The Krimi franchises - an overview

The Edgar Wallace Krimis and Spin-Offs

From 1959 to 1973 around 100 films were produced in Germany that would be labeled as "Krimis" or more precise "Grusel-Krimis" (Grusel cannot be correctly translated, it describes the (pleasant) sensation of being excited by being scared - it is etymologically related to the english words "grisly" "grue" "cruel" "gore" "creepy"). Here's a quick overview of the movies for a start.

You can see them all on my complete KRIMI-list including all movies that can be labelled as such  HERE.

Prelude: The Father Brown Cycle 

The most successful Krimi movies of them all are basically never mentioned: The Father Brown movies based on GK Chesterton's crime novels about a catholic priest solving murder mysteries in the british countryside. These novels still prove very popular today with numerous tv-series adapations.

Shortly after Rialto had put out "Der Frosch mit der Maske", the first of these movies was released "Das schwarze Schaf" (The black Sheep), starring the biggest post-war(and war) german movie star of them all: Heinz Rühmann. This was one of the biggest movies in 1960, by far outgrossing the EW-movies of the year. The basic krimi-principle is the same however, scary, wacky crime entertainment with german locations standing in for the original english ones. Here the script is very tight, and Rühman plays on top of his form, making this THE standout-krimi of them all (sorry Rialto).

Two years later the follow up "Er kann's nicht lassen" (He cannot let it be) again with Rühmann as Brown actually becomes the highest-grossing german crime movie of all time. This one is even more moulded as sensationalist crime movie with a villain showing up in scary disguises. No wonder, in 1963, everybody (and their cousins) were producing krimis in Germany. 

The cycle got a belated finishing movie with (tata!!!) Lucio Fulci's "Abenteuer des Kardinal Braun" (Adventures of Cardinal Brown), again with Rühmann in the lead, but a far cry from any krimi or giallo experience.

A. Official Edgar Wallace Krimi Movies 

German 34 Blu-Ray Box with nearly all Rialto Productions

In 1959 the danish film producer Preben Philipsen acquired the material of an unfinished Edgar Wallace movie called "The Mark of the Frog". He decided to go south of the border to Germany to let Horst Wendland (owner of Rialto Productions) find a director to shoot additional footage to bring the movie to a full running time. Wendland hired director Harald Reinl for this job. Watching the daily rushes, Wendland decided to re-film the movie in it's entirety, something he can persuade Philipsen to do. This movie turns out to be a success, though not as big as some would make you believe (No. 40 in 1959 year-end charts). Thus, "Der Frosch mit der Maske" is born. Wendland aquires most german rights to Edgar Wallace Mystery novels (not the adventure novels). 1960 then saw the krimi-genre emerge as such, the two Rialto EW-Movies again do good business as does the independently produced "Der Rächer" and the first in the german "Father Brown" series all hit the Top 40 in this year's attendance list.

Eager to cash in, Rialto then puts out 5 EW movies in one year, establishing a franchise that would last the next 10 years.

B. Official Bryan-Edgar-Wallace Movies, produced by CCC-Films

Bryan Edgar Wallace was the son of Edgar Wallace. So CCC acquired the rights to his name and his works (he was active as sf/crime writer) to produce their own competetive series. Although the first Dario Argento "Das Geheimnis der Schwarzen Handschuhe" (The Bird...) was produced under the BEW-franchise and profuced reasonable box-office returns, the follow-up "Die neunschwänzige Katze" (The Cat..) was handed over to the competiton at Terra films, but was, strangely enough, still marketed as official part of the BEW-franchise (can anybody please explain?)."Vier Fliegen auf Grauem Samt" (Four Flies..) was not marketed as part of BEW and not co-produced by CCC. The last film to be marketed under that franchise was  "Das Geheimnis des Gelben Grabes" (The Etruscan kills again), this time again co-produced and distributed by CCC.

C. The Weinert-Wilton Cycle

Ludwig Weinert (Louis Weinert-Wilton) was an austrian born german living in Prague who wrote successful crime novels before WWII. He died 1945 after the war in a czech concetration camp for to-be-expelled germans. These movies were co-produced by the distributor of the original Edgar Wallace movies, Constantin Film. Available in one box with 4 movies on blu-ray too.

D. Erwin C. Dietrich's "Strangler" series

Always trying to cash in on everything sleazy and sensational, swiss movie maverick Erwin C Dietrich sought a quick way to establish himself in the German and European markets. Having tried and failed to establish his own "Wachtmeister Studer" Krimis in Switzerland, he now acquires the munich-based "monachia" to produce for the Constantin Filmverleih (who already distributed the Edgar Wallace Krimis). This does not work out as planned as Constatin decides to go with the Weinert-Wilton movies. CCC is not interested in him either. And finally, he does it on his own. All the krimis somehow carry "The Strangler" in one of their many international titles, so let's call it "The Strangler" series.

I would like to add that EC Dietrich produced two more "Krimi"-related movies, the 1972 "The Red Queen Kills 7 Times" and 1975 "Jack the Ripper". Even his 1974 Jess Franco movie "Downtown" could added here. 

E. Stand-alone-films that were supposed to start their own, competing, cycle

Some studios and distribution companies tried to establish their own KRIMI-Cycle, using well-known authors that were published in the same publishing house as Edgar Wallace.

 As the original poster-art of the movie showed the book cover (the German Ullstein-Krimis were red instead of yellow), it seemed like a  good idea, simply to treat other authors in the same way, in the case of Weinert-Wilton, this had proven to be successful, so why not try it with others?

Well, in the end, they did not prove to be successful, so they remained one-off krimis.

ed: "Victor Gunn" actually is Edwy s. Brooks, but his books were exclusively published under the V. Gunn name.

You can see the all on my complete KRIMI-list including all those one-offs HERE.

F. The Sidekick: Dr. Mabuse 

In 1922 Fritz Lang made two movies about "Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler". A highly intelligent mastervillain who controls the black  markets and tries to achieve world domination. A huge international hit and influental and NOT AT ALL a simple Krimi. Basically this movie does not belong here. Neither the successor, "Testament of Dr. Mabuse", made in 1933, that basically replaces Mabuse (who is dead) with a megalomaniac possessed by his spirit. Needless to say, a mad megalomaniac (who may or may not have killed his female cousin to cover-up their incestous love affair) came to power in Jan 1933 in Germany, so that movie was not released until 1945....

The 2nd series started off with the 4th Lang-directed movie, "The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse"- based on a novel by a different author, the name was just dropped on the movie by producer Artur Brauner who had obtained the rights. A pattern was established, gadretry became part of the series, it went into sf-mode, not unlike James Bond. That is why, although it looks and feels like a krimi, this series is basically eurospy. 

G. The official TV-Series

In 1994, german TV station ordered two series from Rialto, the original Edgar Wallace movie producers. They were decidedly designed  to make them part of the official EW-Krimi-Cycle Thus 7 feature-length and lavishly produced TV-movies were filmed, and a lot of old Krimi veterans show up. Eddi Arend takes over the role of "Sir John" in a few of these movies.

Most of the movies severely miss the old wacky-scaryess of the EW-films. And although they tried hard, somehow this looks more like a stage-play by inhabitants of a senior residence than a modern TV-series. The episodes do have a value as to find out, why they exactly fail to capture the audience's attention.

The second season, though filmed in 1998 was not aired until 2002, and then without much ado on RTL's substation RTLII. (Although the first one "Schloss des Grauens" (Castle of Terror s02e01) is pretty good...)

S01e01-03 and S01e04 can be purchased as part of the official Rialto-EW-DVD-collection (#9), S02e02-05 as #10.

H. Spoofs: The Wankker Cycle and the OTTO TV-series

In 1994 one of the most popular german comedian OTTO was inspired by the strange  RTL-TV reboot Edgar Wallace series and decided to buy the rights to the EW-films and cutting them together into 13 comedy episodes (each 25 minutes), with himself digitally incorporated into the new gags. Altough critically flamed, the series proved to be a considerable success. 

Annoyed by OTTOs handling (or butchering or even corpse-grinding) of the EW-Films, notable film-critic and comedian Oliver Welke approached film companies with a new EW(spoof)script called "Der WIXXER" (based on a radio-show he had produced since 1994) (transl.:The WANKKER (sic!)). The script proved popular and the resulting film was a huge success, opening at No. 2 and staying in the German movie attendance top-ten for 10 weeks. The tag-line was "The Wankker is coming .... -on- your screen".

 By incorporating veteran Wallace actors and respecting the original humor of the series this is a movie to be added to every EW-Library. The film's success let to a sequel "Neues vom Wixxers" (News of the Wankker) which was still successful but less inspired (although not bad in a long way). Interestingly Joachim Fuchsberger, who played in the first EW-Movie in 1959 and the last in 1972 (and was the actor with most appearences in EW Movies) has a cameo here too.

Fuchsberger (right) on the set