The Edgar Wallace Mystery Collection
               
Clue of the Twisted Candle (1960) – 5.5

 

Edgar Wallace was a hot commodity in the 1960s with Germany producing all the Krimis based on his books and England turning out a series of nearly fifty one-hour second-features that were later shown on TV in America. Unfortunately for Wallace, he had been dead some thirty years. His popularity has waned since those days but films are still being made based on his writings - in Germany in particular - but his name is still credited for all the King Kong related films of late. But, I wonder how many people could tell you who Edgar Wallace is or have read one of his 170 novels. I tried and couldn't get very far. I thought the writing was atrocious. But plots I think was his strong card.

 

This is a decent one. A locked room mystery. Those were very popular back in the day - trying to write the perfect locked-room murder. Most mystery writers from the Golden Age gave it a shot. In this one we have a room with no windows and a door that can not be opened from the outside without being buzzed in and the door has a bar on the inside that has been placed down making it impossible to get in or out. But Scotland Yard Superintendent Meredith is on the case and as played by Bernard Lee is all business. The dead man is Karadis (Francis De Wolff), a blackmailer and rogue who has many people who want him dead. Thus, the nearly impregnable room. But if there is a will, there is a way.

 
The Fourth Square (1960) – 5.0

 


Another one of the Edgar Wallace films produced at Merton Park Studios for Anglo-Amalgamated Productions. AA had purchased the rights to Wallace's novels. The library was later sold to Studio Canal which has released all these Edgar Wallace films on digital. The films all begin with a large head bust of Edgar Wallace enveloped in fog as it slowly spins around. These English Wallace films or at least the presentation of them are dramatically different than the Krimis that were being produced in Germany at the same time. Krimis are over the top with mystery organizations, men in hoods, femme fatales and a good chunk of violence while the English ones that I have seen so far are fairly standard police films. They are fine as second features which was their purpose but not much more.

 

In this one, emerald jewels are being stolen and a trademark left behind. One of the women tells the police nothing was missing but a dead body of the maid tells a different story. She goes to her lawyer-fix-it-friend Bill (Conrad Phillips) with a large wad of cash and tells him to bring the stolen ring back to her. She doesn't want her wealthy husband to know about it since it was the gift from another man. Bill discovers that there have been similar thefts of one piece of emerald jewelry. Then attempts on his life occur. The killer's identity is reasonably well kept undercover though it isn't a huge surprise. Based on the 1929 novel Four Square Jane


Clue of the New Pin (1961) – 6.0

 


This one has no big stars - the only one you might recognize is James Villiers who showed up on a lot of British TV as a rather dull upper class twit back in the 1960s. Here to my surprise he is an upper-class snob but the hero of the film and gets the girl.  The girl being the lovely Katherine Woodville who I don't recall though I should - she did better in marriage than her career I think - married to Edward Albert and later to Patrick MacNee, who she perhaps met on the very first episode of The Avengers.

 

It is based on a Wallace novel of the same name that he wrote in 1923 and is quite serviceable. It is a locked room murder or make that a locked vault room murder - with a bit of a twist. There is only one way in and only one key that can lock the vault door from the outside. When they find a rich man dead inside it is a mystery - the vault has been locked from the outside but the key is on a table in the vault. The police suspect who it must be - no mystery to the viewer - but they have no idea how the key ended up back on the table. In theory an impossibility. And then it happens again. While I was checking YouTube to see if some of these were up there I came across another British TV show based on Wallace's novels - his series of Four Just Men. A 30 minute TV show but what a cast - Richard Conte, Jack Hawkins, Dan Daily and none other than the great director Vittorio De Sica as the Four Just Men and also with Honor Blackman in a number of the episodes as well as Frank Thornton who I know from the classic British comedy Are You Being Served.


Man at the Carlton Tower (1961) – 6.0




Here is another film from the Edgar Wallace collection. Coming in at about 55 minutes. it is a very sleek black and white quick moving police procedural. It is quite good for what it set out to be - the second feature of a double feature. Nice bite sized mysteries. In this one a jewel thief breaks open a safe but in his getaway he kills a bobby and goes into hiding. The police are fairly sure they know who did it by the method and try to track him down. But there are a number of twists, red herrings, bars and low life's along the way. It is directed very professionally by Robert Tronson who seems to have directed TV episodes of every British crime series of the 60s and 70s as well as four other films in the Edgar Wallace series. Two familiar faces on deck - both often showing up as less than trustworthy members of the British establishment - Nigel Green is the thief and Alan Cuthbertson is a senior police official.

 
Partners in Crime (1961) - 5.5



Based on the Edgar Wallace 1918 novel, The Man Who Knew, it is part of the Edgar Wallace film series in the early 1960s. There are very few perfect murders. Something goes astray, something forgotten, something unlucky. Just ask the guy who killed the CEO. It looked good for a while - then he let down his scarf, left fingerprints, kept the gun and held on to papers that incriminate him. Then he ate at McDonalds which everyone knows is unhealthy for you. Other than that, the perfect crime. The killer in this film keeps the gun too long. Mistake number one. Leaving your truck unlocked. Mistake number two. But it looked like easy money. A solid policier with Bernard Lee (M) as a Scotland Investigator. 



A man and his wife come home after a dinner party - she goes upstairs, he into the study to work. A man is waiting for him and bang. In the heart. The wife does a good cry but she (Moira Redmond) is a bit too good looking to be innocent. The killer takes his payoff - is warned to get rid of the gun - but instead he hides it in his truck. It all goes wrong from that point on and the Inspector is quick to figure it out. 54 minutes and wastes no time. That is the pleasure of these Edgar Wallace quickies. They don't have the budget to go anywhere but straight down the line. Someone gets murdered. The cops get them in the end.  Btw, that is Nicholas Smith from Are You Being Served who is the pawnbroker.


Solo for Sparrow (1962) – 6.0

 


These Edgar Wallace films are perfect as quick time-fillers late at night. This was a solid policier that moves quickly from robbery to murder to investigation to capture. A gang seems to have a perfect crime - they kidnap an older lady who works at a jewelry store and has the keys to it. They take the keys and tie her up. A little too tightly. She dies. Now it's the hangman if they get caught. One of the gang is a sleek, well-tailored Michael Caine, two years before Zulu. Inspector Sparrow (Glyn Houston) initially gets the case but his bureaucratic Supervisor hands it off to Scotland Yard like it is a hot piece of coal. Sparrow goes on holiday and keeps digging. Ends nicely with him using his knowledge of electricity to escape and then have a shoot-out with Caine. Caine did better in Zulu. Some nice little bits and pieces thrown in - a femme fatale with a Russian accent, a pool hall and a wire-tapper.


The Share Out (1962) - 5.5




This Edgar Wallace story feels like it could easily have been adapted as a Krimi by the Germans, but it is part of the English series of films and can't go places the Krimi could. It concerns a very proper British company that holds Board meetings, goes over minutes of business before retiring to the Club for drinks. But their business is blackmail and murder. It is headed by Calderwood (Alexander Knox) along with Crewe (John Vernon), Warner (Mark Speller) and the secretary, Diana (Moira Redmond). They hire detectives who dig up dirt on people they want to blackmail and if that detective starts to waver in his loyalties, he is killed. Nothing thuggish mind you. These are gentlemen. On their trail is Scotland Yard Inspector Meredith played again by Bernard Lee. He played Meredith four times in this series. Of course, Lee was to gain fame after a career going back to the 1930s the following year as M in the Bond films.





After they kill one detective, they hire another (William Russell), but Meredith has enough on him to turn him into an informer. It gets interesting as the gang begins to worry that one of them will either co-operate with the police or try and steal their diamond stash - and everyone is worried they will be murdered - as the detective and Meredith do their best to stir up those suspicions. A good one with of course a decent twist at the end. Based on the 1920 novel Jack O'Judgment.
 

The Partner (1963) - 6.0




A fine beginning to this Edgar Wallace film. Yoko Tani is lying in bed in a cheongsam when she gets up looking as if in a trance and picks up a long dagger. Yoko Tani had a fascinating life - one of those that seemed possible once but not so much anymore. She was everywhere and nowhere and has become a bit of a cult figure over the years. Born in Paris of Japanese parents, she returned to Japan to do her schooling and university before going back to Paris where she became a cabaret performer and strip tease artist. She was discovered there and got small parts in a few French films. Then back to Japan where she acted in a few Japanese films - and back to Europe where over the next decade she appeared in East German, West German, Hollywood, Canadian, Peplum, television and Euro-spy productions. Apparently, she continued to do her cabaret performances. Sort of an outrageous but seductive life.



As she gets out of bed, "cut" is heard by the director (Guy Doleman - Ross in Ipcress File and Funeral in Berlin). She is on a film set with some financial problems. There are soon to be bigger problems - murder. The director has some financial hanky-panky going on with the accountant which I never fully understood. Not that it matters. The accountant goes over to Tani's apartment that night to get her to sign something and the lights flicker. He goes to the fuse box and is electrocuted. But someone sees him leave the apartment later on and drive away - only to be found dead in an aquarium on the film set. Calling for Scotland Yard (Ewan Roberts). A few false leads, a suspicious wife, a handsome private, a few swinish characters and a nearly impossible to understand Yoko make for a solid mystery.