The mystery of Solange's green pin

Massimo Dallamato's  1972 masterpiece - The Hybrid-Movie that killed the Edgar Wallace Krimi Cycle.

Is it a Krimi? Is it a Giallo? Is it a police-procedural movie? Or just the perverted product of an unhinged movie director? Well, if you know "Cosa avete fatto a Solange?"  and the consecutive movies of Dallamato, you know it's all of them.

"What have You Done to Solange" is one of the standout Giallos from the golden age. But only few know that it's core it is a bona fide Edgar Wallace Krimi. Rialto, the company responsible for producing those actually had wrapped production up in the late 1960is only to be surprised by the competitor's (CCC Filmkunst) labelling of Dario Argento's "Birld with the Crystal Plumage" as a (Bryan)Edgar Wallace film. That movie made good money (though it had fewer ticket sales than german-produced Krimis) as did "Double Face" that  Rialto had produced already in Italy. 

Not to let the market be dominated by CCC, Rialto quickly went into the production of several Krimis, two of them in Germany and two of them in Italy. 

One of them, based on an original Krimi screenplay was "Solange". As usual Rialto just took an old screenplay, changed a few things here and there and updated it to the modern taste.

Well, here's the plot: 

 

College Girls are murdered as they have secret relationships with their professors.

 The plot is more or less taken from the 1967 Edgar Wallace Krimi "Der Mönch mit der Peitsche" (The College Girl murders) sans electronic gadgetry and of course the Monk with the Whip. I advise wholheartedly any admirer of Solange to get that movie...

After the ROI success of "Double Face",  and "The Bird with the Crystal Plumage" (600.000 ticket sales with a minimal co-production investment) German Edgar-Wallace-Distributor Constantin Film handed several treaties over to their italian partners (Clodio Cinematografica and Italian international Film) to produce them as Edgar Wallace Movies. But instead of a 50/50% production (Double Face), the germans only wanted to come up with 30% of the production costs. 

There were 4  treaties, written bei Edgar Wallace veteran Herbert Reinecker were all to include the title of an Edgar Wallace novel, but besides that were unrelated to his books. Those unfinished treaties were handed over to the italian partners:

"Das Geheimnis der grünen Stecknadel"(Mystery of the Green Pin)  / "Clue of the new Pin" (original novel title) - That would become "What have you done to Solange?")

"Das Geheimnis der schwarzen Rose" (Mystery of the the black Rose)/ "The Bleeding Butterfly". That would become "Una farfalla con le ali insanguinate"  - "The Bloodstained Butterfly".

"Sieben Gesichter für die Mörderin" (Seven Faces for the Murderess)/ --- /later became "Sette volti per l’assassino" and later "Sette orchidee macchiate di rosso" "Seven blood-stained Orchids"

"In der Dunkelheit des Schreckens" (In the Darkness of Terror)/ which might have become "Qualcuno l'ha vista uccidere" 

The original treaty of "Das Geheimnis der grünen Stecknadel" was updated by Constantin and then shoved over to Dallamato who had been chosen to direct. Dallamato (as "Max Dillmann") had previously worked for german producers and seemed the right choice. His german filmed Krimi "Das Geheimnis der jungen Witwe" (Black Veil for Lisa) had been very successful. 

He reworked the treaty and here the German version and the Italian Versions of "Solange" begin to differ.

This Krimi/Giallo hybrid has the complete Krimi-cast of Fuchsberger, Baal and Glas (who were in the orginal College Girl Murders) and basically is the last step of Gialli incorporating the Krimi.

So as with "Double Face", two different cuts of this movie exist, one as Edgar-Wallace-Krimi and one as a Giallo. Even today these different cuts are promoted differently in Germany.

Das Geheimnis der grünen Stecknadel proved to be very succesful with a total of 1.100.000 tickets sold, putting it into the german Top Twenty of 1972. By comparison "Double Face" had only sold 600.000 tickets and so with less money and man-power, more profit had been made. Interestingly, Argento's "Bird with the Crystal Plumage" had been advertised in Germany as Wallace-Krimi and had only sold around 700.000 tickets on its release.

Similarly "Seven blood-stained Orchids", now published under the Edgar-Wallace-Title "Das Geheimnis des silbernen Halbmonds" (and prior to "Solange") sold 900.000 Tickets.

In the same year, the last fully german produced and made Edgar Wallace Krimi "Die Tote aus der Themse"  ("The Body in the Thames" (again recommended viewing!)) sold 1.400.000 tickets, but given the investment, the ROI was much less, as there was virtually no foreign market income. 

Business-wise it was a sensible step to put more and more money into the italian giallo-machine as it returned more profit for less work. 

But why the very profitable franchises of "Edgar Wallace", "Bryan E. Wallace" and "Dr. Mabuse" were all shut down in 1972 is a very, very interesting question I surely will be concentrating on in the future....