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

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.

From Nazis to Jess Franco -or- The Importance of the System of Railway Station Cinemas to the Development of Non-Linear Narration in European Exploitation Movies

Just go back 120 years and think about the new technology called kinematoraph. Think about what producers of content for this new medium would have had in mind back then. And now fast forward to 2020.

If you put on a VR-device and you are looking for suitable content, you will find three forms of vr-films: First, to show off the technical possibilities of the device, The second type will try to infom you (documentaries) and the third will simply exploit the possibilies for sheer titillation (ie. porn). You will not find VR-Movies that try to carry a story and use the vr technology as an integral device (just now it starts with a few short films, like back then with Meliès).

The drive behind producing content, esp. if you are a film distributor, is solely a financial one. If you produce films, you have to serve the outlets, the POSs and they will demand, which form the product will have to take.

When cinemas began to become stationary (as opposed to the travelling show attractions they had been before), you basically can find two kind of outlets for the movies. The first are the direct descendants of the carnivals, showing shorter films, mostly with more exploitative nature and/or newsreels. The second are the movie theaters who take on the movies as direct and cheaper competition on stage theaters.

The Nazis took cinema seriously and used both channels for their propaganda. The second thing the Nazis took seriously was transportation and the third was architecture. Putting these three things together, you come up with a plan that looks like this:

 - Rebuild the Railway System, tear down the useless old railway stations and raise modern, bigger ones that will include cinemas. Why? Travelling by train you often experienced long waiting times between train connections. That time should not be passed aimlessly but in the comfort of a warm, cozy cinema, where you could smoke and drink and be subject to the latest propaganda newsreel of the nazis.

Tearing down the old railway stations was then taken care of by the allies in form of bombing them in the war. The destruction of complete cities was not unwelcome by the Nazis as it provided them with the opportunity to rebuild them in that Germania-style that Adolf Speer had created. So those plans were created and - after the war
- simply carried out because mostly the people that were responsible for city-development had benn the same before-in-and after WWII (as there was no money -of course- this was done very cheaply and quickly but nevertheless exactly as it was planned in the Third Reich)

So all of the railway stations rebuilt after WWII had a movie theatre in it, or very close by in case the station had not been hit by a bomb (you could be shure that at least one of the surrounding houses had been... )
A Company was founded in 1950, the AKI (AktualitätenKIno corpration) whose aim was to operate these cinemas, calld the BALIs (BAhnhofsLIchtspiele -Railway Station Bioscopes). The content should not be longer than 20 minutes as that was the expected time a traveller would stay inside.

So there, in 1960 you had three distinctive kinds of cinemas: The Cinemas for premieres which would keep the movie as long as the box-office returns were right - they became the multiplexes we know. The cinemas that would get the secondary rights to show the film after it's initial run (that became the cinemas with schedules/programms, who would show movies only a few (fixed) times, including "art" movies - they became the arthouse cinemas). The Newsreel-Cinemas in the railway station that would show a 20 minute newsreel, then a 20 minute short movie, then a 20 minute documentary without ever interrupting that cicle as they had only one screen - and being "trapped" inside the station's architecture could not easily expand. But they would not (as in the US) be the "grindhouses" that would show the feature-length movies until they were physically useless.

That changed when TV took over in the mid-to-late sixties. People would not pay money anymore for the news that they got for free with the TV (and much more in time).  And with the introduction of the IC (InterCity) system for the trains the time the traveller had to wait for the connecting train was reduced (or at least the amount of people that would have to wait).

The up to 25 BALIs or "Bahnhofskinos" (Railway Station Cinemas) now were in trouble. Who would actually pay money? Well there was something left over from the travelling shows, remember? Sensationalism! That was the answer, quick and dirty, exciting and titillating. The customer would be satisfied if he would see somthing exciting every 15 minutes or so, and he would not care about plots and characterization as he would come in in the middle of a movie and get out before the end.

Movie producers and distributors that would feed that market would have to take care that they could produce 60-70 min (1 reel in 16mm) as cheaply as possible with something interesting happening every 15 minutes. That could be violence, horror or sex.

Although the establishment of BALIs is a particularly German thing, West Germany was still the biggest European movie market. American "B" movies were not of interest as they still were "normal" feature-length dramas with a slow build-up and lots of explanation and plotting up to the final twist. Those movies were practically unusable. So the production money went into cheaply produced plot-boilers that would have no linear (or any) narration. Just set-pieces.

Take for example the development from KRIMI to GIALLO or from WINNETOU to SPAGHETTI WESTERN.
The transition took place when the first of those german films were shown on TV and the producers had to find other outlets for their work. With the emphasis on set-pieces (the murders in the Gialli and the shoot-outs in the spaghettis) and them showing up every 15 minutes or so, those italian products (often financed by german money) were suitable for the market. Of course pornography was too.

And now we have the ingrediences for a classic eurosleaze movie to be shown in the BALIs: No exposition, no motivation, no characterization, only Sex&Violence and in between some neglectable plot, but spiced up by beautiful cinematography.

And who would be better equipped for this than Jesus Franco??? That is why his ventures with german money produced his most outragous (and financially successful) movies.

With the advance of home videos, the cheap thrills of the BALIS could be experinced at home and today waiting times are basically neglectable. So all of them closed in the mid-eighties. And thus the source of income for Franco too.

Further viewing: Try to check out the highly interesting  documentary "Cinema Perverso" it's available on amazon.de
Trailer:
Cinema Perverso on Youtube