising his role from the previous film), who is on loan from the Australian police. Westby knows that the Ringer cannot be responsible for the murder of Lord Curtain, but would still love to apprehend him for the events in the previous movie.

A Game of Masks

The Ringer first makes his presence known by appearing at his own murder trial in absentia, where he disguises himself as one of the judges and quickly dismantles Archie Moore's alibi by exposing what the viewer already knows, namely how Archie managed to kill his uncle without any suspicion falling upon him. Archie flees the scene, as does the Ringer.

Siegfried Schürenberg, Hubertus von Meyenrinck and Heinz Drache in Again, the Ringer — Sir John (Siegfried Schürenberg) and Inspector Westby (Heinz Drache) discover that this most honourable judge (Hubertus von Meyerinck) is not the Ringer.

Because this is an Edgar Wallace film, more murders happen. First, Lady Curtain is killed and then prime suspect Archie Moore turns up dead as well. By now it is clear that the unseen mastermind, who directs his henchpeople via miniature radios, is targeting the Curtain family, but why? And who will be next?

Heinz Drache in Again, the Ringer — Inspector Westby finds the miniature radios via which the villain is directing his henchmen.

The mysterious case forces Scotland Yard and the Ringer to team up to protect the remaining members of the Curtain family, particularly Lord Curtain's young heir Charles (Teddy Naumann) and his estranged niece, artist Margie Fielding (Barbara Rütting).

Margie Fielding (Barbara Rütting) confronts Inspector Westby (Heinz Drache) in her very hip attic studio.

What follows is an exciting cat and mouse game, as the various characters try to outwit each other. In the original movie, the Ringer was the only master of disguise, using make-up and latex masks to impersonate others. However in Again, the Ringer, other characters join in the fun and so the villain impersonates the Ringer at one point, while the Ringer impersonates his secretary Archibald Finch and Inspector Westby impersonates a taxi driver.

Barbara Rütting and Rene Deltgen in Again the Ringer — Margie Fielding (Barbara Rütting) tangles with the Ringer (René Deltgen)

In the end, the mastermind behind everything is revealed to be Philip Curtain, Lord Curtain's disgraced brother. Now their truce has ended, the Ringer, Cora Ann and Archibald Finch plan to take off for Australia again, but their plans are foiled by Inspector Westby, who manages to outwit even a master strategist like the Ringer and returns the trio to Scotland Yard, because – as Westby puts it – their help is needed once again. Why does Scotland Yard need the help of the Ringer? I guess we'll find out in the inevitable sequel.

Again the Ringer — The mask is off and the villain is dead, as the surviving cast looks on.

A Sequel That Doesn't Quite Measure Up

Even the weaker Edgar Wallace films always guarantee an evening of good entertainment. But last year's The Ringer was a true delight and one of the best films in the series to date. Alas, the sequel, while still a lot of fun, pales in comparison to the original.

For starters, much of the suspense of the original is gone, now we know who the Ringer is. And the hunt for the mysterious mastermind behind the attacks on the Curtain family is not nearly as exciting, especially since villain Philip Curtain remains unseen until the final scene and even there he is hidden behind the mask of the Ringer. When his face briefly is seen, it belongs to director Alfred Vohrer.

That said, there is a lot to like about the movie. As always with the Wallace movies, the cast is excellent. The returning cast of Eddi Arent, Margot Trooger, Siegfried Schürenberg and Heinz Drache are clearly having a lot of fun and René Deltgen as the Ringer gets a lot more to do this time around than in the original, where he only appears in the final scene. However, Margot Trooger's delightful Cora Ann Milton is woefully underused. Klaus Kinski is always a welcome addition to any Edgar Wallace movie, though Butler Edwards is one of his more restrained performances. Brigitte Horney, who was a big star in the 1930s and 1940s in spite of not getting along with Joseph Goebbels, is wonderful as the mysterious Lady Aston, sister-in-law of the late Lord Curtain. And Barbara Rütting's Margie Fielding is not only a deadringer for op art artist Bridget Riley (even though Margie's art is expressionist), but also one of the more liberated Wallace heroines, though she is reduced to damsel-in-distress in the end.

Barbara Rütting and Brigitte Horney in Again the Ringer — Margie Fielding (Barbara Rütting) and Lady Aston (Brigitte Horney)

There are also many great set pieces such as the initial murder, the courtroom scene, a tense moment where an unseen killer is menacing young Charles Curtain in an old windmill and a stunning scene where the villains literally throw young Charles into a tiger cage, only for Charles to befriend the animals. Young actor Teddy Naumann is the son of circus lion tamer Heinz Naumann and is therefore familiar with wild beasts from early childhood on.

But in spite of many good moments, the movie never quite gels. Whereas The Ringer was a great movie, Again, the Ringer is a just collection of great scenes.

An Explosive Beginning

The popularity of the Edgar Wallace series has set off a run on other British thriller authors of the early twentieth century to adapt. And so West Germany has seen adaptations of anything from the novels of Edgar Wallace's son Bryan Edgar to G.K. Chesterton's Father Brown mysteries in recent years.

The latest British thriller author unearthed by West German film companies is Sax Rohmer. And so, Constantin Film, producers of the Edgar Wallace and Karl May series, have teamed up with the British company Hallam Productions to bring Rohmer's most famous creation Fu Manchu back to the big screen after twenty-five years.

Poster: The Face of Fu Manchu — The very psychedelic UK poster for "The Face of Fu Manchu"

However, watching Ich, Dr. Fu Man Chu (The Face of Fu Manchu) in the theatre, you might be forgiven for thinking it is the sequel to some other film, for the movie starts with the execution of Fu Manchu (Christopher Lee) for his myriad crimes. Fu Manchu lies face up on the executioner's block, the axe comes down and that should be the end of the story.

German poster The Face of Fu Manchu — The lurid West German poster for "The Face of Fu Manchu"

But since Fu Manchu "dies" five minutes into a ninety-six minute movie, it's obvious that he will be back. And indeed, Fu Manchu's archenemy Colonel Nayland Smith (Nigel Green) has his doubts about Fu Manchu's death from the start. These doubts are confirmed when Danish scientist Professor Merten (Walter Rilla, last seen as an unwitting vessel for that other villainous mastermind Dr. Mabuse in the eponymous series) is kidnapped in a London cemetery, while his chauffeur is strangled to death with a Tibetan prayer scarf, a murder method favoured by Fu Manchu's henchpeople.

Christopher Lee in The Face of Fu Manchu — Fu Manchu (Christopher Lee) plots villainy.

Nayland Smith and his friend and associate Dr. Petrie (Howard Marion-Crawford) deduce that Fu Manchu is still alive – the man executed in China was a hypnotised double – and continuing his reign of crime in London.

Flowers of Evil

Professor Merten's assistant Carl Jannsen (Edgar Wallace stalwart Joachim Fuchsberger, which explains why he did not appear in Again, the Ringer) informs Smith and Petrie that the professor was experimenting with an extract of a rare Tibetan flower, the blackhill poppy. Under the right conditions, this extract can be turned into a biological weapon capable of killing millions.

Joachim Fuchsberger in The Face of Fu Manchu — Carl Jannsen tangles with one of Fu Manchu's henchmen.

The professor's research has drawn the attention of Fu Manchu, who just happens to have a handy supply of blackhill poppies, but no way of using them. So Fu Manchu sent his henchmen to kidnap the professor and when the professor refuses to cooperate, Fu Manchu kidnaps Merten's daughter Maria (Edgar Wallace regular Karin Dor) as well to use her as leverage against her father.

Walter Rilla, Karin Dor, Tsai Chin and Christopher Lee in The Face of Fu Manchu — Fu Manchu (Christopher Lee) and Lin Tang (Tsai Chin) confront Professor Merten (Walter Rilla) and his daughter Maria (Karin Dor).

In order to convince Professor Merten that he is serious, Fu Manchu executes a henchwoman, who failed him, in front of the professor and his daughter, much to the disappointment of his equally villainous daughter Lin Tang (named Fa Lo Suee in the books and played here by Tsai Chin) who'd rather whip the unfortunate woman first. The doomed henchwoman is locked into a tank that slowly fills with water and then dumped into the Thames, a murder method that's identical to the one used in the 1961 Edgar Wallace film Dead Eyes of London.

Karin Dor and Tsai Chin in The Face of Fu Manchu — Lin Tang (Tsai Chin) engages in her favourite hobby of whipping young woman, while a horrified Maria (Karin Dor) and Professor Merten (Walter Rilla) look on.

Now Professor Merten is willing to cooperate. However, he needs the notes of one Professor Gaskel who took part in an expedition to Tibet, notes which are kept in a vault in a museum. So Fu Manchu and his daughter steal the notes and hypnotise the inconvenient Professor Gaskel into committing suicide, while they're at it.

Professor Merten manages to syncretise the deadly poison from the blackhill poppy extract. Fu Manchu promptly stages a demonstration by wiping out the village of Fleetwick plus soldiers from a nearby army camp. Via a radio message, Fu Manchu announces that London will be next, unless the British government obeys him.

Walter Rilla and Karin Dor in The Face of Fu Manchu — Professor Merten (Walter Rilla) and Maria (Karin Dor) oversee the extraction of the fatal poison.

While Fu Manchu is plotting, Nayland Smith, Dr. Petrie and Carl Jannsen, who also happens to be the fiancé of the kidnapped Maria Merten, follow his trail, always one step behind. But now, they have finally located Fu Manchu's subterranean hideout under the river Thames and raid it. However, Fu Manchu manages to escape once again with Lin Tang, Professor Merten and Maria.

Things come to head in Fu Manchu's Tibetan fortress, where Fu Manchu is about to receive a shipment of blackhill poppy seeds large enough to bring the entire world to its knees. However, Nayland Smith has planted a bomb among the boxes of poppy seeds. Together with Dr. Petrie and Carl Jannsen, Smith infiltrates the fortress to free the professor and Maria. They escape, as the fortress explodes in the distance.

Nigel Green, Walter Rilla, Joachi Fuchsberger and Karin Dor in The Face of Fu Manchu — Nayland Smith (Nigel Green) and Carls Jannsen (Joachim Fuchsberger) rescue Professor Merten (Walter Rilla) and Maria (Karin Dor)

Alas, Fu Manchu's face appears superimposed over the explosion and he promises that the world shall hear from him again – in the inevitable sequel.

Yet Another Criminal Mastermind

The Face of Fu Manchu is an enjoyable addition to the supervillain mastermind genre, particularly now that the Dr. Mabuse series is taking a much deserved break. Christopher Lee is truly chilly as the titular villain, though it is a pity that the role is played not an by an Asian actor, but by a white man in make-up. Though at least Fu Manchu's sadistic daughter Lin Tang is played by Chinese British actress Tsai Chin.

If there is one problem with The Face of Fu Manchu it is that the villain is so charismatic that he overshadows the good guys. Nayland Smith and Dr. Petrie are bland characters, a bargain basement Holmes and Watson (and indeed Dr. Petrie actor Howard Marion-Crawford has played Watson in the 1954 Sherlock Holmes TV series). One wonders what Siegfried Lowitz or Gert Fröbe could have done with the role. Joachim Fuchsberger is okay as Carl Jannsen, but he is playing the standard action hero he has played so many times before. Walter Rilla as Professor Merten once again gets to be the unwitting instrument of a criminal mastermind, but at least he has a lot of fun. Karin Dor as Maria is given little to do except scream.

Nigel Green, Howard Marion Crawford and Joachim Fuchsberger in The Face of Fu Manchu — Nayland Smith (Nigel Green), Dr. Petrie (Howard Marion-Crawford) and Carl Jannsen (Joachim Fuchsberger) on the hunt for Fu Manchu.

Some critics have compared The Face of Fu Manchu to the popular James Bond movies, but I believe that the Edgar Wallace and Dr. Mabuse movies are a better comparison and not just because they share many of the same actors. For even though it is a British co-production, The Face of Fu Manchu very much belongs to the wave of West German thrillers that engulfed our cinemas in the wake of the success of the Edgar Wallace series.

However, there is one big difference and that is colour. For while the Edgar Wallace and Mabuse movies are shot in stylish black and white, The Face of Fu Manchu is in glorious, lurid colour, which director Don Sharp uses to create nigh psychedelic visuals.

Perils from the East

Fu Manchu has been criticised for being an outdated yellow peril stereotype and fostering prejudice against Asians. And indeed, complaints by Asian American groups and the Chinese embassy are the reason why Hollywood stopped making Fu Manchu movies in 1940. Nor is there any doubt that Fu Manchu and Lin Tang are stereotypes. In fact, Fu Manchu was the original yellow peril stereotype, spawning a host of imitators from pulp villains Wu Fang and Yen Sin to James Bond opponent Dr. No.

Is always portraying people of a certain race, ethnicity or nationality as villains problematic? Of course, it is. And considering that people of my nationality will inevitably turn out to be villains in any international movie I watch, I can certainly sympathise with the complaints by Asian viewers who no more want to be associated with Fu Manchu and his imitators than I want to be associated with the German villain du jour.

Nonetheless, I find The Face of Fu Manchu much less problematic than The Manchurian Candidate or even Dr. No. For Don Sharp and producer Harry Allan Towers have wisely kept Fu Manchu in the early twentieth century that birthed him and turned the movie into a period piece. As a result, The Face of Fu Manchu is very much fantasy and has no more to do with the modern People's Republic of China than a random western has to do with the contemporary United States.

East meets West?

At this point, it seems very likely that we will see Fu Manchu again on the big screen. Indeed, the villain promised as much in the final moments of the movie. And I for one certainly look forward to watching Fu Manchu and Lin Tang continue their villainous ways. Maybe we could even introduce Fu Manchu to Dr. Mabuse someday. I'm sure the two of them would get along swimmingly, though I'm not sure if the world would survive two criminal masterminds.

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Movies, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[September 26, 1964] A Mystery Mastermind Double-Feature: The Ringer and The Death Ray of Dr. Mabuse

September 26, 2019 Cora Buhlert 2 Comments

[Don't miss your chance to get your copy of Rediscovery: Science Fiction by Women (1958-1963), some of the best science fiction of the Silver Age. If you like the Journey, you'll love this book (and you'll be helping us out, too!)

by Cora Buhlert

After a wet and cool summer, the rain continued right into September. We can only imagine what carpenter Armando Rodrigues de Sá thought when he arrived in rainy Cologne from sunny Portugal and became the one millionth so-called "guest worker", immigrant workers from Southern Europe contracted to work in West German factories to alleviate the labour shortage. In Cologne, Mr. Rodrigues de Sá was welcomed by journalists, cameras and a representative of the employers' association and presented with a flower bouquet and a motorbike.

One millionth guest worker — Portuguese immigrant worker Armando Rodrigues de Sá is welcomed to West Germany with a flower bouquet and a brand-new motorbike

Another visitor who received a warm welcome in Germany was American Civil Rights icon Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., when he visited Berlin earlier this month. The official reason for the visit was a memorial service for John F. Kennedy, but Dr. King also used the opportunity to visit the Berlin Wall, where only hours before a young man had been shot during an attempt to flee East Berlin and only survived due to the heroic actions of an US Army sergeant who pulled him to safety, a sad reminder that about fifty people have already been killed trying to surmount the Berlin Wall.

Martin Luther King at the Berlin Wall — Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the Berlin Wall

The East German government is hostile to religion, but supportive of the Civil Rights movement in the US. And so Dr. King was allowed to visit East Berlin, where he held a sermon in the packed Marienkirche and spontaneously intoned "Let My People Go". I'm not sure if the East German authorities got the message, but the people of East Berlin certainly did.

Martin Luther King in Berlin — Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Berlin with West Berlin's mayor Willy Brandt and Otto Dibelius, Lutheran bishop of Berlin-Brandenburg.

Rainy days are perfect for going to the movies and luckily, West German cinemas have plenty of thrills to offer. A few months ago, I introduced you to the two series of science fictional thrillers, which are currently dominating West German cinemas, namely the Edgar Wallace and the Dr. Mabuse series. Fans of both have reason to rejoice, because this fall has brought us both a new Edgar Wallace and a new Dr. Mabuse film.

A New High for Edgar Wallace

Der Hexer (The Ringer) is the twentieth Edgar Wallace adaptation produced by Rialto Film and one of the best, if not the best movie in the series so far. The Ringer is a pure delight and a distillation of everything that has made the Edgar Wallace series so successful. The balance of humour and thrills is just right and The Ringer will have you both rolling on the floor with laughter and on the edge of your seat with suspense. There are nefarious crimes, a mysterious figure – for once not the villain – whose true identity is not revealed until the final reel and a twisting and turning plot that still has a twist or two in store, even after the Ringer has been unmasked.

The Ringer is based on Edgar Wallace's 1925 novel The Gaunt Stranger and its 1926 stage version The Ringer, though the literal translation of the German title would be "The Witcher". It's certainly apt, for the titular character is not just a master of disguise, but also has nigh sorcerous abilities to evade Scotland Yard's finest.

Apprehending an antagonist is cunning as the Ringer certainly requires the best Scotland Yard has to offer and so The Ringer is the first film to unite the three actors who usually play inspectors in the Edgar Wallace movies, namely the young and dashing Joachim Fuchsberger and Heinz Drache and the older and decidedly not dashing Siegfried Lowitz. They are aided – or hindered, depending on your point of view – by Wallace veteran Siegfried Schürenberg in his customary role as Sir John Walker, head of Scotland Yard.

Like most Edgar Wallace movies, The Ringer begins with a murder before the title sequence. A young secretary is spying on her boss, dodgy lawyer Maurice Messer (Jochen Brockmann), when she is strangled by an unseen assailant. The movie then cuts to her dead eyes staring at us from the glass dome of a mini-submarine that slowly dives into an underground pool. Cue the titles and Peter Thomas' delightfully squeaky theme music.

That Ain't Witchcraft

Unbeknownst to the killers, the murdered woman was Gwenda Milton, the younger sister of Arthur Milton, the vigilante known only as the Ringer for his uncanny ability to disguise himself as anybody he pleases. Years ago, Arthur Milton had given up his career of vigilantism and retired to Australia, far beyond the reach of the British law. But now he is back to take revenge on the murderers of his sister. Of course, both the villains and Scotland Yard are only too eager to capture the Ringer. There is only one problem. No one knows what he looks like.

What follows is a merry chase, as the Ringer pits the villains, four pillars of society who operate a human trafficking ring out of a church-run home for wayward girls, against each other, while three police inspectors and Sir John fall over each other's feet to arrest him. Also along for the ride are Archibald Finch (Edgar Wallace stalwart Eddi Arent), a reformed pickpocket (or is he?) turned butler, and Cora Ann Milton (Margot Trooger), the Ringer's glamorous and loyal wife. The result is so much fun that you barely notice that the plot doesn't make a whole lot of sense (but then, Edgar Wallace movies often don't) and that occasionally the Ringer has to move things forward by handing either Scotland Yard or the villains a clue – literally on a silver platter in one case.

Siegfried Lowitz and Margot Trooger in The Ringer — Inspector Warren (Siegfried Lowitz) confronts Cora Ann Milton (Margot Trooger) in "The Ringer"

Women in Edgar Wallace movies usually come in one of two flavours, the wide-eyed ingenue who will go on to marry the dashing inspector after he has saved her from certain death and the villainous femme fatale who will usually end up dead, after vamping her way through the movie. The Ringer breaks this pattern, for while Margot Trooger as Cora Ann takes the part of the femme fatale, she is neither a villainess nor does she die. Cora Ann is not a henchwoman, but a true partner to her husband and also very much in love with him. She is my favourite female character in the Edgar Wallace series so far. The ending leaves open the possibility of a sequel and I for one would love to see the continuing crime fighting adventures of Arthur and Cora Ann Milton.

Sophie Hardy, Joachim Fuchsberger and Siefried Lowitz in The Ringer — Inspector Higgins (Joachim Fuchsberger) and Inspector Warren (Siegfried Lowitz) have just survived a murder attempt via venomous snake, while Elise (Sophie Hardy) screams.

The heroine is played by French actress Sophie Hardy as Elise Fenton, the girlfriend of Inspector Higgins (Joachim Fuchsberger). Elise is no wide-eyed ingenue either – indeed it is quite openly hinted that she and Higgins are living together, even though they are not (yet) married. Elise probably seemed modern and liberated on paper. Alas, she comes across as annoying in the movie itself, a nagging, jealous and catty woman whose only goal in life seems to be to entrap Higgins (or "Higgy", as she calls him) into marriage. Maybe Karin Dor could have given the character more depth – alas, she was too busy playing Winnetou's true love Ribanna in Horst Wendlandt's other hugely successful film series. As it is, I found myself hoping that Higgins would ditch the annoying Elise for Sir John's attractive secretary Jean (Finnish actress Ann Savo).

Ann Savo and Joachim Fuchsberger in The Ringer — Inspector Higgins (Joachim Fuchsberger) flirts with Jean (Ann Savo) in "The Ringer"

The Ringer Unmasked

While the romance subplot isn't quite successful, the movie excels in keeping the audience guessing the identity of the Ringer. The script steers suspicion towards two characters, the mysterious Australian James Westby (Heinz Drache) and pickpocket turned butler Archibald Finch (Eddi Arent), who always seems to know much more than he should. To anybody who's been watching the Edgar Wallace movies for a while, both suspects seem equally unlikely, for Heinz Drache usually plays heroic inspectors, while Eddi Arent inevitably plays bumbling comic relief characters. However, the Wallace movies are not afraid to cast against type on occasion: the heroic investigator is revealed to be the villain in The Red Circle (1959) and in Feburary's Room 13, the wide-eyed ingenue turned out to be a cold-blooded murderess.

Inspector Higgins (Joachim Fuchsberger) and Sir John (Siegfried Schürenberg) confront the mysterious Archibald Finch (Eddi Arent) in "The Ringer"

In the end, the Ringer is revealed to be a character no one ever suspected, even though the rest of the cast and the audience have no reason to believe or trust him. It’s a testament to the cleverness of the story that we don’t even notice this until the final unmasking. And indeed, producer Horst Wendlandt and director Alfred Vohrer went to great lengths to keep the true identity of the Ringer secret even from the cast and crew. The final few pages of the script were locked away in Wendlandt's safe to prevent leaks. When the Ringer is finally unmasked, the face behind the latex mask is that of Luxembourgian actor René Deltgen. Portly, balding and fifty-four years old, Deltgen is no one's idea of a criminal mastermind and dashing vigilante, but then the entire movie defies expectations and shows that the Edgar Wallace series still hasn't gone stale after twenty instalments.

Cast of The Ringer — The cast of "The Ringer" implores audiences not to spoil the ending.

Dr. Mabuse Returns – Again

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the latest movie in the other great West German thriller series. For while the Dr. Mabuse series has been very good at reinventing itself in the five movies made post WWII (plus two made during the Weimar Republic) so far, the latest instalment Die Todesstrahlen des Dr. Mabuse (The Death Ray of Dr. Mabuse) shows definite signs of the series going stale.

When we last saw Mabuse in 1963's Scotland Yard vs. Dr. Mabuse, he had not only failed to establish a reign of crime and chaos in the UK, but his malevolent spirit had also vacated the body of psychiatrist Professor Pohland (Walter Rilla), leaving the poor man uttering "It wasn't me, it was Mabuse. He used my brain" over and over again. Pohland was locked up in an insane asylum, because that worked so wonderfully when Mabuse was apprehended in The Testament of Dr. Mabuse – twice. The opening of The Death Ray of Dr. Mabuse finds Pohland still in the asylum and still muttering the same lines over and over again. When the British send intelligence officer Major Bob Anders (Peter van Eyck) to interrogate Pohland, Pohland utters the word "death ray" and promptly vanishes. This is the third time German-American actor Peter van Eyck takes the lead in a Mabuse movie after The 1000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse and Scotland Yard vs. Dr. Mabuse. All three characters have different names, though Major Bill Tern from Scotland Yard and Major Bob Anders from Death Ray are so similar they might as well be the same character.

A Game of Spies

Not long after Pohland's disappearance, Anders is given a new assignment – to investigate spy activities in Malta, where a scientist named Professor Larsen is working on an invention that will change the world. And that invention just happens to be a death ray. Anders no more thinks that this is a coincidence than the audience does. So he hastens to Malta, taking along Judy (former Miss Greece Rika Dialina), one of his many girlfriends, to pose as a newlywed couple on their honeymoon.

Since everybody in Malta knows who Anders is anyway, the ruse is completely unnecessary. And indeed, I wish that the movie had omitted Judy, who adds nothing to the plot except prancing about in bikinis and scanty nightwear and moaning that Anders isn't paying enough attention to her. Because if Elise from The Ringer was annoying, Judy is certainly giving her a run for her money. As with Elise, Judy's sole aim in life seems to be to entrap Anders into marriage. I really hope that the appearance of two similarly grating female characters in two high profile West German movies in the space of less than a month is just a coincidence and not a new trend. After all, it's 1964 and young women these days are focussed on more than just snagging a husband.

Peter van Eyck and Rika Dialina in The Death Ray of Dr. Mabuse — Major Bob Anders (Peter Van Eyck) spies on Mabuse, while Judy (Rika Dialina) has other ideas.

In Malta, we are quickly introduced to the rest of the players, Professor Larsen (O.E. Hasse), his assistant Dr. Krishna (Valéry Inkijinoff), Larsen's niece Gilda (Yvonne Furneaux), Gilda's fiancé Mario Monta (Gustava Rojo), whose brother Jason (Massimo Pietrobon) owns the local fishing fleet and may be working for Mabuse as well as Fausto Botani (Claudio Gora), an elderly man who always tends to the grave of his late wife in a cemetery that is a hotbed of suspicious activities. We also get a techno-babble laden introduction to Professor Larsen's death ray projector, which can burn every city on Earth to a crisp.

Valery Injikoff and O.E. Hasse in The Death Ray of Dr. Mabuse — Professor Larsen (O.E. Hasse) and Dr. Krishna (Valery Injikoff) in the death ray lab.

The bulk of the movie is a succession of action sequences, as Mabuse and his henchmen try to infiltrate Professor Larsen's laboratory, while Anders tries to stop them. And indeed the action sequences, whether it's a fist fight in a church tower, a car chase or an underwater fight involving several scuba divers, are exciting and well choreographed. Director Hugo Fregonese is best known for helming B-westerns in Hollywood and his experience certainly shows.

Scuba Divers in The Daeth Ray of Dr. Mabuse — Mabuse's scuba diving henchmen report for duty

Regarding the identity of Mabuse, the script directs suspicion at Larsen's assistant Dr. Krishna, playing on unpleasant yellow peril stereotypes. In the end, however, the seemingly harmless Fausto Botani is unmasked as Mabuse's latest host body, just in time for Mabuse's spirit to leave and seek his fortune elsewhere. In one of the most chilling sequences of the film, Botani is left to mutter "It wasn't me, it was Mabuse. He used my brain" over and over again, while his faithful dog Pluto – implied to be the same German shepherd that already accompanied Wolfgang Preiss as Mabuse in The 1000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse – runs off, presumably to seek out his master's next host body.

Mabuse goes Bond

The greatest strength of the Dr. Mabuse series is its versatility. Mabuse's nature as a body-hopping malevolent spirit allows producer Artur Brauner to plug the character into any kind of scenario. And so Mabuse's postwar adventures have ranged from exploring Cold War paranoia and economic fears via offbeat gangster films and science fiction horror movies to a Mabuse film pretending to be an Edgar Wallace movie. With this latest movie, Dr. Mabuse tries out yet another genre, namely that of the James Bond influenced spy thriller.

Yoko Tani and Peter Van Eyck in The Death Ray of Dr. Mabuse — The villainous Mercedes (Yoko Tani) tries to get in a shot at Major Bob Anders (Peter Van Eyck)

The James Bond movies – the most recent one of which, Goldfinger, premiered in the UK on the same day as The Death Ray of Dr. Mabuse, though West German audiences won't get to see it until January – are enormously popular in Europe. Exotic locations, pulpy adventure and outlandish villains are a large part of the appeal of the Bond movies and since these ingredients can also be found in the Mabuse series, Mabuse and Bond should be a match made in heaven. And while Peter Van Eyck is no Sean Connery and a little old for an action hero (fifty-one compared to Connery's thirty-four), he certainly has the required charm and square-jawed handsomeness to play a Bond stand-in.

Yvonne Furneaux and Peter Van Eyck in The Death ray of Dr. Mabuse — Major Bob Anders (Peter Van Eyck) tangles with Gilda Larsen (Yvonne Furneaux) in "The Death Ray of Dr. Mabuse"

There is only one problem. The Death Ray of Dr. Mabuse just doesn't work, neither as a Mabuse movie nor as a Bond look-alike. The main issue here is that the James Bond movies present their exotic locations and beautiful women in full Technicolor glory, while the Mabuse films have always worked best when imitating the atmospheric black and white look of the expressionist cinema of the Weimar Republic which gave birth to the character. Mabuse thrives in the shadows, but Death Ray drags him into the bright Mediterranean sunshine. As a result, the exterior scenes feel overlit and washed out, while the extensive underwater scenes seem blurry and murky. I have no doubt that the coast of Malta – or rather the coast of Italy standing in for the coast of Malta – is beautiful, but in this movie it is just grey.

Would Death Ray have worked better, if it had been shot in colour? I suspect we'll never know. However, I'm not the only one who is dissatisfied with the movie, since the box office performance of Death Ray has been underwhelming so far. Opening against Winnetou II, one of the most highly anticipated movies of the year, didn't help either.

So what's next for Dr. Mabuse? Producer Artur Brauner has indicated that he still has plans for two more Mabuse movies. And the nature of the character and the series allows Brauner to forget that Death Ray ever existed and just start over with a new lead actor in a new location. The only question now is, what form will the next incarnation of Dr. Mabuse take.

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Movies, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[July 8, 1964] The Immortal Supervillain: The Remarkable Forty-Two Year Career of Dr. Mabuse

July 8, 2019 Cora Buhlert 7 Comments

by Cora Buhlert

The Sincerest form of Flattery

Last month, I talked about the successful West German film series based on the novels of British thriller writer Edgar Wallace as well as the many imitators they inspired. The most interesting of those imitators and the only one that is unambiguously science fiction is the Dr. Mabuse series.

Dr. Mabuse is not a new character. His roots lie in the Weimar Republic and he first appeared on screen in 1922 in Fritz Lang's Dr. Mabuse – The Gambler, based on the eponymous novel by Luxembourgian writer Norbert Jacques.

By day, Dr. Mabuse is a respected psychoanalyst and by night he runs a criminal organisation. Mabuse uses his position to infiltrate the corrupt high society of the Weimar Republic and then uses his powers of hypnosis as well as his talent as a master of disguise to commit crimes. Mabuse also employs science fictional technology such as an automobile that turns into a motorboat at the pull of a lever. Dr. Mabuse – The Gambler clearly reflects the fears of the early Weimar Republic with its hyperinflation which plunged many Germans into poverty, while the profiteers of the First World War were partying.

In the movie, Mabuse (Rudolf Klein-Rogge) is a much more unambiguous villain than in the novel. And while Norbert Jacques' Mabuse wants to establish a utopian colony in Brazil, Lang's Mabuse wants to install a reign of terror right there in Berlin. In retrospect, it's obvious why the Nazis did not like the Mabuse films.

At the end of the novel, Mabuse apparently falls to his death from an airplane. In the film, Mabuse is captured alive, but insane, leaving open the possibility of a sequel. That sequel, The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, was made in 1933.

Mabuse, still played by Rudolf Klein-Rogge, is now an inmate in a mental asylum run by Dr. Baum and spends his days scribbling plans for elaborate crimes onto scraps of paper, which he calls his testament. When Berlin is hit by a wave of crimes based on Mabuse's scribblings, this attracts the attention of Kommissar Karl Lohmann (Otto Wernicke) of the Berlin police. Based on the real life Berlin police officer Ernst Gennat, Lohmann first appeared in an unrelated movie, Fritz Lang's 1931 crime drama M. where he hunted down a child killer played by Peter Lorre.

Mabuse is the logical suspect. But he cannot have committed the crimes, since he is incarcerated in Baum's asylum. The solution to the mystery lies once more in Mabuse's hypnotic powers, which he uses on Dr. Baum. In a chilling sequence, Mabuse's spirit takes over Dr. Baum, while his body dies. The movie ends with Mabuse, now occupying the body of Dr. Baum, once more locked up in the mental asylum, madly scribbling away. With this film, the Mabuse series not only crosses over into the supernatural, but also opened up the possibility of a revival.

The film was supposed to premiere in March 1933, two months after Hitler had come to power. Joseph Goebbels, head of the newly established Ministry of Propaganda, found the movie very exciting, but banned it anyway for incitement to crime. But then, Mabuse's modus operandi bore some uncomfortable parallels to the way the Nazis spread fear and terror, while passages of Mabuse's testament were copied almost verbatim from Mein Kampf. The Testament of Dr. Mabuse became the first movie banned by the Nazis and remained unseen in Germany until 1951. Fritz Lang left Germany the day after the film was banned and went to Hollywood. Meanwhile, the evil Doctor was forgotten, as Germany descended into terror on a scale that would have exceeded even Mabuse's imagination.

But this was not the end. For Mabuse's creator Norbert Jacques sold the rights to film producer Artur Brauner, who also persuaded Fritz Lang to return to West Germany, not to adapt Mabuse, but to remake his 1921 movie The Indian Tomb.

Inspired by the success of the Edgar Wallace movies, Artur Brauner wanted to remake The Testament of Dr. Mabuse as well and asked Fritz Lang to direct. Lang, however, wanted to make a sequel. Norbert Jacques had died in 1954, so Lang adapted the dystopian novel Mr. Tot Buys a Thousand Eyes by Polish-German writer Jan Fethke a.k.a. Jean Forge. Mabuse was inserted into the storyline and the movie was released as The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse in 1960.

The Night has a Thousand Eyes

Most of the film is set at the Hotel Luxor, a luxury hotel built by the Nazis and equipped with hidden surveillance cameras in every room (the thousand eyes of the title). The hotel is now owned by a criminal organisation headed by none other than Dr. Mabuse, who after laying low during the Third Reich (or did he?) is up to his old tricks again. He records wealthy hotel guests in compromising situations and then blackmails them. If compromising situations don't happen on their own, Mabuse and his gang engineer them.

But luckily, Kommissar Kras (Gert Fröbe) is on the case. Kras is basically Kommissar Lohmann in everything but the name and also remembers Mabuse's reign of terror during the Weimar Republic, linking the old and the new Mabuse movies and making it very clear that The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse is a sequel rather than a remake. There is only one problem. Dr. Mabuse very definitely died in 1933, so who is behind this new wave of crimes?

In the end, the blind fortune teller Peter Cornelius (Wolfgang Preiss) is revealed to be Mabuse. Though Cornelius isn't his real name nor is he really a fortune teller nor really blind. Instead, he is one Professor Jordan, a psychiatrist who feels compelled to continue Mabuse's work. It is implied that Professor Jordan is the same psychiatrist in whose mental hospital Mabuse was incarcerated back in The Testament of Doctor Mabuse, even though the character names are different. But then, it is also implied that Kras and Lohmann are the same person.

Kommissar Lohmann and Mabuse — Kommissar Lohmann (Gert Fröbe) confronts Dr. Mabuse (Wolfgang Preiss)

The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse moves away from the stylish expressionism of the earlier movies towards a quasi-documentary style. The scenes inside the Hotel Luxor are implied to be footage recorded by Mabuse's cameras, turning the viewer into a voyeur. The science fiction elements are fairly light. It would certainly be possible to recreate the Hotel Luxor and its surveillance cameras with 1960s technology and indeed the new East German Interhotels are real life versions of the Hotel Luxor.

Thousand Eyes ends with Mabuse presumed dead once again. However, the film was a big commercial success and so Mabuse was promptly resurrected barely a year later. Fritz Lang had retired, so Harald Reinl, who previously worked on the Edgar Wallace series, took over the directing duties for Im Stahlnetz des Dr. Mabuse. The international title is the unimaginative The Return of Dr. Mabuse, a literal translation would be In the Steel Web of Dr. Mabuse. Shot in atmospheric black and white, Steel Web is stylistically closer to the expressionist Mabuse films of the Weimar Republic than Fritz Lang's Thousand Eyes.

Mabuse's organisation now works with the Chicago mob in his quest to conquer the world. As a favour to his new allies, his gang murders a woman who is burned alive by a flamethrower that emerges from a flap in the side of a truck. Her burning body is seen lying on the sidewalk for several seconds in a scene that is shockingly brutal by the sedate standards of West German cinema.

The Berlin police once again puts an inspector played by Gert Fröbe on the case. This time, the character is actually called Kommissar Lohmann and it is strongly implied that this is the same Kommissar Lohmann as before. We also briefly meet Lohmann's wife and children at the beginning of the movie, a pleasant contrast to the many lone wolf investigators who dominate the crime genre.

Because of the mob connection, the FBI sends an agent named Joe Como (former Tarzan and current Old Shatterhand Lex Barker). Together, they uncover Mabuse's latest scheme: using a mind control drug on prison inmates to force them to commit crimes. In the end, prison warden Wolf is unmasked (literally, via ripping off a rubber mask) as Mabuse (still played by Wolfgang Preiss). During the final battle with the police, Mabuse escapes into a railway tunnel and is apparently killed by an oncoming train. Or is he?

The second postwar outing of Dr. Mabuse is a curious mix of gangster film and science fiction thriller. The gangster film elements are clearly influenced by the popularity of the German pulp hero G-Man Jerry Cotton – also note the similarities of the names Jerry Cotton and Joe Como. There are plenty of creepy moments, such as the vacant eyed convicts converging upon a power station, while a sound truck blasts out the words "I have only one lord and master, Dr. Mabuse" over and over again.

Flirting with SF

The science fiction elements were ramped up for the third movie, Die unsichtbaren Krallen des Dr. Mabuse (The Invisible Dr. Mabuse), which premiered in March 1962, directed once more by Harald Reinl.

Lex Barker is back as Joe Como, this time working with Kommissar Brahm (Siegfried Lowitz, a regular of the Edgar Wallace series), since Kommissar Lohmann has apparently taken the long deserved holiday he had to postpone in the previous film. Together they tackle the case of an invisible man who haunts a theatre and stalks the dancer Liane Martin (Harald Reinl's wife and Edgar Wallace regular Karin Dor).

In spite of the title, the invisible man stalking Liane Martin is not Dr. Mabuse but Professor Erasmus, who has invented an invisibility device. An accident left the Professor disfigured and so he uses his device to visit his beloved Liane Martin, failing to realise that being stalked by an invisible man is a lot more terrifying than a scarred face.

Joe Como and Professor Erasmus — Joe Como (Lex Barker) and Professor Erasmus (Rudolf Fernau), not invisible for once.

Mabuse appropriates the device and the movie ends with Mabuse's army of invisible killers converging on a plane to kill a passenger. However, the police have placed strings with bells around the airfield and then make the invisible killers visible by spraying them with water. This time around, Mabuse is even captured, though he has gone insane.

The Invisible Dr. Mabuse seems to be two separate movies, for the haunted theatre plot and the invisible man plot don't come together until the end. Gert Fröbe is sorely missed as well. Nonetheless, the film has several memorable moments such as Liane Martin getting (almost) guillotined no less than three times, Joe Como confronting the invisible Professor in a steam bath and the army of invisible killers becoming slowly visible again in a spray of water. The special effects are surprisingly good by West German standards.

A New Testament

The next movie, released in September 1962, was a remake of The Testament of Dr. Mabuse. Mabuse is now incarcerated in a mental hospital run by Professor Pohland (Walter Rilla) and still manages to give orders to his gang via hypnotising the hapless Professor. Gert Fröbe makes a welcome return as Kommissar Lohmann, though Lex Barker's Joe Como is sadly absent, since Barker has found a more lucrative gig as Old Shatterhand in the film adaptations of Karl May's Winnetou novels. As before, Mabuse's body seemingly dies, while his spirit takes over Pohland's body.

Testament is a solid entry in the series, though it suffers in comparison with the 1933 original. It also doesn't help that anybody who has seen the original already knows the big twist. And while Mabuse's plan of causing economic collapse via flooding the market with forged banknotes clearly plays on the fears of the 1920s and 1930s with its hyperinflation, the Black Friday and the Great Depression, it feels anachronistic in postwar West Germany in the middle of a so-called economic miracle. Harald Reinl's atmospheric direction has been replaced by the more pedestrian Werner Klingler as well. I'm not the only one who feels that Testament was rather lacklustre, since the movie bombed at the box office.

Scotland Yard jagt Dr. Mabuse (Scotland Yard vs. Dr. Mabuse) premiered in September 1963. Mabuse, still in the body of Professor Pohland, has had enough of the Berlin police continuing to thwart his attempts to establish a world reign of crime and so decamps to Britain to continue his villainous ways. This time around, Mabuse steals a mind control device and plans to use it to destabilise the British government. He also stages impressive demonstrations, such as inducing a hangman to hang himself in a memorable scene.

But Major Bill Tern of Scotland Yard (Peter van Eyck,) and Kommissar Vulpius of the Hamburg police (Werner Peters) are on Mabuse's trail. Luckily, it turns out that people wearing a certain hearing aid are immune to Mabuse's mind control device and so the police manages to arrest Mabuse and his gang. Alas, Mabuse's spirit has already moved on, leaving a hapless Professor Pohland repeating "It wasn't me, it was Mabuse. He used my brain" over and over again.

It is notable that the mind control motif – whether via hypnosis, drugs or electronic devices – appears again and again in the Mabuse series. And Professor Pohland insisting over and over again that he is completely innocent of the crimes Mabuse committed does bring to mind many former Nazis who make the same claim, though with far less justification.

Scotland Yard vs. Dr. Mabuse is a thoroughly entertaining film and curiously prescient, since one of the crimes committed by Mabuse's gang eerily mirrors the recent Great Train Robbery in Britain. Though the tendency to reuse the same actors in completely different parts (e.g. Werner Peters appeared in four of five postwar Mabuse movies, playing a different character in each one) is getting confusing by now. Of course, the Edgar Wallace films also tend to reuse the same actors over and over again (and to make matters even more confusing, several actors appear in both series). But unlike the Wallace movies, the seven Mabuse movies to date have an internal continuity.

Though like Mabuse himself, the movies tend to change their appearance from film to film. In the past forty years, the series has moved from reflecting the economic anxieties of the Weimar Republic (Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler and The Testament of Dr. Mabuse) via Cold War paranoia (The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse) and offbeat gangster thriller (The Steel Web of Dr. Mabuse) to science fiction thriller cum theatre horror (The Invisible Dr. Mabuse) back to economic fears (The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, take two). With Scotland Yard vs. Dr. Mabuse, the Mabuse series has morphed into an Edgar Wallace movie. And indeed, the screenplay is a loose adaptation of the 1962 novel The Device by Bryan Edgar Wallace, son of Edgar.

Whither Mabuse?

The flexibility of the Mabuse series and the character himself ensures its longevity. Dr. Mabuse has terrorised Germany for forty years now and may well continue for years or even decades to come, for Mabuse's nature as a malevolent spirit allows him to jump from body to body, plotting new crimes and leaving behind muttering hosts who insist that they didn't do anything, Mabuse did.

What form will the Mabuse series take next? Rumours suggest that the next Mabuse movie Die Todesstrahlen des Dr. Mabuse (The Death Rays of Dr. Mabuse), due out in September, is inspired by the popular James Bond movies.

I certainly will be in the cinema, watching as Germany's greatest supervillain plots yet again to conquer the world and establish a reign of crime and chaos.

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Movies

[June 4, 1964] Weird Menace and Villainy in the London Fog: The West German Edgar Wallace Movies

June 4, 2019 Cora Buhlert 10 Comments

by Cora Buhlert

The biggest phenomenon in West German cinemas in the past five years is none other than Edgar Wallace, Britain's king of thrillers.

The enduring popularity of Edgar Wallace in Germany may seem baffling, since Wallace died in 1932 and most of his thrillers were written in the 1910s and 1920s. American readers will probably best remember Wallace as the creator of King Kong and screenwriter of the eponymous movie.

Edgar Wallace

However, Germans have long loved Edgar Wallace, which is odd, since Edgar Wallace did not particularly like Germany, as many of his writings show. Nonetheless, his thrillers were hugely popular in Germany in the 1920s and early 1930s, until the Nazis banned them along with the entire crime genre as "too subversive". In the 1950s, paperback publisher Goldmann started reissuing the Edgar Wallace thrillers to great success. And as always when something is successful, others took note. One of them was "Heftroman" publisher Pabel, whose Utopia Kriminal line of science fiction thrillers was directly inspired by the popularity of the Edgar Wallace novels.

German film producers also took note and indeed there were a few German Edgar Wallace adaptations during the silent and early talkie era. However, plans to adapt Edgar Wallace novels in 1950s repeatedly failed, because crime and thriller movies supposedly did not sell in postwar West Germany, since viewers allegedly demanded harmless musicals and romances set in beautiful landscapes rather than tales of crime and murder. In 1959, Danish film producer Preben Philipsen took a chance and adapted the Edgar Wallace novel The Fellowship of the Frog for German audiences. The result was a huge success and led to a wave of more or less faithful Edgar Wallace adaptations (nineteen to date) and copycats that show no sign of abating.

Poster for Face of the Frog (1959)

The Edgar Wallace movies are primarily crime thrillers, though there is nothing remotely realistic about them. Instead, the films are set in a fog-drenched England and particularly London that never was, full of dodgy harbour bars where nefarious crimes are plotted as curvy sirens sing torch songs, where the River Thames is used a convenient corpse disposal and where Scotland Yard is headed by a dim-witted gentleman named Sir John (played by Siegfried Schürenberg who serves as a sort of link between the various movies) with a taste for buxom secretaries. Inspectors are handsome and dashing, played by either Heinz Drache or Joachim Fuchsberger, unless they are played by the plump and balding Siegfried Lowitz, in which case he has a dashing Sergeant. There is always a comic relief character, often a bumbling butler, who is usually played by Eddi Arent.

Joachim Fuchsberger, Siegfried Schürenberg and Eddi Arent in The Squeaker (1963)

Women in Edgar Wallace movies come in three flavours, mysterious elderly ladies, usually played by veteran UfA actresses, who may or may not be involved in the villain's machinations, buxom femme fatales who are involved with the villain and often end up paying the ultimate price for their villainous ways (Eva Pflug in Face of the Frog was the best of them) and finally, young and pretty damsels in distress (often played by Karin Dor), who find themselves pursued and often kidnapped by the villain, before they are rescued and end up marrying the dashing Inspector.

Eva Pflug being admired by Jochen Brockmann in Face of the Frog (1959)

Occasionally, the Wallace movies manage to subvert expectations. And so the dashing detective is unmasked as the killer in The Red Circle (1960), while the wide-eyed ingenue is revealed to be the showgirl slashing killer in this year's Room 13.

Poster for The Red Circle

Wallace villains are never just ordinary criminals, but run improbably large and secretive organisations with dozens of henchmen. At least one of the henchmen is deformed or flat out insane, played either by former wrestler Ady Berber or a charismatic young actor named Klaus Kinski, who gave the performance of his life as a mute and insane animal handler in last year's The Squeaker.

Klaus Kinski threatening Inge Langen in The Squeaker

The crimes are extremely convoluted, usually involve robberies, blackmail or inheritance schemes and are always motivated by greed. Murder methods are never ordinary and victims are dispatched via harpoons, poison blow guns, guillotines or wild animals. The villains inevitably have strange monikers such as the Frog, the Shark, the Squeaker, the Avenger, the Green Archer or the Black Abbot and often wear a costume to match. Their identity is always a mystery and pretty much every character comes under suspicion until the big reveal at the end. And once the mask comes off, the villain is inevitably revealed to be a staunch pillar of society and often a member of Sir John's club.

The Frog kidnapping Eva Anthes in Face of the Frog (1959)

The Green Archer terrifies Karin Dor in The Green Archer (1961)

Eddi Arent attempts to apprehend the the Black Abbot in the eponymous film (1963)

The Edgar Wallace films are cheaply made, with Hamburg or Berlin standing in for London and German castles standing in for British mansions. Nonetheless, they have a unique visual flair, courtesy of directors Harald Reinl, Jürgen Roland and Alfred Vohrer. All films are shot in stylish black and white, using the widescreen Ultrascope process. Contrasts of light and shadow are used to great effect, such as the shadow of a dangling noose falling onto a stark white prison wall in Face of the Frog. Strange camera angles are common and scenes are shot through the eyes of an unseen killer, through the dial of a rotary telephone and in one memorable case, though the mouth of Sir John chomping on a carrot. The highly stylised look of the Edgar Wallace films is uncommon in contemporary German cinema. Instead, the Edgar Wallace films take their visual inspiration from the expressionist cinema of the 1920s and early 1930s, returning German filmmaking to where it was before the Nazis took over.

Karin Dor spies on The Terrible People (1960)

Are the Edgar Wallace films science fiction? Well, they are mainly crime thrillers, though they also include horror elements and take visual inspiration from the German horror cinema of more than thirty years ago. The Dead Eyes of London from 1961 is probably the closest the Wallace series has come to pure horror to date, largely due to the performance of Ady Berber as the blind and supernaturally strong killer Jack.

Program book for The Dead Eyes of London, featuring Ady Berber threatening Karin Baal

Science fiction elements also frequently appear in the Edgar Wallace movies, often in the form of death traps and complicated murder methods. The Green Archer (1961) uses the old standby of the underground chamber (in which the villain, played by the excellent Gert Fröbe, has kept the lover who spurned him imprisoned for decades) that slowly fills with water. The Strange Countess (1961) features a deadly electrified grid, which protects the jewels the titular villainess has stolen. The Countess, played with chilling haughtiness by silent era veteran Lil Dagover, is eventually electrocuted by her own death trap. Meanwhile, in The Dead Eyes of London, a domed glass tank in the basement of a church-run home for the blind is used to drown wealthy men before their bodies are thrown into the Thames, allowing the villainous Dead Eye gang to claim their life insurance. And in The Squeaker, the titular villain dispatches his opponents via a blow gun shooting crystals of snake venom. As mentioned above, the criminal plots and murder methods in the Wallace are always convoluted and often don't make a whole lot of sense. But that doesn't matter, because you're usually much too captivated by the going-ons on screen to worry about such little matters as logic.

Lil Dagover prowls her castle in The Strange Countess (1961)

The 1962 film The Door With Seven Locks even features a bona fide mad scientist, played by Wallace film regular Pinkas Braun, who conducts medical experiments such as brain transplants in a hidden vault underneath a country mansion. This makes the otherwise not particularly remarkable The Door With Seven Locks the most science fictional Edgar Wallace film to date.

Poster for The Door with the Seven Locks (1962)

Critics don't like the Edgar Wallace films, complaining about the lack of realism, the alleged predictability, the lurid and sensational nature of the crimes portrayed and the (by West German standards) high levels of violence. Those critics have a point, for the Edgar Wallace films are lurid and sensational, violent and completely unrealistic. However, the sheer artificiality is why I enjoy these movies so much and why I inevitably head for the neighbourhood movie theatre whenever a new Edgar Wallace movie premieres (and we currently get several of them every year). Even the lesser entries of the series are well worth watching and the standouts such as Face of the Frog, The Green Archer, The Dead Eyes of London, The Inn on the River, The Squeaker or The Indian Scarf provide excellent chills and thrills.

Poster for The Squeaker (1963) )

As for those who claim that the Edgar Wallace movies have nothing to do with real life, well, they're mistaken, for the Wallace films do reflect contemporary West German concerns, though through the distorted lens of a funhouse mirror. The fact that the motive for the bizarre crimes on screen is always greed reflects concerns about the rampant materialism in postwar West Germany. Just as the fact that the villain is inevitably revealed to be an upstanding pillar of society under his (or more rarely her) mask is all too reminiscent of recent revelations that quite a few politicians, judges, doctors, professors, civil servants and captains of industry used to be Nazis and still somehow managed to continue their careers unimpeded in postwar West Germany. As for the tendency of henchmen in Wallace movies to mutter, "But I was just following orders. You can't blame me", when captured – well, where have we heard that before?

Poster for The Terrible People (1960)

The Edgar Wallace movies offer pleasantly comforting shudders, as the viewer delves into a strange parallel world, where London is the murder capital of Europe and the Squeaker, the Frog, the Black Abbot and the rest of the Wallace menagerie stalk the fog-shrouded streets to commit bizarre crimes. And even though all movies stand alone, they are set in the same universe with Siegfried Schürenberg's Sir John acting as a link between the different stories. This shared universe concept occasionally shows up in literature such as the Cthulhu mythos, but has never really been tried in movies so far. The possibilities are limitless.

Sir John (Siegfried Schürenberg) is shocked that the latest villain turns out to be yet another member of his club.

The success of the Edgar Wallace movies quickly spawned a host of imitators. Producer Artur Brauner acquired the rights to several crime novels by Bryan Edgar Wallace, son of Edgar Wallace, while Constantin Film adapted several novels by Czech writer and Edgar Wallace imitator Louis Weinert-Wilton. Other imitations are more of a stretch, such as a series of Wallace style movies featuring G.K. Chesterton's Father Brown.

However, the most interesting of the many crime thrillers released in the wake of the Edgar Wallace movies are the Dr. Mabuse movies produced by Artur Brauner. Based on a supervillain character created by Norbert Jacques in the 1920s, they are not just unambiguously science fiction, but also a return to the glory days of German cinema during the Weimar Republic. But that's a subject for another day.

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Magazine

[October 22, 1962] Hiding from the World (November 1962 Fantastic)

October 22, 2017 Victoria Silverwolf 1 Comment

by Victoria Silverwolf

As I prepared this article, I listened to President Kennedy's speech on Cuba, which was broadcast on radio and television throughout the nation.

Although many of you no doubt heard this address to the American people, I feel compelled to transcribe its shocking opening words:

This Government, as promised, has maintained the closest surveillance of the Soviet military buildup on the island of Cuba. Within the past week, unmistakable evidence has established the fact that a series of offensive missile sites is now in preparation on that imprisoned island. The purpose of these bases can be none other than to provide a nuclear strike capability against the Western Hemisphere.

As the speech continued, it became clear to me that the world is closer to the brink of nuclear war than ever before. I was already in a state of anxiety, ever since China escalated a border conflict with India into open warfare two days ago by invading on two fronts.

As if international conflicts were not enough, the riot that exploded when James Meredith (shown here escorted by Chief U.S. Marshall James McShane and Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights John Doar) enrolled in the University of Mississippi filled me with shame and fear for my country. After two deaths, hundreds of injuries, and the necessity for Meredith to be guarded twenty-four hours a day by Federal troops, I have to wonder sometimes if the United States is heading for a second Civil War.

It seems likely that the threat of violence, which hangs over our heads in these troubled times, makes it necessary for us to make light of traditional terrors. We laugh to keep from screaming. As an example, on the same day that China invaded India, Bobby Picket's novelty song, The Monster Mash, reached the top of the charts.

Appropriately, the latest issue of Fantastic features another comic version of old-fashioned horrors.

It's Magic, You Dope! (Part 1 of 2), by Jack Sharkey
Lloyd Birmingham's cover art, which reminds me of the macabre cartoons of Charles Addams, captures the spooky but laughable nature of this short novel by editor Cele Goldsmith's resident comedian.
The narrator pays a visit to his girlfriend at the home of her parents. He leaves after a lovers' quarrel, but quickly turns back. To his amazement, the house is gone. Phone calls reveal that nobody remembers the home or its inhabitants. It soon turns out that a sinister pair used a weird device to transport the family to another dimension, one full of monsters and magic. Things become much more complicated when a wood nymph and a faun (who seem to be weird, alternate versions of the girlfriend and her little brother) show up. The two evil men wind up in the other world, as does the narrator and his two new companions. What follows is a wild struggle for survival in a place full of bizarre and deadly creatures, some from folklore and others that only exist in the mind of the author. Although the plot seems to be little more than one strange, random event after another, it holds the reader's interest. Three stars.

Awareness Plan, by David R. Bunch

The magazine's most controversial writer – a fact noted in the introduction to this story – returns with another eccentric, mysterious tale. Two men discuss how to deal with a conquered people who do not show the proper respect for their masters. What elevates this vignette above its minimal plot is the author's unique style, use of strange words, and satiric edge. It's definitely not for all tastes. Two stars.

Planetoid 127, by Edgar Wallace

This issue's Fantasy Classic comes from the pen of an extremely prolific author whose works have been adapted into many movies in the United Kingdom and Germany. He is best known in the United States for his work on the screenplay for King Kong. This story, reprinted from 1924, deals with an astronomer who has an uncanny ability to foresee future events. This allows him to acquire a vast fortune through investments, which attracts the attention of an unscrupulous businessman who will stop at nothing to acquire his secret. This is a typical pulp crime story with a single science fiction element, not revealed until the end. Unfortunately, the introduction by SF historian Sam Moskowitz spoils the story by describing the gimmick in detail. Two stars.
(There's one strange thing about the interior illustration that appears with this story. It obviously depicts a scene that appears in the story Black and White by Marion Zimmer Bradley, published in this month's Amazing. Looking back at that issue, it's clear that the illustration that accompanied Bradley's story shows a scene from Wallace's tale. Somebody at the art department of Ziff-Davis is likely to get in trouble for mixing up the two.)

The Mozart Annuity, by Arthur Porges

Finishing the issue is the story of a conductor who worships the music of Mozart. His biggest regret is that the composer died at an early age, before he could create even greater masterpieces. His brother happens to be an inventor who has come up with a time machine of sorts. It can only transport small, nonliving objects back in time. The brothers come up with a plan to send silver back to the time of Mozart's childhood, with a letter to a bank explaining that it is to be used to provide a steady income for the young musician, allowing him to avoid the poverty that led to his death. The consequences are unexpected. This is a clever story, if superficial. Three stars.

Overall, a mediocre issue with no outstanding stories. However, I recommend it as a way of keeping your mind off the much more frightening things in the real world.

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55 years ago: Science Fact and Fiction