The field of German silent serial movies is completely lost to us. With the French and US-American serials being rediscovered and researched, what the Germans did during WWI in their cinemas is an enigma. Most of the materials simply vanished, leaving only the faintest traces, such as newspaper advertisements and censorship cards. If something was left at all. So when I came across the fact, that Germany produced their own PHANTOMAS serial in WW1 (during research on my Fantomas-article in KRIMI!#0) I was completely hooked and on my way discovered an unknown, unexplored and unchartered world.
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| Oswald'S "Uncanny Stories" is his best-known horror-film |
Those serials, immensely popular in the central powers, served and fulfilled the desire to be entertained by criminal fiction and thus were not a bit less sensationalist than their French counterparts of the same time. But as it happened to some French serials (e.g., Zigomar), the highly flammable film stock and economic crises led to them being destroyed by the end of 1945. Furthermore, no one attached any artistic value to them, and so they were even shredded to pieces and reused as material for the soles of shoes (The Mystery lies beneath the soles of your shoes.... remember that?). How many masterpieces have been virtually stepped upon? We will never know.
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| The Nick Carter Pulp Novels were published from 1906 in Germany, leading to the French enchantment with this character. |
Specifically in Germany, the Nazis tried to erase anything non-healthy (such as crime and vice) from the national conscience, directly preventing archives and libraries from collecting and researching anything "filthy," such as the sensationalist crime pulp fiction series in print and in the movies. The most significant example must be "Nick Carter," the American newspaper crime novel series that was printed in the German Reich on cheap paper as pulp booklets and then went on to do big business in France, where the lead character became the first to be filmed as a serial. French production company ECLAIR did the "Nick Carter" novels, ECLIPSE did "Nat Pinkerton," whereas the Danish (!!!) NORDISK (pre-Rialto company) produced SHERLOCK HOLMES, whose pulp-novel stories were written in Germany by Kurt Matull under the faux-history that Holmes had his own records on crimes that Watson (=Arthur Conan Doyle) did not know about. Needless to say, that did not go down well with the license holders....
But then, how many of the film directors of the 1950s might have watched these movies with wide-open eyes, staring at the magic that unfolded before them? Too young to enter the war, but young enough to experience the sensation of shudder and terror. Those were the men that—in the 1950s—would do the groundwork of laying the foundation for the German Krimi genre. Even more so, some serials are directly responsible for the 1960s Krimi-Wave: Norbert Jacques was aware of the French serial "Zigomar contre Nick Carter" and used the plot to create Dr. Mabuse.
The Godfather to Exploitation: Richard Oswald
The most significant protagonist of the crime/vice/sleaze movie (some would say that he invented that genre) was the Austrian-born Viennese Jew Richard Ornstein, who changed his name to "Oswald." Richard Oswald started producing unlicensed Sherlock Holmes movies and serials during World War I, which was fairly common as—hey—those were proven crowd-pleasers and did not cost a penny as Germany was currently at war with the license-holders. The same goes for the lost 16(!) Fantomas movies, produced in Germany during the Great War.
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| "The Hound of the Baskervilles" |
Oswald would become a big-time movie producer in Germany until 1933, when he had to leave the country and emigrate to the US.
There were three kinds of movies that would make money, guaranteed: Vice, Fun, and Crime. And Oswald produced them all. The first movies about a) Homosexuality b) Abortion c) Prostitution d) Venereal Diseases and e) adolescent sex were all produced by him, certainly under the disguise of cautionary films, nonetheless very, very exploitative.
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| Poster for "Let there be Light" Part II about Venereal Diseases The Granddaddy of "educational sex movies" was produced in 4 parts from 1916-1918 |
Occasionally, he mixed it all together, and this is where his "Meisterdetektiv Engelbert Fox" series comes in.
The Adventures of the Master Detective Engelbert Fox
First, the disappointment: With the exception for the phenomenal "Das Unheimliche Haus" (The Uncanny House), for all the research I did on this, nothing of substance ever showed up on these movies. All we have are newspaper ads, the occasional review, and censorship admission cards. But what is written there is mouthwatering. Let's go down the series... shall we?
Engelbert Fox is not a character that appears in a pulp-novel series. One story though is proven to be lifted from the "John Sperlock" pulps that ran a few 40 issues in 1910.
And yes, the summaries will be longer than usual. Please bear in mind that this is the first time anyone has put them together. So this is more of an documentation thing than entertainment....
1915: Der Fund im Neubau (The discovery in the newly erected house) (Part I: The Fingernail Part II: Confessions of a Killer)
Fox does not notice that during the journey the old woman breaks through the floor of the cab, falls to the ground and lets the cab drive over her without the master detective noticing. Since the suspect has escaped him in this way, Fox goes to the last place where the murdered Mr. Wolf lived, a boarding house, to find further clues. On site he is told that Wolf has recently behaved very badly. He has approached the daughter of the boarding house owner in an inappropriate manner and was summarily thrown out by her brother. Wolf is said to have then moved into the hotel where a friend named Josua Riese is staying - the same Riese who once recommended this boarding house to Wolf as accommodation. Fox then goes to the hotel and discovers a second dead man: It is Riese, and in the room where he died, the hotel room, the word "revenge" has been scratched into the wall in the same way.
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| The only surviving still from the movie |
PART II: Confessions of a Murderer
Plot: The dead Morro left behind a diary, which Fox now begins to study intensively. Texas, twenty years earlier: Jonathan Morro is a fun-loving young man who earns his living as a cowboy in the Wild West. He is in love with a girl whose father has settled in the nearby tent city. The two sheriffs of the town, Wolf and Riese, also have their eye on the pretty little girl and even dare to play a game of dice to decide which of them should get the girl. Wolf wins the dice, but neither Morro nor the girl or her father want to submit to this absurd decision, and Wolf is refused the young lady's hand. The two sheriffs then take the law into their own hands, raid the tent city and try to get rid of their rival Morro by kidnapping him and throwing him into a deep shaft.
This was once the connection to a river, and so Morro is able to dig his way out, then swim free in the river. He returns to the tent city, overcomes the guards set up by the wolf and the giant, and kidnaps father and daughter to bring them to safety from the villainous law enforcers. But the henchmen are soon on his heels, and in an unobserved moment when Morro is looking for food and wants to shoot game, the wolf and the giant strike. The father is killed, the girl is kidnapped. The little girl does not want to bow to the two criminals with the sheriff's star and takes poison in order to end her life voluntarily. When Morro has to mourn his dead friend, he swears cruel revenge on her corpse. He leaves the USA and returns to Europe, where he builds a new life for himself as a cab driver. However, throughout the years he remains steadfast in his long-term goal of taking revenge on the two men who took the thing he loved most from him.
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| The only surviving still from the movie |
One day, while carrying out his plan of revenge, a great coincidence comes his way. He is in front of the boarding house in his cab at the very moment when Wolf, who is visiting Europe, is thrown out by the brother of the boarding house daughter that Wolf has been molesting. He and his companion Riese had recently left America to build a new life in good old Europe. Morro invites the drunk into his cab and takes him to the basement of the new building. There he forces him to swallow a poison pill. Shortly beforehand, he has also forced Riese's hotel address out of Wolf. Jonathan Morro then goes there and kills Riese too. He leaves the word "revenge" written on the wall of both dead people, which Engelbert Fox later found. This is how the diary entries end.
1915: Die Verschleierte Dame (The Veiled Lady) 1208 meters,
A case for master detective Engelbert Fox. He rushes over and confirms that the diamond has been stolen. The sleuth also discovers a piece of beard hair in the closet that can be glued on for a masquerade or disguise. Fox concludes that it cannot have been the doctor who visited the patient, but the murderer, who was disguised as Dr. Morena. A little later, the real doctor appears and, completely distraught, tells of the following experience: Late yesterday evening, a veiled lady turned up at his house and begged him to visit her sick father. Obliged to take the Hippocratic oath, he followed her request and waited for a while in a room in the lady's house. When no one came back, he discovered that he had been locked in. The next morning, he was blindfolded and driven away in a car, and finally thrown out of the vehicle in the street. When he heard about Gronau's violent death, he came here immediately.
The next morning, when Fox and Morena are standing together in his house, the detective notices that the veiled lady has obviously just driven past them. He immediately starts chasing her. He sees her disappear into a house and gains entry. Fox comes across an old man. By looking at the mini-mirror on his detective hat, he can also see the frightened look of the veiled lady. Fox hands the old man a blank sheet of paper, which the latter takes in his hand, but when he sees that it is unwritten, he drops it again in anger. The detective picks it up again and is thus in possession of a fingerprint that is important to him. Suddenly, however, Engelbert Fox is captured and locked up in the villa. While the villainous residents flee, the clever fox escapes through the window and over the rooftops.
The next day, the newspaper reports that the dead Count Gronau's nephew has arrived from America. Fox immediately goes to the young Count Andreas to pay his respects and to find out more about him. Count Andreas then invites Fox to a party taking place the following day. While they are both talking, Fox catches a brief glimpse of the face of the now-unveiled lady, whom he sees through the window of the anteroom. Since Fox would also like to have a fingerprint from Count Andreas, but was unable to get one this time thanks to his sleight of hand, he decides to pay him an unannounced nighttime visit. He actually manages to get a fingerprint and almost falls into a trap. At the party, a surprise occurs: Fox has come up with a shadow play, "The Mousetrap". As part of this little performance, he reenacts the crime committed by Count Andreas, and Count Andreas has no choice but to confess.
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| Film Poster for "Die silberne Kugel" |
1915: Die Silberne Kugel (The Silver Bullet) 1682 meters.
It turns out that the housekeeper at the castle is the head of a small gang. She works closely with the three habitual criminals Harper, Brown and Winston. All four are desperate to get their hands on the deposit slip, but don't know how to operate the mechanism that uses a water jet to raise the ball. Harper is particularly unscrupulous and doesn't even have a thug's honor. Not only did he murder Maxwell with a shot through the window, but he also got rid of his accomplices Brown and Winston: he killed Winston in the elevator and Brown in a hotel. But he finally fell into the net of Fox and his loyal servant.
- The movie is based on the John Spurlock pulp-series-novel "Der Ziegelstein" by Paul Rosenhayn, adapted for the movie by Rosensteyn himself. He also wrote for the pulp-novel and film series "Joe Jenkins" and went deep into Mabuse/Sleazy/Vice Crime with novels like "Razzia der Liebe".
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| John Spurlock No. 14 "Der Ziegelstein" was filmed as Engelbert Fox No. 3 "Die Silberne Kugel" |
1916: Das Unheimliche Haus (The Uncanny House) 1487 meters
Of all the Engelbert Fox movies, this one is the only one available. The dutch copy of this "lost" film runs around 1100m and was digitally restored. Finally we get to see the series that actually is quite horrific in the second half when we explore the gruesome crypt.... This movie premiered on a Friday the 13th too. There will be a review esp. on this movie on the krimimagazine.blogspot soon as I already watched the movie (at least what was left of it).
The unemployed Arthur Wüllner is hired by a man as a secretary in his house. He has barely started his job when the landlord assigns him various tasks. But then strange occurrences in the spooky house begin to confuse him. He is warned on notes written by an unknown hand, and important documents disappear from the locked safe. Then an unknown woman appears in the mirror and comes out to Wüllner to ask for his help.
For reasons unknown to him, Wüllner is fired by his employer a short time later. He consults Engelbet Fox (that's all the connection there is to this character in the film). And in order to help the unknown beauty from the mirror, he secretly returns to the house one evening. With the help of the detective, Wüllner is able to unravel the strange events: his employer and his assistant have played a nasty game with him, which was part of a large-scale crime.
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| Screenshot from a restored copy Here you can see the intro-sequence of this movie |
One can barely underestimate the success of this movie. This is the one where contemporary sources by far outnumber most of the other movies that were shown in 1916. I even found newspaper columns that had nothing to do with the movie except for the journalist referring to a certain situation as being like "in The Uncanny House", assuming that every reader had watched this one.
1916: Freitag der 13. - Das Unheimliche Haus Teil 2 (Friday 13th, The Uncanny House Part II) 1605 meters
It has already become a terrible tradition: every Friday the 13th, a member of the Eulenstein family dies. This time it is the castle's lord Herbert who is found dead in the pavilion of the castle's own garden. The murderer has clearly used high voltage to send the old man to the afterlife. Marcell von Eulenstein, the murdered man's son and main heir, commissions the detective Engelbert Fox to investigate the case.
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| Murder re-enactment the two surviving stills of the movie |
As a result of his investigations, in collaboration with his loyal friend and helper Dagobert Fix, he soon comes across a prime suspect. It is an ominous scientist named Prof. Cardallhan, who seems a little bizarre and confused. Fox and Fix find out that Cardallhan is actually related to the Eulensteins and, as in Nobility Obligation , intended to kill one relative after the other in order to finally get his hands on the inheritance himself.
1916 Der Chinesische Götze - Das Unheimliche Haus Teil 3 (The Chinese Idol, The Uncanny House Part III) 1445 meters
Chinese crime has a long tradition in Germany too, with the colony of Tsing-Tao (Kiaotschu) being the German foothold in China. Interestingly, one of the hardest potboilers, the German movie "Mr. Wu" (1918) which basically is a "Fu ManChu" Ripoff bears the same name as the servant in this movie.
Dick Gröbner, a traveler in China, is on his way to visit his friend, the millionaire Franz Mollheim, when he is approached by the private detective Ralph Robin. Gröbner takes Robin with him in his car. When Mollheim arrives, not only Gröbner, but also the private detective are given a warm welcome. Gröbner has brought Mollheim something from China that he had been eagerly awaiting: it is a small Chinese idol statue that Mollheim had once discovered in China but was unable to buy from the owner, a priest. Gröbner did the passionate collector of chinoiserie this favor, which was only made possible by a theft, but also demanded something in return: the hand of Mollheim's daughter Else and, as a bonus, a hefty dowry. Else Mollheim does not agree at all with her father's dirty deal and, fearing that she will have to become the next Mrs. Gröbner, confides in the private detective Robin. The snooper promises to help her. Surprisingly, a dispute arises between Mollheim and his supplier, because Mollheim suddenly no longer wants to pay the increased dowry, whereupon Gröbner in turn is no longer willing to give the idol statue to the collector.
In this generally tense situation, everyone involved in the Mollheim house goes to bed for the night. In the middle of the night, a piercing scream is heard. The private investigator is the first to jump up, the others follow. Only Dick Gröbner remains missing. They go to his room, which is locked from the inside. When they break down the door, they see the man lying dead on the floor with a bleeding head wound. The small idol statue has disappeared. The Chinese servant Wu is also gone, but after a long search they find him in the house's basement. When the police arrive, the assigned detective Osten begins his investigation. The first clue quickly leads to Else. She had visited the dead man in his bedroom shortly before his violent death to ask him to give up her hand. She left a handkerchief embroidered with her monogram on the spot. A female footprint, which also points to the daughter of the house, is also discovered. Else admits to this visit, but denies being the perpetrator. When she is caught in a small lie, Else appears in a new, unfavorable light. Robin, who develops an emotional interest in the young woman, plans to investigate the case to prove her innocence.
As he is packing his suitcase, Robin sees the Chinese servant sneaking into Gröbner's room and apparently looking for something there. Wu is very frightened by this. A strange smell fills the room, which Robin had already identified from Else's handkerchief. Robin finds the source of the smell on the washbasin: a soap. He puts it in his pocket. As Robin tries to leave the mansion, Wu pounces on him and tries to snatch the travel bag from the detective. Osten arrives and has the Chinese servant arrested. Shortly afterwards, Robin receives a letter in which he is told to go to Altstrasse No. 24. At this address there is only an old, half-ruined house. No sooner has he entered the spooky property than Robin is overpowered and taken to a Chinese temple hidden in the crumbling walls, where Detective Inspector Osten is already waiting for him. He was also lured to this place with a letter. A Chinese man brings Robin's travel bag and takes the large soap from it. They cut through it and suddenly the missing little idol statue appears in a hollow space. Osten and Robin are stunned and wake up the next morning in a courtyard, not knowing how they got there.
Both men gradually begin to remember the strange events of the previous day and quickly set out to search for the half-ruined house. When they discover and enter it, the temple inside it has been cleared out. Osten and Robin return to Mollheim's property together. Osten is beginning to suspect that Ralph Robin might have something to do with the murder, as the soap with the idol was found in his pocket. As Osten is talking to the landlord Mollheim, servant Wu appears and brings a letter from Else. In it, she says that she is going to see Robin and that he has absolutely nothing to do with the criminal activities. The criminal inspector now assumes that Else and Robin are in cahoots and are jointly responsible for Gröbner's death. The connections are clarified in court: Else states that she saw her father in front of Gröbner's bedroom window. Gröbner denies all guilt and claims that someone must have disguised himself as him. After a tough interrogation, servant Wu confesses that he had received the news that the robbed Chinese priest had come to Europe to get the stolen idol back. Wu saw the figure, disguised himself as Mollheim and wanted to steal it without further ado. However, it was nowhere to be found because it was already hidden in the soap, which Robin took shortly afterwards. Wu then informed his Chinese comrades on site, who kidnapped Osten and Robin. Gröbner paid for the theft with his life.
1917: Das Unheimliche Haus Teil 587 (Hulda, die verlorengegangene Dame - Hulda the vanished Lady)
was recorded in March 1917 to be a humoristic animated movie, filmed by Richard Oswald. No other traces can be found...maybe it was even an April Fool's joke on his side to release such a press statement.
As written in KRIMI#0, the PHANTOMAS serial will be examined next.....
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| Reviews going over the top for this one |
