Director: Alfred Vohrer
Year: 1964
Country: Germany
Rating: 7.0
So is a Krimi still a Krimi if it is not based
on a novel by Edgar Wallace or son? I don't know. It is based instead on
a novel by James Hadley Chase who wrote some very good suspense novels. It
has many of the hallmarks of a Krimi with Alfred Vohrer directing, Rialto
producing and a nefarious criminal mastermind in a wheelchair wired up like
Mark Zuckerberg even to having a locked room with a slowly descending ceiling
and cameras watching everything and of course the standard wheelchair accessory
of hidden machine guns. Yet at the same time it has none of the usual Krimi
Players that we have all come to love other than Klaus Kinski but then he
shows up in every German film by law. It is also not nearly as outlandish
as many Krimis but it has its moments, a fast moving narrative, a femme fatale
and tortoises everywhere. It is also a bit odd in that the hero is not really
the hero - rather an idiot really - and it is his friend/comedy relief who
is.
The criminal mastermind sends extortion notes to the very wealthy demanding
a large amount of money or they will be killed. His point person in this
scheme is Laura played by Hildegard Knef who has the unsmiling demeanor of
a Nazi prison guard. When I look at her I think that she should have modeled
for Picasso. He could have done some interesting things with her face. She
was in Germany when the war ended and disguised herself as a boy so as to
not be raped by the Russians. Surprised that stopped them. She and another
member of the crew with one side of his face burnt off are in England to
deliver a note to Sir Bradley. On the back of a tortoise with a skull painted
on. Kind of a low rent operation. A tortoise? Not exactly the animal to send
fear through you. They also have to hire a killer. What kind of an organization
worth its salt doesn't have their own killers? They have to outsource? They
hire Kinski, a drunk knife thrower who - oops - killed his partner in the
act and is out of work. Killing your partner can do that. Bad guys also have
to learn to make time bombs that don't tick. It is kind of a giveaway. "Hey,
where did this package come from? Did you buy a clock".
Sir Bradley asks his nephew Don (Götz George) to come over and help
in case this is not a hoax. Don brings his friend Harry along. Well, it all
goes badly, Sir Bradley is killed and Klaus gets away - but goes to the hotel
where Laura is. The friend follows him and Don meets her. In the bathtub.
He suspects her and the two friends follow her to Trieste where the mastermind
lives in a castle larger than the Super Bowl with rooms that go down 60 feet.
He invites Don for dinner. Don is a very stupid boy and accepts. Things go
from bad to worse. Don't accept invitations from mad men is my motto.
Laura though is getting tired of this. The travel, the hotels, the airline
food has gotten to her - the killing not so much. Great little ending.
