I am just burning through these late sixties Krimi. This one is actually titled Der Mann mit dem Glasauge. Again, not the greatest piece of cinematic art ever, but these are always going to have a few memorable scenes. There’s a giant pool hall fight, a knife throwing killer, and an amazing scene in which the killer wears a giant puppet head.
Also known as Der Mönch mit der Peitsche, this is the story of German college girls getting murdered by someone other than a monk with a whip. Sure that monk is always lurking nearby but the actual killings are a convoluted scheme involving pickpockets, jailbreaks, and poison gas. I am beginning to realize that these late 60s Krimi aren’t terribly concerned with plot. As usual, the colorful style and comedic tone (and the casting of Slugworth) make it work despite this.
In the end this just became tedious. While you control your character like an FPS, this is almost a point and click adventure. Most missions require you finding an object, combining it with something else, then clicking the combined object on a locked passage. Occasionally you will find yourself hiding from a zombie-like monster (Outlast style). But it is literally a monster—one enemy type the entire game. There’s also some sort of mechanic where you must maintain your sanity, but it’s not interesting at all.
All this would be a moot point if there was a compelling story. Alas, there was not. The backstory is developed as written notes and the occasional narrated flashback. But it’s so easy to forget what it’s about since you, the player, are not involved in the story telling. Something about an orb and a shadow. Who cares. Pass on this one.
This one has some of the best Peter Thomas music. This is especially true during the opening titles in which a Screaming Jay Hawkins sound-a-like keeps shouting, “Blackwood Castle! It’s cold!” The story doesn’t quite live up to the music. The owner of the titular castle is dead and various people from his past show up only to be killed by a dog with big fangs. There’s an inheritance, hidden jewels, yadda, yadda. I did enjoying seeing Sir John and Miss Finley taking the lead as the main investigators.
An early sixties black and white Krimi about a mysterious criminal who has arrived in London to get revenge on the gang that killed his sister, The story is actually somewhat coherent and a bit more serious in tone (though it is still really silly at times). The identity of Der Hexer remains a mystery to the final reel with an unexpected ending that may leave some unsatisfied. They once again shoehorn a school for delinquent girls into the plot and Peter Thomas’s music swings throughout.
As I was finishing up as a graduate art student, I taught life drawing for a year or so. Teaching life drawing is a bit like watching paint dry. You just need to make sure there is a model present and then run the students through various practice exercises. Basically, my criteria for passing the class was to just show up (and yet there would always be one less-than-moron who couldn’t even muster the energy to do that).
However, mastering rendering the figure requires a bit more work than showing up. A very important part is to familiarize oneself with the basics of human anatomy. I was never really taught this (the University of Illinois art department was, how shall we say, lacking in this area) so I took it upon myself to learn what I could and then impart my knowledge onto my students. I would deliver this information as weekly handouts that took the form of a comic book, This was the most basic of basic anatomy overviews but it hit some of the more important topics.
I eventually went to Kinkos and bound the entire thing up in a cheap cover. I was recently reminded of this work when a random visitor to this site (yes, your favorite site on the Internet) informed me that they were given a copy from drawing professors Fennell & Becker. This visitor informed me that, on occasion, they had used the comic in their own drawing classes. Very cool. In the process of reminiscing I scanned the comic and here I am making available to the Internet for the first time ever. Download the PDF, print and enjoy!
So far, this is the wildest Krimi film I’ve seen. Despite the title, there isn’t as much gorilla crime as you would expect. Instead there are multiple scenes at a figure drawing themed night club, yet another home for delinquent girls, and plenty of bumbling sexist police action.
As per usual, the solution to the mystery doesn’t really make any sense but that doesn’t matter. This movie is bathed in so much Bava-esque cinematography that it’s a visual delight from beginning to end.
The writing of this giallo is absolutely terrible. The story doesn’t make any sense and every single person who walks into frame is presented as a red herring. There is some bad silly putty looking gore and the film’s climax is just bonkers nonsense. Not a top-tier giallo by any stretch but does drift into so bad it’s good territory the way French Sex Murders does.
I’m beginning to get a feel for these German Krimi films: a masked killer, suspicion of supernatural, bumbling police, show who the bad guys are immediately, and then finally reveal who the mastermind behind it all really was. That final reveal is never satisfactory because there are no clues whatsoever as to the solution. It just is the person you would least likely have any cause to suspect. But throughout I love the lighthearted tone. That’s something you would never expect to describe a movie that features Klaus Kinski. Anyhow, there needs to be a big blu-ray box set of these films because they are great fun.
Looks like The Expanse TV show will not be returning so now I have to read a dozen novels to find out how the story ends. Thanks, Avasarala. This novella tells the story of Bobbie back on Mars and her nephew who wants to save a drug addict girl. Mildly enjoyable story that reads like a thirty minute television episode but doesn’t really advance any of the main plotlines.
