From Proto-Giallo to Star Wars, how Oskar Sala changed the world of movies - or - How "The Strangler of Blackmoor Castle" was the first movie to have a fully synthezised soundtrack

From Proto-Giallo to Star Wars, how Oskar Sala changed the world of movies (or not)

- or -

How "The Strangler of Blackmoor Castle" was the first movie to have a fully synthezised soundtrack

See, I might be wrong here, but viewing "The Strangler of Blackmoor Castle" I was intrigued: Here we have a movie score that completely discards all natural instruments and had them replaced by electronic music. This must have been audacious in 1963 and so the journey starts: Was this, litlle known Krimi-Proto-Giallo actually the first all-out electonically scored movie??? Well, let's find out. but first some data:

"Der Würger von Schloss Blackmoor" (accurately translated as "The Strangler of Blackmoor Castle") is a 1963 Krimi-oddity, produced in Germany. As some of you might know, the german KRIMI-cycle was the direct precursor of the Giallo, as the Winnetou-movies were to the Spaghetti-Westerns. The Krimis were basically very loose adaptions of crime novels by Edgar Wallace but with a formularic approach: 

A fairy-tale Jack-the-Ripper English setting, heritages, inspectors and a good dose of odd humour - and always with the same cast of actors (Karin Dor, Klaus Kinski, Joachim Fuchsberger) and a very jazzy/experimental score usually by Peter Thomas. 

That formula seemed unbeatable in the early 60ies and so a lot of german production companies followed the early Edgar-Wallace successes with their own KRIMIS (most notably: "Blutige Seide"/"Blood and Black Lace" Co-Produced by GLORIA-Films who put in their own star Thomas Rainer) such as The Weinert-Wilton Krimis or the Francis-Dubridge Krimis. 

German Top-Producer Alois Brauner (CCC-Film) tried to cash in by obtaining the rights to an unclaimed Edgar Wallace Book: Der Fluch der Gelben Schlange (The Curse of the Yellow Snake). Trying to compete with the A-level original Edgar-Wallace movies by the Rialto Company, he hired the same actors and had some lavish sets built. Otherwise he tried to cut costs, using only a few minutes of a fully orchestrated score, with the rest being recorded by electronic music pioneer Oskar Sala who had just scored (sort of as there is no real score) Alfred Hitchcock's THE BIRDS. 

The movie proved to be successful enough but meanwhile Rialto had obtained the rights to all Edgar-Wallace crime novels and had put its Edgar Wallace - cast in long-term contracts. So the option of making a "real" Wallace movie was gone ... or was it? All in all it had been a very costly enterprise, something that was not really suitable with CCC-Films. So Brauner looked for a substitute and came up with a splendid idea, that would change, quite literally, the movie-world.

See, Edgar Wallace had a son, called "Bryan Edgar Wallace", who had -  pretty unsuccessfully - tried to write his own crime novels. 

You will find them at abebooks, most notable "Death packs a suitcase", but realistically, without people mistaking the son for the father, these books would not sell. 

But here was the plan: Buying the rights to the books of the son, maybe making him write some drafts or screenplays and the desired brandname of "Wallace" could be printed on the movie poster.

Like this adaptation of "Death packs a suitcase".

Basically Bryan E. Wallace sold the rights to use his name in the movies. Whether or not he was actually involved in (some of) them remains a mistery to this day. Sometimes he is credited for the book, sometimes for reworking the screenplay, sometimes for the"idea".  Nevertheless this was much less expensive for CCC-Films.

And "Death packs a suitcase" proved to be as successful as his a-grade competitors at a fraction of the cost.

Thus, the "Bryan-Edgar-Wallace Cycle" of films was born. From 1962 to 1973 all in all 11 movies were distributed under this brand, even outlasting the original "Edgar Wallace Cycle". 

And without any restrictions but under the order to make them as cheaply as possible, true gems of genre films were produced by CCC-Films under the Bryan-Edgar-Wallace banner: How about DARIO ARGENTO's animal trilogy?

--- but that's up to another post here in the future ---  or the has-to-be-seen-to-be-believed-bad remake of "Death packs a suitcase" by Jess Franco???

 

Right now, here's my plea to give this totally unsung hero of movie-cycles the honor that it deserves!!!

So as a follow-up, CCC tried their own go at Edgar Wallace. With no book to adapt they simply put in all the beloved ingredients of the original movies into their own little tribute-film.Ok, ready? Here we go:

Foggy english landscape - check

Old english castle - check

Greedy inheritance swindler - check

Wacky english lord - check

Secret passages - check

Serial killer -check

Gruesome killings -check

Organised crime -check

Sleazy bar with back-door crime scene - check

High-Tech Door/Gate -check

Cool Scotland Yard inspector - check

Innocent, but beautiful true heiress who falls in love with Inspector - check

Hooded Killer who is disfiguered - check

Cool modern Jazz score - No, wait, we don't have that, but all our money is spent on red-hot Karin Dor, but this is more like a horror-crime-movie, right? So how about using Oskar Sala again, he can do it with his synthezisers alone, that is cool, modern AND creepy (and cheap, I'd like to add).

And so poor old Oskar Sala scores the COMPLETE movie, not only the thrilling parts, but love scenes and most notably bar-scenes as well. So here, our here walks into this seedy striptease-bar, with the juke-box on, playing that popular beatmusic -or not??? Check out the 38 minute mark on this movie.

To my knowledge, this is the first movie ever to be completely scored by synthezisers, and I mean a full score, not some novelty effects like "The Birds". But maybe I am wrong here, but I'm not wrong about this:

"Der Würger von Schloss Blackmoor" opened on the b-movie circuit in the US as "The Strangler of Blackmoor Castle" it was then quickly shown in late-night tv horror shows. Genre-afficinados such as George Lucas and Stephen Spielberg would use Oskar Sala and his synthezisers (the Trautoniums) in Star Wars and Close Encounters. Maybe they got the inspiration by watching "The Birds", maybe by watching "The Strangler".... who knows? 

I know for sure that the Star Wars Cantina Score would have been much cooler, if Sala had done it.

And: Is the movie any good? Well it was done cheaply and it shows, there are a lot of transitional moments, with some stunning set-pieces in between. It's worth watching for its gruesomeness (an actual beaheading is shown) and for the "fire-door" entrences. And of course for the score by Oskar Sala... but you knew that by now.