Sunday, October 20, 2024

KRIMI! The Magazine Preview

On Nov. 29th 2024, the first, experimental, issue (#0) of KRIMI! The Magazine for Continental European Crime Cinema Cultur will be published on AMAZON (worldwide).

The stats:

80 Pages

Letter Format

Full Color

English Language

20 Pages of source material and movie posters

Price: US-$/€ 8.99

Here are two pages of the finished product:

Contens + Source Material + Posters

Sample Page

Saturday, October 12, 2024

Women in Krimi (V): Elisa Montés, the real girl from Rio...

As I am finishing the last touches to our KRIMI! magazine, the last article I wrote was about "Todesrächer von Soho" co-star Elisa Montés, just to find out that she died yesterday, (Oct, 9th 2024) at the age of 89.

Elisa Montés was born in Granada as Elisa Rosario Valeriana Angustias Francisca de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz Penella , December 15 , 1929. She was the daughter of the fascist politician Ramón Ruiz Alonso but the family had a strong artistic background. Her father was a staunch supporter of Generalissimo Franco and left Spain a few days after his death and moved to the USA.

At a young age she decided to dedicate herself to the world of acting, debuting on the big screen in 1954 with the film Elena, by Jesús Pascual and she won an award for her performance.

Throughout the decade of the 1950s she worked assiduously in the cinematographic medium with remarkable interpretations, but her movies were almost never internationally distributed (outside of the spanish-language world, that is).

With her daughter Emma in 1961, she seperated from her
husband in 1970 and divorced in 1982. Her daughter lived
with the father.

With the emergence of the german-spanish-italian co-productions she and her "exotic" looks get some roles in peplum and western movies.

The joyous spanish only Krimi la Cuarta Ventana
sees her and her female buddies (her actual sisters
Emma Penella and Teresa Pavez) entangled in some
strange crime...

She starred in

the Eddie Constantine movie "As if it was raining"

the Hildegard Knef-vehicle Geheimagentin in Gibraltar /"Female Spy of Gibraltar"

the Viking-epos (!) "Erik the Viking"

the peplum "Samson and the Mighty Challange"

the spaghetti-westerns: "Django the honorable Killer", "Mutinity at Fort Sharpe", "7 Dollars to kill", "Texas Adios", "The Taste of Vengeance"

the hollywood-made Return of the Magnificent Seven

In "The Return of the Magnificent Seven"

the spy movies "An Ace and Four Queens" and "The Cobra"

the extremely obscure German-Spanish horror film Das Geheimnis der Todesinsel by German schlockmeister Ernst von Theumer...

... and of course she became a regular actrice for Jess Franco, starting with

99 Women

Girl from Rio

Poor Irene, what is Sumuru going to do with her??

In Girl from Rio she played Irene, the secretary of Sir Marcius, who is captured and tortured by Sumuru. Ironically, Irene is from Rio while Sumuru is not. So I assume that the movie is about Irene and not Sumuru or Ulla ;-)

Her last big-screen appearance would be in the Jess Franco-Bryan Edgar Wallace movie Der Todesrächer von Soho where she played alongside krimi-heavyweights Horst Tappert, Barbara Rütting and Siegfried Schürenberg a woman called Helen Bennett, the wife of one of the suspects...

Above: Montés scenes in "Todesrächer"

Subsequently, her appearances in film and television gradually decreased, although in spain she stayed popular through her role in one of the best spanish tv-novellas ever: Verano azul (1981). She played the mother of two teenagers on summer vacation in a small costal town; the 19-part series drew 20 million viewers and has become part of Spain’s common cultural memory.

She did extensive stage-work throughout the 1980s and returned to the big screen in spanish productions in the early 1990s and then retired. Her daughter Emma Ozores became a TV actress too.

Receiving a life-time award in 2017

Montés at the Almeria Spaghetti-Western Festival

Woman No. 97

With her daughter

Monday, October 7, 2024

Lost Krimi Places: CCC Filmkunst Studios in Berlin

Pictures are HUGE, you have to wait a little until
they load

On September 16, 1946, Brauner founded the Central Cinema Comp.-Film GmbH with Joseph Einstein with a share capital of 21,000 Reichsmarks. Just two months later, Einstein left the company and Brauner became the sole shareholder.

The first film produced by the CCC was the 1947 comedy The King of Hearts, directed by Helmut Weiss. In 1949, he began building a film studio on the 35,000 square meter site of a former chemical weapons testing facility in Spandau. Initially, work began in two halls of 400-500 square meters.

The site thus became one of the most modernly equipped film studios in Europe. Television stations from the USA took advantage of these opportunities and regularly produced programs there.

Most of the Krimis were shot here as Brauner himself had the Bryan Edgar Wallace and Dr. Mabuse franchises going and Horst Wendlandt of Rialto (the "real" Edgar Wallace Krimis) had been executive director of the studio-complex for Brauner before joining Rialto.

As early as 1965, Brauner had to significantly reduce the size of his studio premises when ZDF (Germany's national TV station) stopped producing there and moved completely to Mainz. This partially ended the Bryan Edgar Wallace and Mabuse series, although Brauner desperately tried to find new, international partners for his franchises (and found one in Salvatore Argento....).

At the beginning of the 1970s, Brauner closed his studios and laid off the last remaining 85 employees.

Parts of the studios still exist and are still in operation under the name Filmatelier Haselhorst. Instead of continuous film production, Brauner and the CCC focused on individual projects. The area with the former dubbing studios on it no longer belonged to the CCC Studios and was demolished.

Please visit www.modernruins.de for more information.

Friday, September 27, 2024

Jess Franco, the walking death of Eurocrime (Part VIII): The case of Ilsa, the Wicked Warden

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Monday, September 23, 2024

KRIMI! - The new magazine for central european crime culture out soon.

Well, we did it. Over a few beers and Apfelschorles in Oberhausen/Germany, Holger Haase (founder of the Krimifilm.blog) and me have decided to put out our own print-magazine called KRIMI!. There is so much to say and to write about and often these blog-entrances have to be cut down as the attention span is short.

Basically we have enough material for the first few issues already and there are really stunning things on the way.

With the print-magazine we have the luxury to go all in, investigate hard and deep and will try to lay a foundation for serious, if not scientific, work on the subject of eurocrime.

The first issue will be issue #0 that we will just put out to get familiar with the technology and the economy behind this. There will be newly revised and extended features in it though. So it will be worthwhile, even if you have already read about these topics in the blogs. But then, this is #0 and we will delete it, once #1 has come out (that will feature completely new topics and insights), making it a collector's item.

We have chosen Amazon as it has the best platform for us and it will be available worldwide. Issue #0 will be available both as kindle-epub and as printed paperback but we're thinking about going print-only as we feel that will do justice to the weight of the contens.

The #0 will be out soon, the latest date will be Dec. 31st 2024, but we will beat that for a few weeks.

In this issue you will find

an extended and completely revised entrance on Jess Franco and (Bryan) Edgar Wallace
an extended and completely revised entrance on Heather Gardiner, who wrote the crime-novel "Money on Murder" on which "Das Hotel der Toten Gäste" is based and had a very interesting but untold (worldwide!!) life.
a new feature on how the Fantomas-series was ended although being the most successful of all of eurospy (including James Bond).
and a definitive definition of Krimi with the best Krimi-Movies presented for each example given.

We're not finished so things might change. But we will keep you informed.

KRIMI has its own blog, so you might check this one out regularly....

Wednesday, September 18, 2024

Women in Krimi (IV): Laya Raki (1927-2018)

A lot has been written about the leading Krimi/Giallo ladies like Karin Dor, Karin Baal or Edwige Fenech, but looking into the lives and works of the lesser known "starlets" that starred in the european trash movies of the 60ies and 70ies often shows another, more complicated and interesting side: These were women who stood on their own and made their way by using the rules to their advantage instead of trying to change them.

Laya Raki

One of them is Laya Raki. Why her? Well she co-starred in "Die Nylonschlinge" which is part of the EC Dietrich Strangler-Krimi-Cycle and by researching that movie I suddenly realised what an interesting person Raki must have been.

1. The Origins

Back from Moscow, Adolf
Althoff presents "The Tiger
on the Horse" - oh dear.

Her mother was circus-artist Maria von der Gathen who, through her marriage with Adolf Althoff 1939 became part of the very well known German circus dynasty of the Althoffs. Before that, in 1927, she was in relationship with another circus artist Wilhelm Jörns, so Laya was born as Brunhilde Marie Alma Herta Jörns on July, 27th 1927 in Hamburg.

Her mother and step-father tried to hide and supply jewish artists during the holocaust, employing them under aliases in their circus-company. Although collegues and Laya must have been aware of this, they all kept their mouths shut so that they survived the Nazi-persecution (and the war itself) to testify. The Althoffs were honored as "Rightous amongst Peoples" by the Israel state in 1995.

Actress La Jana,
early idol of Laya,
she died 1940 in the war.

Laya always wanted to be a dancer. The stage name Laya Raki came from her admiration for the dancer La Jana ("The Star of Rio") and her preference for raki, the oriental whisky. Nowadays I often come across those circus-artists that made it big in the neighbouring movie-world. They seem to be a special breed, extremely disciplined, you never hear them complain or lament about the hardships of their trade.

Starting off in front of occupational forces in 1945 to earn money with her risqué dance routine, she quickly became a household name in the off-limits bars and varietys that popped up shortly after the war (shortage of men and work did their thing).

From 1947 onwards she caused a stir with dance performances in Düsseldorf, Frankfurt and other major cities. Her appearance in Berlin in 1950 became the talk of the town.

The same year, the East-German DEFA film company gave her a small role in the movie The Council of the Gods. The Berliner Morgenpost critic wrote enthusiastically that she had a real talent for dancing and that her expressive face had an astonishing range of nuances.

On her wedding 1957 with australian actor
Ron Randell, they stayed together until his
death in 2005

Still in 1950, the REAL-Film press department presented her as a new discovery for the film The Third from the Right.

In it she appeared dancing the rumba with two stars on her nipples, which was still considered scandalous at the time. Similarly sparingly dressed, she also danced in Marriage for one night and another film.

In "The Seekers" (1954) there is even a topless scene with her.

She was easily a worldwide burlesque sensation in the 1950ies and possibly the highest paid of them all. In the mid-50ies she obviously went through some prosthetic operations.

She went to England and then to Hollywood to take lessons in acting and in 1962 she was able to get a steady job in the british TV-series "Crane" for over 30 episodes. The series was filmed on location in Morocco and presented retired playboy "Crane" as adventurer/investigator. Raki's role was that of his assistant and manager of his beach bar.

Laya (to the left) is some kind of assistant

Still in 1962 she recorded her 7" single "Oh, Johnny, hier nicht parken" (the meaning translates as "Oh Johnny, don't let it stay in here") which featured the first ever fake-orgasm on a record, and - of course - was object in some lawsuits.. well, judge for yourself....

Man must she have been fun to be around...

2. The Krimis

In between the "Crane" episode-shootings she must have found time to appear (and her dance routine, which - no sex please, we're british - she was not able to perform in "Crane") in three lesser known but nevertheless interesting KRIMIS.

a. Die Nylonschlinge (1963)

How exactly Erwin C. Dietrich got her into his ultra-cheap Wallace-ripoff is not known. Sadly we cannot ask him. But here she plays - ahem - a burlesque dancer whose routine we see twice. The movie takes its time to show us the complete set with the camera just moving away in time for the bra-removal. In the following shot, a double runs through the set.

The character Laya plays also is some kind of witness so we get a little bit of acting from her too.

The movie was (considering the ROI) good business, so Dietmar Schönherr, star of "Die Nylonschlinge" decides to do his own - even cheaper - AUSTRIAN Wallace- Rip-off called:

b. Das Geheimnis der roten Quaste (1963)

Laya here plays (of course) a night-club dancer who gets killed after one performance. There is not much to say about her here as all we see is her rehearsing the dance, then dance, then being dead. Her voice is dubbed.

While already in Austria, she gets her Husband to come down and do a movie with her too:

c. Das Haus auf dem Hügel (1964)

I have no indication if the "Red Tassel" did some money, but shortly afterwards, the austrians tried their luck by trying to create their own KRIMI series based on the pulp-crime character of Kommissar Allan Wilton. Problem here was that these crime novels were not distributed outside of Austria and thus Allan Wilton was completely unknown to the German audience, making this, from the start a very niche enterprise.

This is kind of odd as the producers Walter Hössig and Robert Lach (Hoela) normally operated from Germany. Lach, though was from vienna and it seems like Raki was actually co-financing the film, thus having muscle enough to have her husband play the lead role.

Laya Raki of course is reduced to throwing her boobs around, but behind the scenes she is able to get the lead role for her husband, Ron Randell, so this is a rare opportunity to see them both on-screen. If you ever get the opportunity to watch that movie....

Although already scripted, a second movie "Das Rätsel der schwarzen Locken" (The Mystery of the black curls) was not made as there was no financial backing.

ooh, cats, I always wanted to have some kitty-
pictures in my blog

After "Crane" stopped in 1965 she finds it hard to get another role, now approaching 40, her usual mixture of exoticness and eroticisim is sadly out of date. She gets the occasional small roles here and there and moves to California, obviously going for real-estate with her husband Ron who occasionally trips back to his native Australia for some minor TV and stage appearances.

She stayed with him in Los Angeles until his Alzheimer's caused death in 2005 but re-married in 2009, this time the vice president of Lockheed Aircraft. (Good for you Laya!!).

In December 2018, a few months after the death of her second husband, Laya Raki passed away peacefully at the age of 91. What a life.

She had no natural children and was buried beside her first husband.

I have to say that I tremendously enjoyed investigating her life. There never seemed to be a dull moment with her and she seemed to be a genuinly tough, kind, loyal, hard-working, beautiful women.