Der Todesrächer von Soho (1972) Online

This crime thriller was made towards the end of the German "Edgar Wallace" movie series, which lasted from 1958 until 1972. Cult sleaze director Jess Franco got "Edgar Wallace"-regulars Siegfried Schürenberg and Horst Tappert for this one, but obviously the quite well known actors swallowed up the whole budget: The film itself is very cheap.

Although the movie takes place in London, most of the film was made in Spain. Therefore, all cars are driven on the right side of the street and the streets look typically spanish... yeah, heck, who will spot the difference to London?

Aside from the low production values, the whole story is an incoherent mess. The motivations of most of the characters (especially Horst Tappert's) remain unclear, and there are enough scenes that appear useless to the plot. The whole thing is so trashy it has to be seen to be believed.

In the end, exactly all the flaws make this cinematic catastrophe very entertaining and funny. A good party tape, but certainly not typical Jess Franco stuff. By the way: Horst Tappert went on to play the character "Inspector Derrick" for the German TV-crime-series "Derrick" (1974-1998) and became the best known cable policeman in the history of German television.

Swiss director Jess Franco (credited "Jess Frank" here) is a real institution in the European b-movie scene for over fourty years now. Producing lots of cheap, stylish, weird and fastly-shot exploitation movies off all kinds of genres like sex films, thrillers, action, horror, science fiction, jailhouse dramas, war and adventure movies and detective fiction, he is some kind of European Hershell Gordon Lewis or Ed Wood, although still unknown in the mainstream media.

"Der Todesraecher von Soho" (The deadly avenger of Soho) from 1972 is such a fastly shot production. This German-Spanish co-production is a rip-off of the popular German Edgar Wallace movies, a series of 32 London-based detective fiction movies produced from 1959 to 1972 with elements of serial thrillers, 19th century gothic novels and horror/crime fiction elements, mostly about weird killers.

Based on a novel of Bryan Edgar Wallace, the son of the British detective fiction author who never had such a big reputation in England than in Germany, this movie is something about a killer in London slashing several innocent women. There's also some kidnapping of half-nude women involved as well as mad scientists, giallo rippers, handsome Scotland Yard detectives, gothic castles, leather dominas, etc., but the script isn't really based on a logical plot.

The pacing is sometimes really boring, but really funny because of the typical Jess Franco style of film making - restless steadycams, fast zooms, weird camera ankles, surreal atmospheres, many empty places like in an old "Avengers" (sic!) TV episode and a timeless mixture of 19th and 20th century literary and movie styles. In the end, the showdown becomes really weird just like a psychedelic acid trip without any colours as there is only black and white and grey everywhere. No way!

The groovy easy listening and crime jazz soundtrack was composed by German jazz musician Rolf Kuehn, who provided the scores for many more Franco productions, and the cast features German b-movie star Fred Williams, stunning Barbara Ruettig, Wolfgang Kieling, Siegfried Schuerenberg (who played Scotland Yard chief "Sir John" in many Edgar Wallace movies), and famous "Derrick" actor Horst Tappert, playing a maniac villain here. Sit back and enjoy this weird and entertaining German seventies' trip that must have been big fun to shoot...

It begins as a dull whodunit, with bad acting from most of the supporting cast. However, one murder scene towards the middle (the one which starts with a chase in a park and culminates in someone's backyard) is nevertheless filmed with some virtuosity. Some of the humor which I could catch, esp. the bickering between the inspector and his assistant, was quite funny: for instance, I laughed a lot at at the scene where the inspector rushes up the stairs but his assistant takes the elevator. As the movie progresses things get more interesting with bizarre set-ups and bizarre villains appearing and adding much delight. Eventually, we even have the delicious stereotypical mad scientist lab with flashing light bulbs and bubbling tubes... Rather than giallo imagery of the times (early 1970s), this has vintage pulp imagery. And it was also nice to watch a cute and pretty Eva Montes in another Franco movie.

Amidst flourishes of typical Jess Franco-directed eccentricity, there is an overall strangeness to proceedings here. We get a jazzy nightclub scene of course (music courtesy of Rolf Kuehn), but the style throughout is a slightly awkward marrying of Franco style and traditional thriller: Jess has never been a traditionalist! Like his two Fu Manchu films never quite convince as either typical horrors in the oriental series or untamed Franco productions, this doesn't quite come across as a straightforward thriller - but then, it wouldn't would it? Somehow this works, and works very well.

I get the feeling Franco felt somewhat restrained when 'limited' to realising someone else's ideas (this is an adaption of Edgar Wallace's 'Secret of the Black Suitcases,' one of three 1970s Wallace adaptions), and this could be seen as something of a compromise. I say this mainly because two Jess trademarks, nudity and sex, are virtually absent. It is stylish though, and acted with urgency (Horst Tappert as Barton is particularly good) as befitting the complicated plot.

I enjoyed this; it's a strange beast. It is convoluted but very engaging. Apart from the fine performances, it seems to have a fairly substantial budget. There is also a good mix of fairly nasty drama and comedy, a balance which is difficult to get right.

Two further things I notice in this: most of the location filming seems to be carried out in misty London, but some scenes are shot in sunny Spain - with Vaseline smeared over the camera lens to try and signify UK smog (this idea is rejected in the middle of the film, but returns later)! A couple of scenes feature a comedy-twanging/springing sound effect dubbed over the action of particularly dramatic scenes (a double knifing).

Ultimately, this is hugely enjoyable. It is a curious production, but it really works well, proceedings benefitting hugely from the fast pace and often beautiful visuals. It is a lesser known Franco film, a collection under-appreciated as it is, and deserves a wider audience.

"Der Todesrächer von Soho" (and there are several English titles for this one that I won't list) is a West German 75-minute movie from 1972, so this one will have its 45th anniversary next year. The star here is possibly the director Jesús Franco, who is still very known today, mostly for his trashy horror films. This one is a bit of that too, even if there are no supernatural aspects here and the focus is mostly on police investigation. Franco is also one of several people who worked on the script. The two lead actors are Horst Tappert, still very known in Germany today because of "Derrick", and Fred Williams, who is not known here anymore today. The latter played the good guy, even if he was almost too nice for the role, while Tappert plays a character where you never knew if he was good or bad, except at the ending. The female characters are written pretty badly again, but that's a common problem from the 1970s. I personally did not enjoy the watch too much. I believe Tappert elevated the material on some occasions, but it was a fairly weak film overall. The base material here is by Bryan Edgar Wallace, son of Edgar, who followed in his father's footsteps, but this film is mostly an appendix as the Wallace film series was pretty much over in the 1970s. I give this one a thumbs-down and I am glad it was over so quickly, even if it still dragged despite only 1hour and 15 minutes. Thumbs down.