Das Geheimnis der schwarzen Koffer (1962) Online

In 1959 production company Rialto started the long-running Edgar Wallace series; in 1961 producer Arhur Brauner decided to start his own series, that is: a series based on stories by Wallace's son. Of the Brauner series this is episode number 1.

Werner Klingler's direction was always one of the good routine and is the best for this kind of film. It is simply old-fashioned but good entertainment with a story complicated enough to keep the interest, and nice cast. And of course it ends with the necessary subterranean labyrinth.

Listerning to the terrific audio commentary by Kim Newman and Alan Jones for the Dario Argento Giallo The Bird with the Crystal Plumage,I was surprised to hear them mention about how the roots of the Giallo had started in a sub-genre of German cinema called Krimi.Being interested in seeing the beginning of the Giallo,I decided to go for a movie which would hopefully be the cream of the Krimi.

The plot:

Preparing to leave a London hotel,a business man discovers that someone has already packed all of his suitcases up for him.Feeling uneasy about the situation,the man decides to leave the hotel as quickly as possible.Opaning the door to a taxi,the man is stopped from going anywhere,when he is stabbed in the back,by a knife thrown from a black glove wearing killer who is completely hidden from view.Arriving to investigate the murder,Insp. Robert Finch is initially unable to figure out why someone is going around London packing people's bags,and then killing them from a distance,until Finch begins to notice that all of the murder victims clothes are covered in a new,dangerous drug that is hitting in streets called Mescadrine.

View on the film:

Whilst the terrific puzzle-solving screenplay by Gustrav Kampendonk, (here credited as Percy Allan) does prominently feature a mysterious proto- Giallo killer with black gloves,Kampendonk shows in his adaptation of the Edgar Wallace novel Death Packs a Suitcase, a clinical focus on Finch's gathering of clues,that despite giving the film a bit of a dry feel,is also smartly used by Kampendonk as a way to make the viewer push Finch to walk further and further down the grim,seedy streets of London Soho,as Finch starts to discover,that the murder victims have deep connections with the hard nose thugs who run the streets of Soho.

Shooting the movie at an obviously crisp,chilly time, (the outdoor scenes have the actors cold breath covering the screen) director Werner Kilngler brilliantly uses the long distance killer and the chilly location's to create a strong,icy Film Noir world,where no matter how busy the area you find your self in is,there is always a shadow cast that someone is about to stab (or in this case throw!) you in the back.Along with the Film Noir and Giallo elements,Kilngler also includes an unexpectedly fresh Pop-art ingredient into the Krimi mix,with the knife throwing by the murderer looking like it has come straight from a comic book,and the ending of the film taking place in an old mansion,that hides an industrial revaluation deep within.

One of the better Edgar Wallace series from the 1960's concerns a series of murders where the victim is killed by a knife thrown from a great distance. The victim always has his bags packed by the killer just before the murder occurs. I was going to attempt to do a further recounting of the events but there are too many characters and too much going on for it to make any real effort to do so pointless. Looking back at it I find that the plot really doesn't hold up that well if you think about it, but it really doesn't matter a whole heck of a lot since the film is too busy moving you on to the next thing. Trust me this film is really worth making an effort to catch since it just grabs you and pulls you along. Best of all some of the dialog is quite witty with my favorite exchange being "I've been in London for less than an hour and I've already stumbled upon my first murder" to which a passer by replies "Yes, well London is like that". If there is any real problem with the film its that the comic relief, here taking the form of one of the detectives sound hound cousin, who's antics seem at times a bit too silly. Annoyance with the sound hound aside, this is a really good thriller and worth time on the couch with a bowl of popcorn and a soda.