The man he meets introduces himself as Traian Boeru, a name the director knows too well. This is a man, who, 30 years ago was the leader of an assassination squad of the ultra-nazi group called „The Iron Guard“ that tried to wrestle power in a coup d’etat from the military dictator of Romania Antonescu.
Antonescu, although already allied with Nazi Germany was deemed too liberal by the Iron Guard, which stood for ultra religious fascim and genetic nazism and who were the third biggest hardcore nazi movement in Europe apart from the German and Italian one.
Boeru’s part was to kill the former Prime Minister of Romania Nicola Iorga who fiercly opposed the German and USSR-led „realignment“ of Romania (secession of Moldova to Stalin’s USSR as well as the Banat to Hungary and the Dobrudscha to Bulgaria). The assassination squad kidnapped Iorga in his vacation home, drove him into the woods and shot him 9 times with 2 different weapons.
Nicolae Iorga
The coup fails, though, and the „Iron Guards“ are persecuted, imprisoned or killed. Around 6000 were able to flee. Boeru’s group quickly made it to Germany, hoping that Hitler would welcome them. He did not. Hitler was eager to keep good relationship with Antonescu, who already was his ally and could not use a civil war in Romania at the brink of „Operation Barbarossa“.
Instead Hitler immediately imprisoned him and other Iron Guard Nazis in the Buchenwald concentration camp where they would stay until 1944 when Romania collapsed and they would be used as soldiers in the balkans to form the new "Romanian Exile Government" in Vienna. Meanwhile, Boeru had been sentenced to 30years prison in a romanian trial in 1941 - without any consequences.
The US army captured them. Already preparing for WW3, the US forces were quickly to aknowledge that the Iron Guard had not committed any „WAR“ crime (how could they) and started to build a shadow-army that would eventually fight for „freedom“ against the communists.
The hotspot of those US-activities in the 1950s clearly was Munich, capital of the American Occupation Zone. Here, all the anti-communists from eastern europe had gathered. Now they discussed, bolstered by american money and „diaspora donations“, how to overthrow the communist regimes in their native countries.
Those revolutions never came and after Stalin’s death and the soviets possessing the atom bomb, the USA simply lets the money run dry on those „freedom fighter forces“. The iron curtian really drops down and the diasporas have to adjust to their lives in the new federal republic of Germany.
Problematic here are two legacies: the weapons and the money these groups had amassed in the meantime. The secret weapon arsenals simply could be transferred to the newly founded „Bundeswehr“. But the money???
Well, there was one new haven for laundring money, opened up by the marriage between the Prince of Monaco and Grace Kelly, the Hollywood star. Here, the „noble House of Grimaldi“ saw the possibilty to evade bankruptcy and being swallowed up by France: Money loundring through movie production.
Well, deep inside was Traian Boeru who quickly set up his own movie financing business. He was the man who could be trusted as he obviously had already proven his determination and reliability. Working freelance for different movie production outlets he quickly gains a reputation for his thoroughness.
And here he is, in an octoberfest tent, openly discussing the role he played in the assassination of Romania’s former Prime Minister. Sergiu Nicolaescu, the director, later uses the information Boeru provides him with that night to make his own very successful movie about the uprising of 1940.
The Italians had hit gold with their exploitative and lucrative Giallo series that emerged after the german Krimi producers had decided to export their money to legally more relaxed markets, basically shutting down Krimi business in Germany altogether.
The most prominent producer, Rialto-Films stopped producing their successful Edgar-Wallace-Films and sold the existing scripts and movie-treatements to Italy where they resurfaced as pure Giallos. Four Edgar Wallace scripts are known by name, but it is not often clear which giallo they became as authorship was creatively disguised by the italian producers. How many scripts and treatments made it to italy is not known but those four are only the tip on an iceberg, as nobody asked what happened to unfinished material from Terra and CCC, who had been copying the Edgar-Wallace-style.
Although this is speculation, the script for „The red dame/queen kills seven times“ could be one of those or one prepared by EC Dietrich who often used aliases on his screenplays. The original title of the movie is noted in the files held by the italian state archive as "Die Leiche, die nicht sterben wollte" (sic! in German!!, "The Corpse that refused to die"). The plot revolves around castles, nobility, heritage, and most of all, a killer with a ridicolous gimmick: The red hood. Just replace the „red Queen“ with „red monk“ and you have a dead ringer for an Edgar Wallace movie.
Original movie posters for "The Red Dame kills 7 times"
Well, this is the movie Traian Boreu is going to finance and produce with his own money and as he is a shrewd and highly aware of the trappings as a businessman. So he insists on spending the cash-for-recipt personally where he lives: Bavaria. Thus the movie is shot in Germany and still holds up for one of the most unusual Gialli: A gothic throwback at the Edgar-Wallace-Krimis spiced up with the nudity, violence and the lack of humor of their italian brethren.
"The Red Queen" is the only movie that actually shows Boeru's name, although he stays in the munch film business all through the 1980.
Boeru dies in in Bavaria and still is a hotly debated figure of history in romania. Was he an agent for the Nazis? Was he even one for Stalin? Or, worst of all, did he act on order of Antonescu himself who wanted to get rid of Iorga?? All is possible as there was never any attempt to prosecute him after the verdict, neither by any Romanian authority, nor by the victorious allies including Russia. The files of the romanian secret service "Securitate" show him as a man, eager to restore his reputation, even willing to betray his emigré comrads. One might even come to the conclusion that the meeting in the Octoberfest-tent was that of two spies (and I wonder where Blake Edwards got his idea to exaclty that scene in "The Pink Panther strikes again" made 4 years later -- in Bavaria). When he was captured by US. Forces in Austria and the rumour was going round that the americans would hand over their prisoners to the russians (as the british had done), he just smiled and said, „Believe me, I got nothing to fear from them.“
Traian Boeru (left)
Regardless, he was able to lead his live in Munich under no disguise whatsoever as a "well respected businessman" and unthreatened by any spy-activity, unlike other anti-communists (like Stepan Bandera).
--- To be continued ---
