Not too far into this movie, one of the
characters remarks that "In order to live, you have to survive."
Perhaps that is a reason we here at a
wasted life have never been all that survivalist-minded — or, to use more
contemporary vocabulary, prepper-oriented: as far as we can tell, too many
people are already just surviving (but barely), and not living. The concept of
suddenly having to work even harder to survive as our bodies rot away due to
nuclear fallout, or everyone reverts to cannibalism due to a shortage of food,
or we slowly puke our insides out due to flesh-rotting bacteria, or simply lose
our glasses in a situation in which new ones are as impossible to attain as
having toothache taken care of, getting a decent glass of wine, or treating an
old-fashioned case of the clap or hemorrhoids, appeals to us about as much as
having kids. (In other words: nada.) Life is meant to be lived, and surviving
ain't living. And if you can't live, why survive? (Of course, we have the
luxury of saying that from a continent where, amidst the current "corona
crisis", if we want toilet paper and fresh eggs or vegetables or milk or
coffee, we just have to walk three short blocks to the nearest store, where
they give away free facemasks — unlike our sister who, living in "god's
chosen country", can't get anything.* She's started her vegetable garden on
her patio because she's frightened; we, on the other, have started planting
stuff between our citrus trees because we've got the space and time and
lockdown needs variety.)
*Now, since the day we wrote this review some weeks ago, she can get almost everything again, but the streets are burning. Oddly enough, her medical-necessity smoke gets delivered with a regularity that truly deserves the description of "neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds".
But, whatever. The Decline is a French
Canadian movie about preppers, one which you can watch in English, if you don't
mind too much that the lips onscreen don't always move correctly to words said.
A thriller, it never truly ascends it Netfux TV roots and is often rather
predictable, but for that it is well-shot and offers enough suspense to keep
you interested.
The Decline opens with a family suddenly gathering their shit
together and disappearing into the night, as if the film that should follow
will be one of preppers in the decline of society. But the movie quickly pulls
the rug out of that expectation, revealing instead that the family of three is
merely conducting a dry run similar, you might say, to the fire drills we used
to do in school and the shooter-on-campus drills school kids do now. The scene
not only introduces us to the main white male character of identification, but
also serves to point out something that should be obvious: all kinds of people
are preppers, including young yuppie couples with kids — and single women who
like canning, hot mixed-race chicks suffering guilt more than war-induced
post-traumatic syndrome, overweight guys that probably mistake their real
abilities for those of their avatars in their favorite computer game,
over-strung jerks just one step away from snapping, and mildly overweight piano
players. (Generically black people, less likely — possibly because they're too
busy trying not to be accidentally killed by the local cops and/or
stand-your-ground idiot[s].) Basically, anyone dominated by a fear of
social/societal collapse, a fear that has been around probably as long as
society has, is a viable prepper. In turn, being a prepper in itself doesn't
make a person the bad guy — and, initially, no one in the movie is a "bad
guy". Some are merely more likable than others.
And that is one of the strongest points of The
Decline: it doesn't really point fingers — it is only after the shit hits the
fan that anyone truly becomes "the bad guy(s)" or the
"hero(es)". And even then, there are probably those out there that
would even see the actions of the "bad guys" as justified, or at
least of the actions of Alain (Réal Bossé). He merely wants to
save that which is his, that which he has built up — and society is going to
collapse, after all (eventually). That said, however, even if no one in this movie
starts out as an obvious villain, the fact that the shit is bound to hit the
fan hangs in the air like a Damocles sword from the moment Antione (Guillaume
Laurin) parks his car amidst the snowy landscape and hands over his smartphone.
And it is when the shit hits the fan that the chaff is separated from the
wheat: there are those who still turn to the society they expect to collapse,
and those who want to keep their off-the-grid safety for that unavoidable, if
date-unknown, disaster they know is to come one day.
All that subsequently happens in The
Decline after Antione arrives to Alain's survivalist training, possibly excluding
the mid-film Psycho-inspired change of character focus, is predictable to say
the least, but it is the very predictability of the train of events that keeps
the movie so grounded in reality — excluding, we would argue, the unrealistic
river scene that truly bonds Antione and Rachel (Marie-Evelyne Lessard), the
latter the kind of totally hot and capable survivalist woman that any and all
man or woman would want by their side when the world as we know it finally, truly,
succumbs to a zombie virus.
Hardly a masterpiece, The Decline remains
highly watchable, and as a feature-length film debut, it also indicates promise
regarding the director, Patrice Laliberté. There are worse Netfux movies out
there to watch on a corona-induced lockdown evening at home — like 6
Underground (2020), which we've chosen to forget we ever saw. (Tyler Perry's
car wreck of a movie, A Fall from Grace [2020], on the other hand, is so
unbelievably unprofessional and bad on every level that it achieves a
transcendentally Ed Woodian intensity. That, in turn makes the movie immensely
enjoyable, if you like your films as bad as we tend to.)
Were
we in Berlin, where we live, instead of on Mallorca, where we've been on
lockdown since March, we might have heard sooner, but we only learned the other
day from the blogspot Dwrayger
Dungeon that the last of what we always thought of as the "Big
Three"*, Peter Thomas, died last week. Relatively unknown in the USA, Peter
Thomas "was a German composer and arranger with an active career of more
than 50 years. He was known for his TV and film soundtracks such as Raumpatrouille,
the Edgar Wallace movies film series, and the Jerry
Cotton film series. [Wikipedia]"
Indeed, his soundtrack to Raumpatrouille, like The Jerry Cotton March, are part
of the communal kulturgut
of contemporary Germany, musical compositions that are perhaps better known and recognized
than even some of the greatest works of Beethoven, if not (definitely) those of
other German composers like Mendelssohn, Schumann, Strauss or Telemann.
*We here of a wasted life is surely not alone in thinking that the trio of Martin
Böttcher (17 June 1927 – 20 April 2019), Gert Wilden (15 April 1917 – 10
Sept 2015) and Peter Thomas, all of whom rose to prominence in the 60s
scoring German movies, can be seen as the three masters of German film music of
Germany's heyday of genre films, which we see as spanning from the start of the
60s to the early 70s.
What
follows is an arbitrary selection of examples of Thomas compositions mostly in
the order of how they came on YouTube when we searched his name +movie,
beginning with his two best-known works. We don't include any of his non-film
compositions or groovy space-age cum stereophonic or go-go cover versions.
It
is but a small selection of example: Peter Thomas composed for an excess of 170
movies and TV programs.
Raumpatrouille (1966):
Jerry Cotton March:
The
Jerry Cotton franchise, starring American George Nader (19 Oct 1921 – 4 Feb
2002), a man perhaps best remembered for his first starring role in the classic
3-D disasterpiece Robot Monster (1953), spans eight films between 1965 and
1969. The first of the series was Schüsse Aus Dem Geigenkasten a.k.a. The Violin
Case Murders (credit
sequence).
Melissa (1966, dir. Paul May)
Title
track to a three-part mini-series on German TV, a hit in 1966 and remade in
1974. Did the husband or didn't the husband kill his wife?
Verräter [Traitor] (1967, dir. Michael Braun)
Title
track to a three-part mini-series on German TV, a hit in the country in 1967. We know nothing about the mini-series, other than it is a spy "thriller" supposedly based
on a Victor Canning
(16 June 1911 – 21 Febr 1986) novel.
A.k.a.
The
Indian Scarf. A great German Edgar Wallace krimi, for a change not about a purty girl and an inheritance— we reviewed it back in
2016. Hit the linked title to go to find out what we wrote…
Der unheimliche Mönch (1965, dir. Harald Reinl)
A.k.a.
The Sinister Monk. Another great B&W Edgar Wallace krimi, this time about a purty girl and an inheritance and a mysterious murderer
dressed like a monk with whip knocking off people at a private school for
girls.
Main theme to
Der unheimliche Mönch:
Der Mann mit dem Glasauge (1969, dir. Alfred Vohrer)
A.k.a.
The Man with the Glass Eye (trailer) — a later film
in the German Edgar Wallace franchise, this pop-burlesque krimi, the 14th and
last Wallace directed by Alfred Vohrer, has a lot of great things about it but
a disastrous ending. The following is not the title track, but the track, Nora.
Nora from The Man with the Glass Eye:
Chariots of the Gods? (1970, dir. Dr. Harald Reinl)
"Documentary
based on the book by Erich Von Daniken concerning the ancient mysteries of the
world, such as the pyramids of Egypt and Mexico, ancient cave drawings, the
monuments of Easter Island, etc. and the fact that these things and modern
civilization could have been influenced by extra-terrestrial visitations
hundreds (or perhaps thousands) of years ago. [Humberto
Amador at imdb]"
Also from imdb: "[The film] was banned in East
Germany one day after its release" and "The director, Oscar-nominee
Harald Reinl (8 July 1908 – 9 October 1986), was stabbed to death [on Tenerife]
by his wife [Daniela Delis], a former actress."
Main theme from
Chariots of the Gods:
Die Tote aus der Themse (1971, dir. Harald Philipp)
A.k.a.
Angels of Terror, the last Rialto Edgar Wallace krimi to be shot in Germany
before the franchise went giallo, and not one of the best. Great music, though, and Ingrid Steeger bares her magnificent pair.
Plot: "An Australian woman arrives in London to search for her sister who
she finds is involved with a heroin smuggling gang. The gang itself is under
attack from an unknown rival, who is methodically assassinating them with a
shot to the head. [imdb]"
Music to
Die Tote aus der Themse:
Playgirl (1966, writ. & dir. Will Tremper)
The
decidedly non-grindhouse film got released in the U.S. as an exploitation film
entitled That Woman.
Plot: "Highly paid, much-adored fashion model
Alexandra Borowski (Eva Renzi, see Don
Sharp's Taste of Excitement [1970]) wants a steady, traditional
relationship with a strong, caring man, but she can't seem to find one while
she bed-hops from creep to creep. She pauses with rich businessman Siegbert
'Bert' Lahner (Harald Leipnitz), a potential candidate for marital bliss, but
he too proves incompatible, so she moves on to an uncertain future. [TV Guide]"
Title track to
Playgirl:
Tang shan da xiong (1972, writ. & dir. Wei Lo)
A.k.a.
The Big Boss and, in Germany, Die Todesfaust des Cheng Li — the movie that made
Bruce Lee a star, at least in Asia. His first big project after the end of the
TV series The Green Hornet (1966-67) a full four years earlier, The Big Boss
has had in total three different soundtracks at three different times. The second
was by Peter Thomas.
Wikipedia
says: "The Big Boss is unique in having not only two, but three completely
different music scores. […] The first music score for it was composed by Wang
Fu-ling […]. This was made for the original Mandarin language version, and was
also used in the English export version, in addition to the theatrical French
and Turkish versions. […] The second and most popular of the music scores was
by German composer Peter Thomas. […] Thomas's involvement
stems from a complete reworking of the English version of the film. The early
version featured the British voice actors who worked on all Shaw Brothers films
and used Wang Fu-ling's score. It was decided to make a new English version
that would stand out from the other martial arts films. New actors were brought
in to voice the film in English, and Thomas re-scored the film, abandoning Wang
Fu-ling's music. The German dubbed version features his score, especially in
the German title of the film […]."
Plot: "Cheng (Bruce Lee) is a city
boy who moves with his cousins to work at an ice factory. He does this with a
family promise never to get involved in any fight. However, when members of his
family begin disappearing after meeting the management of the factory, the
resulting mystery and pressures forces him to break that vow and take on the
villainy of the Big Boss (Ying-Chieh Han). [Kenneth
Chisholm @ imdb]"
Peter Thomas's music to
The Big Boss:
Der Letzte Mohikaner (1965, dir. Harald Reinl)
A.k.a.
The Last Tomahawk. A German version of James Fenimore Cooper's 1826 novel The
Last of the Mohicans.
We took a look at this film in Part
II of our RIP piece on Joachim "Blacky" Fuchsberger, where we
wrote: "Joachim Fuchsberger plays Captain Bill Hayward in the first of his
only two westerns and the last film he was ever to make together with director
Harald Reinl. Karin Dor is of course along for the pony ride. Unlike the novel,
this version of the tale includes a chest full of government gold, an exploding
mountain, and a cavalry charge. […]
"To
loosely translate the plot given at the Film Reporter:
'North America during the times of the American Indian Wars: the English and
French are fighting for the colonial control of the new world and pull in
Native Americans as allies. The Iroquoian Chief Magua (Ricardo Rodríguez)
attacks the Mohicans [in some versions, the "Tomahawks"]. With the
help of the whiteys, he destroys the entire tribe. Unkas (Daniel Martín of Demon
Witch Child [1975 / full
movie], Devil's Guests [1976 / fashion show], Crypt of
the Living Dead [1973 / full
movie] and Mystery on Monster Island [1981 / trailer]) is the only
survivor of the dastardly attack. He swears revenge upon his Chingachgook (Mike
Brendel). Magua continues his nasty deeds, and as return for the previous
assistance of whitey Roger (Stelio Candelli), he helps Roger and his gang attack
a money transporter. But the attack goes wrong and the soldiers escape with the
money to a nearby farm where the British officer Munroe (Carl Lange of Die
blaue Hand [1967 / trailer])
calls the shots. He's holding the fort with the last his soldiers, but his
thoughts are with his daughters Cora (Karin Dor) and Alice Munroe
(Marie-France). They are underway to him, a dangerous journey in that day and
age. Magua pretends to be a messenger of Daddy Munroe so as to lure women and
their companions into a trap...' […]"
A
classic example of late-60s/early-70s German sexploitation, a.k.a. The Perfect
Marriage, Ideal Marriage and Intimate Desires of Women. Director Gottlieb's
oeuvre spans krimis like Die
Schwarze Abt (1963) to sexploitation like this or the great comedy horror Lady
Dracula (1977, see R.I.P.
Walter Giller) to bottom-of-the-barrel trash like Die tollen Tanten
schlagen zu (1971 / German trailer).
At imdb, the great purveyor of porn culture, lor,
writes: "[…] [Theodoor Hendrik] van de Velde
of the title was a Dutch author, who penned the marriage manual in question
back in 1926. We're shown a series of dumb vignettes, amounting in content to
the format of the Love American Style series of a couple years
later, but German. A U.S. professor serves as our white-coat host. Perhaps the
only odd element is a family taking their little kids to watch horses mating on
a farm — they find this a natural process of maturation but I daresay it would
still offend on American shores. Similarly, an eight-year-old girl bathing with
her old daddy in the bathtub is another paean to 'natural behavior', but in an
acted context like this one it is again suspect. Some of the actresses are
quite attractive, especially a busty girl who's frustrated because hubby only
wants to watch TV. Overall this is dull soft porn pretending to be educational.
The crude diagrams showing male and female private parts (external and
internal) hardly constitute hardcore content by any definition."
Van de Velde's
book already inspired a film version as early as 1929, Eberhard Frowein's
Marriage, the German poster for which, seen above, was created by the great Josef Fenneker
(1895-1956). Early exploitation filmmaker Frowein went on to write the
contentious Nazi pro-euthanasia film, Ich Klage an a.k.a. I Accuse (1941 / scene), as well as the
anti-Jew novel, Am seidenen Faden, which got filmed in 1938 by Robert A.
Stemmle.
Peter
Thomas's Natascha from
The Perfect Marriage or maybe Every Night of the Week:
Followed
by Van de Velde: Das Leben zu zweit — Sexualität in der Ehe (1969), also known
as Every Night of the Week and likewise scored by Peter Thomas.
Per @ imdb:
"The 2nd of 2 Franz Josef Gottlieb films supposedly based on the works of
Dutch gynecologist Van de Velde. A precursor to the more popular Schoolgirl
Report pseudo-documentaries, the Gottlieb 'Van de Velde' films tried
to take a scientific approach to various sexual discoveries within
relationships. Taking the documentary route would allow Gottlieb (and other
director's of the time) to introduce more graphic and risqué subject matter
that was normally not shown in Germany during this time period." In other
words: the films were German white-coaters.
Peter
Thomas's The World's History from
The Perfect Marriage or maybe Every Night of
the Week:
Winnetou und sein Freund Old Firehand (1966, dir. Alfred Vohrer)
A.k.a.
Winnetou and Old Firehand and Thunder at the Border. A classic film score that
is also embedded deep in the kulturgut of contemporary Germany is Martin
Böttcher's main theme to Winnetou a.k.a. Apache Gold (1963 / trailer), the second of
twelve films if you count the last, Winnetous Rückkehr (1998), a TV movie.
Martin
Böttcher's Winnetou:
The
franchise lasted way too many films, but Peter Thomas only scored one, the
tenth. (Böttcher scored them all but for this film and the third, Old
Shatterhand a.k.a. Apaches' Last Battle [1964 / trailer], which was
scored by the great Riz Ortolani.)
Plot:
"Horse thieves unwisely attempt to steal mustangs from Winnetou's (Pierre
Brice) Apache tribe. Four Indians are killed and Winnetou's sister, Nscho-tschi
(Marie Versini) is wounded in the arm. Seeking justice, Winnetou, accompanied
by an old friend, trapper and mountain man Jason Waade, better known as Old
Firehand (Rod Cameron), ride to the nearby Mexican pueblo of Mira Monte along
with Old Firehand's companions, cocky young gunfighter Tom (Todd Armstrong) and
wily old coot Caleb (Vladimir Medar). There they learn that Billy (Walter Wilz),
the gambler kid brother of the gang's leader, Silers (Harald Leipnitz […]), is
being held on murder charges by Capt. Mendoza (Rik Battaglia), the leader of a
patrol stationed there. Silers threatens to wipe out the entire village unless
Billy is released. Meanwhile, Tom and Nscho-tschi fall in love, while Old
Firehand, reunited with old lover Michèle Durell (Nadia Gray), discovers she
bore him a son, 17-year-old Jason, known as Jace (Jörg Marquardt). […] [DVD Talk]"
Winnetou
und sein Freund Old Firehand — A Symphony:
A.k.a.
The
Hand of Power. Fun film! Click the link to read what we had to say about
it. Over in Part
III of our R.I.P. Career Review of Joachim Fuchsberger we "loosely translate[d] the
plot description as given at and by Rialto Film: 'At
the funeral for Sir Oliver, the ghastly laughter of the dead man resounds from
the coffin. Peggy Ward (Siv Mattson) — a reporter — writes about and continues
investigating the incident. Then, those belonging to the immediate circle of
the dead Sir Oliver begin dying mysterious deaths — indeed, Sir Oliver's
brother, Sir Cecil (Wolfgang Kieling), believes that Sir Oliver's ghost is out
to get him. But Inspector Higgins (Fuchsberger) does not believe in ghosts.
Together with the reporter Peggy, he sets out to unravel the mystery of the
laughing corpse.' […]"
The
Space of Today from Im Banne Des Unheimlichen:
Die Weibchen (1970, dir. Zbynek Brynych)
This
now obscure but once scandalous and movie, which one could easily argue as
being anti-feminist propaganda disguised as a feminist film, has long been on our "To Watch" list.
While the official English title is The Females, a more on-the-mark translation
of the title to this man-written — by Manfred Purzer — and man-directed — by
Zbynek Brynych (12 June 1927 – 24 Aug 1995) —
prime slice of once topical (and "insanely hilarious" and
"delirious") "horror fantasy" exploitation would probably
be "The Little Broads" or "Little Chicks" or even
"Little Women" — you get the general idea.* Outside of Germany, the
title usually given was, if translated into English, Cannibal Women.
Trailer
to
Die Weibchen:
*If not, then how about this slice of trivia supplied at imdb:
"When Eve (Uschi Glas) first arrives at the health spa, the first woman to
greet her on the grounds is carrying a German translation of Valerie Solanas'
radical feminist SCUM Manifesto." (SCUM you may remember, is the Society
for Cutting Up Men.)
Die
Weibchen, oddly enough, is virtually unknown today — but available on DVD. A
few dedicated men at Letterbxd
have seen this "outrageous sleaze" about "a young woman [who]
joins an exclusive women's health clinic only to discover it's run by
feminist cannibals". There, Smellington
writes "Well, it's no Female Chauvinists (1975, seeUschi
Part VIII) […]. The Females (or more appropriately Femmine Carnivore) is
pretty interesting (especially the camera work) but not very smart. Music is
groovy but thrills are minimal, Overall, it's either very sexist or VERY
feminist depending on your mood/viewpoint/sobriety (or maybe kinda pointless),
but it's all a fucking dream anyhoo, anyway, whatever. But hey if you're
writing a paper on Gaslighting, cannibalism, euro gender politics and the
counter culture of the late 60s, and you're an asshole (heh) then I've got a
movie for you."
Go
go go to
Die Weibchen:
Das Verrätertor (1964, dir. Freddy Francis)
A.k.a. Traitor's Gate. Yet
another Edgar Wallace krimi, this time written by Jimmy Sangster, which is why
we took a look at it in his R.I.P.
Career Review, where we wrote: "Writing under the nom de plume 'John
Sansom', Sangster supplied the script to this Edgar Wallace film, the 21st* of
the series of 32 Rialto Wallace films produced by the German producer Horst Wendlandt, this
time around as a coproduction with the English film company Londoner Summit.
According to Florian Pauer in his book Die Edgar Wallace Filme (1982), 'Das
Verrätertor is one of the most boring and least ambitious Wallace films of the
entire Rialto series.' It is a sentiment shared by most contemporary write-ups
of this relatively unknown Wallace film. The book upon which the film is based,
The Traitor's Gate, was originally conceived as a stage musical; in fact, the
first film version from 1930, entitled The Yellow Mask, was a musical.
The
plot: The wealthy businessman Trayne (Albert Lieven) decides to steal the UK
Crown Jewels, but fails to take either the clumsy tourist Hecto (Eddie Arendt)
or his [own] duplicitous colleagues into account..."
*That number came from here,
but other sources list it as the 18th.
Aha!
from
Das Verrätertor:
Der Hund von Blackwood Castle (1968, dir. Alfred Vohrer)
A.k.a.
The Monster of Blackwood Castle & The Horror of Blackwood Castle — yet
another Wallace krimi, though this one feels closer to a kiddy horror movie. Fantastic
Musings has the plot to what it calls "one of the krimis that actually
does all […] things right": "Visitors to Blackwood Castle are killed
by a mysterious hound. Could this have anything to do with the death of the
owner… and the fact that a hidden fortune may be found there?"
Main theme
to
Der Hund Von Blackwood Castle:
The
film probably has less to do with an Edgar Wallace book than The Hound of
Baskervilles, but it also has basically nothing to do with that book either. "Now the German Edgar Wallace adaptations were never known for their great
writing, but this one surely takes the cake, as it's convoluted to the hilt and
full of plotholes and leaps of reason, so much so that it at times seems to
enter parody territory, and one really has to turn off one's brain for this to
properly work — and even then there's plenty of weirdness, like why would one
give the dogs poisonous teeth if they rip their victims apart anyway? And
what's the strange relationship between Sir John (Siegfried Schürenberg) and
Miss Finley (Ilse Pagé), with the former constantly groping the latter, and the
latter not minding one bit?* And why would Grimsby put a snake into Jane's bed
only to save her minutes later? And what is that skeleton doing in front of her
room door? But despite all this weirdness, I don't want to dismiss the film, as
it only adds to the movie's (nostalgic) charm, and Alfred Vohrer's solid
direction turns this into an old-fashioned yet atmospheric spooker. Not good in
the original meaning of the word perhaps, but highly entertaining all the same.
[(Re)Search
My Trash]"
*The Rialto Wallace films were made in another age, long before #MeToo, when old
men bosses not only were allowed to molest and harass their willing secretaries, who liked it, but
audiences also found it funny. The various Sirs of the Rialto films all were
womanizers surrounded by willing female workers.
Bossa
for Jane from
Der Hund Von Blackwood Castle:
Der Bucklige von Soho (1966, dir. Alfred Vohrer)
A.k.a.
The Hunchback of Soho. Not everyone always likes the wacky turn in the music of
the Edgar Wallace films not, fot that matter, the turn towards the burlesque
that began with this movie: "This was the first of the German Edgar
Wallace movies of the sixties to be shot in color. To my mind, this stripped
the series of one of its strengths; the black-and-white photography of the
earlier movies gave them a serious, moody ambiance that is missing in this
brightly lit movie. Furthermore, though it may be just the dubbing, I do really
get the sense that the comic relief has inexplicably taken over the movie; it
gives the impression that everyone is playing for laughs which aren't in the
script. On top of that, the score sounds like someone hired an avant-garde jazz
composer [Peter Thomas] to write a James Bond-style score with vocals by a
black-belt karate expert practicing his kicks; it's disorientingly strange. [Fantastic
Musings]"
As per Dwrayger at his dungeon,
"The Hunchback of Soho has got it all!"
Title
track to The Hunchback of Soho:
Lastly,
the by now very familiar plot, from Dan Pavlides at All Movie:
"Although The Hunchback of Soho is primarily a mystery, there are moments
of levity, suspense, and horror that added to the tempo of the film. An
American girl in London is kidnapped when she arrives to claim a sizeable
inheritance, and a home for wayward girls is the scene of several unsolved
murders, prompting Scotland Yard to send Inspector Hopkins (Guernther Stoll) to
investigate."
Der Stoff Aus Dem Die Traume Sind (1972, dir. Alfred Vohrer)
"Based
on a bestseller spy novel by popular German author Johannes Mario Simmel, this
1972 movie is a boring mixture of a typical cold war political thriller and a
greasy love story. It is far too long, and the direction can't decide which way
to take. The tempo of the film is boring, the plot is too twisted and there are
nearly no thrills at all, but dull dream sequences, stereotype love scenes, a
maniac old woman talking religious stuff all the time and ridiculously produced
special effects such as the explosion of a car which looks rather like a burnt
plastic model. The actors also seem not very enthusiastic about their job. The
only outstanding things about The Things Dreams Are Made Of are the
weird, electronic-orchestral sound track by the Peter Thomas Sound Orchestra and an early performance by young Hannelore Elsner.
Forget the rest! [Mike3001
at imdb]"
Theme to
Der Stoff Aus Dem Die Traume Sind:
Engel, die ihre Flügel verbrennen (1970, dir. Zbynek Brynych)
A.k.a.
Angels Who Burn Their Wings and Angels with Burnt Wings. The second of three
feature films directed by Brynych, all from 1970, for which Peter Thomas
composed the music.
Plot
of this "weird but entertaining flick", as presented at Letterbxd:
"Munich at night: Robert Susmeit (Jan Koester), a 16-year-old teenager who
is jealously obsessed with his mother Hilde (Nadja Tiller), traces her and her
latest lover at a mundane apartment building where he kills the man in the heat
of the moment at a swimming pool. His fatal outburst is secretly witnessed by
Moni Dingeldey (Susanne Uhlen), a girl of the same age as his. Fascinated by
the shaken and devastated strange boy who she hopes to be a soul-mate, she
hides Robert in her mother's apartment. Meanwhile, a crowd of policemen and
reporters frantically comb through the building in search a murderer whose identity
is known only to Robert's parents who are searching as well…"
Peter
Thomas Sound Orchestra —
Engel, die ihre Flügel verbrennen:
"[I]t's
hard to watch a Brynych film without thinking […] Brynych escaped
Czechoslovakia for the lurid sex films of West Germany […]. But one cannot fail
to see a sort of puritan streak come out that feels slightly at odds with the
film itself. The film wants to have its cake and eat it too at the same time and,
try as they might, everyone can't help but feel just a little two dimensional
at the best of times. […]. Whether this is something that's lost in translation
or just a case of taking a devil-may-care attitude towards the scripts, I'm not
sure but watching this film, I'm inclined to miss the 60s Czech Brynych. A
film-maker with a compassionate touch lost in the murky depths of political
history. [filterite
@ imdb]"
A.k.a.
The
White Spider — we saw this imitation Edgar Wallace krimi long ago and would
watch it again. Follow the link to read our verbose review.
We
also took a quick look at it in Part
II of our R.I.P. Career Review of Joachim "Blacky" Fuchsberger,
where we wrote: "Joachim Fuchsberger, Karin Dor and Harald Reinl together
again for another Louis Weinert-Wilton adaptation; we've seen it and love it —
it is one of the best non-Wallace Wallaces around. […] The blogspot Hallo,
hier spricht... has the following plot synopsis: "When her husband, a
gambler, is found killed in a car crash with a white spider as a key ring in
his possession (his talisman but also the symbol for one of London's most
notorious contract killer gangs) the insurance company refuses to pay for his
life insurance and his wife (Karin Dor) is forced to work for her living in a
reform society for convicts where she meets Ralph Hubbard (Joachim Fuchsberger)
who was recently released from Dartmoor. Scotland Yard strongly suspects the
wife of being involved in the killing but also needs to take drastic measures
when one leading policeman is found dead as well. They bring in a mysterious
Australian crime fighter who prefers to hang on to his anonymity and conducts
his interviews hidden from view by a couple of beaming lights. One-eyed men,
strange Indians and oh-so altruistic priests all stand in the way of solving
the mystery behind the killings that shock London."
Title
track to
Die Weiße Spinne:
Onkel Toms Hütte (1965, dir. Géza von Radványi)
Better
known as Uncle Tom's Cabin (German
trailer). We took a look at this film in 2012 in our R.I.P. Career Review of Herbert
Lom, and will be taking another look at it in a few months in our Babes of
Yesteryear look at the films of Marilyn Joi.
We assume, but are unsure, that Al
Adamson retained the full soundtrack when he shot new scenes and re-cut the
film for his re-release of the movie in the seventies.
Cottonpicker's
Leisure Time
from Uncle Tom's Cabin:
But
back in 2012, we wrote: "Among other fun projects by Hungarian director
Géza von Radványi are his remake of Mädchen in Uniform (1958 / German trailer — set to
the theme of Hawaii 5-0!!!) as well as three films he helped write, Walerian
Borowczyk's Eurotrash Lulu (1980) — a remake of Pabst's classic silent film
starring Louise Brooks, Pandora's Box (1929 / fabulous full film) — and the two
trashy Euro-horrors Parapsycho, Spektrum der Angst (1975), which in classic
exploitation film fashion features a real autopsy scene, and Naked Massacre
(1976 / full film).
His big budget version of Uncle Tom's Cabin may have been mostly sincere, but
many years after its initial release it was briefly re-released in 1977 on the
grindhouse circuit as Cassy. To quote Temple
of Schlock, whence the poster way at the top comes, 'The G-rated movie was subsequently
acquired by distributor Samuel Sherman, who hired Al Adamson [the director of Dracula
Vs Frankenstein (1970)] to shoot new sex and violence scenes for an R-rated
Mandingo-inspired re-release in 1977 under the title Uncle Tom's Cabin and
later as White Trash Woman.' Herbert Lom plays the bad guy, Simon Legree.
Needless to say, no matter which version of the film you see, they are all more
salacious than the original book."
The
Great Eartha Kitt singing
Mississippi Blues from Uncle Tom's Cabin:
Der Hexer (1964, dir. Alfred Vohrer)
More
Edgar Wallace! We took a look at this one in Part
II of our career review of Joachim "Blacky" Fuchsberger, where we
wrote a lot:
"In
the US, aka The Mysterious Magician, The Wizard and The Ringer. Video Cheese knows what
makes for a good video experience: 'Goofy fun with ornate action, sudden
violence, broad comic relief, booby traps, secret panels, spies, double
crosses, sword canes, killer priests, lots of — as the film calls them — pretty
girls, and a hero who routinely gets himself beaten up. A very stylish effort.
I especially liked the shot from 'inside' a phone, with the camera looking out
at the guy placing a call through the rotary dial holes. (!!) I don't think I've
ever seen that one before.'
"The
'pretty girls' of the movie include the dead sister (Petra von der Linde), the
secretary (Ann Savo), the girlfriend (Sophie Hardy, who got naked in her next
Wallace movie, The Trygon Factor a.k.a. Das Geheimnis der weißen Nonne [1966 /
German trailer]), and
the wife (Margot Trooger [2 June 1923 — 24 April 1994]). Earlier versions of
the movie include but are not limited to Arthur Maude's The Ringer
(1928), Carl Lamac
& Martin Fric's
Der Hexer a.k.a. The Sorcerer (1932 / trailer, with a young
Fritz Rasp [!]), Walter
Forde's The Ringer (1932) and The Gaunt Stranger (1938), and Guy Hamilton's
The Ringer (1952 / music),
the last of which we looked at briefly in our R.I.P. Career Review of Herbert
Lom.
"Der
Hexer, Alfred Vohrer's sixth Wallace movie, is noteworthy as being not only the
only Wallace film, but also the only movie project in general, to feature the
two good-guy stalwarts of the Rialto Wallace movies — Joachim Fuchsberger and
Heinz Drache (9 Feb 1923 — 3 April 2002, of Nur
tote Zeugen schweigen [1962], Sanders
und das Schiff des Todes (1965) and much more) — together on the screen.
(Unlike Fuchsberger, and not in this movie, Heinz Drache, who appeared in a
total of 9 Wallace films, once broke mold to play the bad guy in Der Hund von
Blackwood Castle [1968 / German trailer].) Fuchsberger,
unlike Drache, did not return the next year for the movie's less-satisfying
sequel, Neues vom Hexer (1965 / trailer).
"To
loosely translate the plot description as given at and by Rialto Film: 'The Wanted
posters are out for Arthur Miller, aka Der Hexer — for murder! Without mercy,
Arthur Miller exercises vigilante justice when he returns from exile in
Australia to revenge the murder of his sister (Petra von der Linde). Inspector
of Higgins (Joachim Fuchsberger) of Scotland Yard has a tricky case to solve,
because Der Hexer is a master of disguise who can change his face at will — he
has hundreds of them! He conducts his terrible mischief everywhere and can't be
caught. Questions upon questions arise as Scotland Yard confronts a nearly
impossible task...'
"To
loosely translate the text at New Video: 'A
lot of tension, an involved story with many suspects, gloomy atmosphere and not
too much slapstick: this is definitely one of the best German Edgar Wallace
films, the title of which was ambiguously modified 40 years later [for Der
Wixxer (2004 / trailer)
and Neues vom Wixxer (2007)]."
Fantastic Movie Musings and Ramblings,
it seems, agrees: 'Outside of a little horror atmosphere in this one, there's
really not much in the way of fantastic content here. It is, however, one of
the most entertaining of the krimis; it's easy to follow, has an interesting
premise, and the humorous content is fairly good. The movie even has a bit of
William Castle-like gimmick feel to it [...]. At any rate, this is a very good
choice for anyone out there interested in trying out a krimi.'"
Title
track of
Der Hexer:
Flucht nach Berlin (1961, writ. & dir. Will Tremper)
A.k.a.
Escape to Berlin. Will Tremper's directorial debut; at the 1961 German Film
Awards, Peter Thomas's music took the prize for Best Film Score.
Flucht
nach Berlin is the German B-film as anti-Ost propaganda — but seeing that the Wall
went up a year after this movie came out, it is not as if the East was anything
to make a positive movie about. Oddly enough, anti-Ost movies of any budget
were a rare thing in Germany at the time. We caught this suspenseful low budget jewel on late-night TV decades ago, and we would watch it again were they ever to broadcast it
again. Not likely, as even in Germany B&W films have more or less been
relegated to the closet.
The
plot of this movie about "the German division and the flight from the East
to the West, told in the lapidary style of Italian neorealism": "The
East German farmer Hermann Güden (Narziß Sokatscheff) has enough of the
state-arranged harassment of the SED superiors. He is no longer willing to
submit to compulsory collectivization at home in his Saxon-Anhalt village, as
this condition no longer offers him any prospects. And so he plans a long-run
escape to the West. Güden initially sends his wife and child to the West of
Berlin and wants to follow as soon as possible. But the SED apparatchiks get
wind of the matter. In the heat of the moment Güden beat up the party comrade
Baade (Christian Doermer) and then flees. [UCM.ONE]"
Along the way he unintentionally gets a Swiss woman, Doris Lane (Susanne Korda),
caught up in his dilemma, and as a result they must flee together…
Nightclub
61, music by Peter Thomas, was sung by Nina Westen, otherwise known as the
German Schlager singer Ingrid
Werner.
Nightclub
61 from Flucht nach Berlin:
Other
movies of note for which he did the music include but are hardly limited to: The
Gorilla of Soho / Der Gorilla von Soho (1968), The Trygon Factor / Das
Geheimnis der weißen Nonne (1966), Die Schlangengrube und das Pendel — a.k.a. The Blood Demon / Castle of the Walking
Dead / Pendulum / The Snake Pit and the Pendulum / The Snake Pit / The Torture
Chamber of Dr. Sadism / The Torture Room (1967), The Strange Countess / Die
seltsame Gräfin (1961), The Puzzle of the Red Orchid / Das Rätsel der roten
Orchidee (1961), The Door with Seven Locks / Die Tür mit den sieben Schlössern
(1962), The Squeaker / Der Zinker (1963), Room 13 / Zimmer 13 (1964)…
Extra
— The Best of Edgar Wallace, full album with compositions from Peter Thomas
& Martin Böttcher:
Extra
— Peter Scores. The Erotic World of the Peter Thomas Sound Orchestra:
