Il segreto del narciso d'oro

THE DEVIL'S DAFFODIL is a packed-to-the-brim Edgar Wallace krimi, made in Germany but filmed in the UK. It's the kind of film that you have to watch closely because the plot is very dense and just working out who's who and the relationships between the characters is tricky indeed. Still, there's plenty to recommend about this one, not least the moody black and white photography and the antics of a knife-wielding masked killer who adds plenty of thrills to the picture.

Cast-wise, chiefly of interest is none other than Christopher Lee, once again playing a Chinese guy. I'm not sure why Lee always ended up cast as an Oriental but he certainly makes for an imposing presence here and it's nice to see him playing a good guy for a change. He's a Charlie Chan-style investigator, prone to reciting proverbs at the most inconvenient times. He's a real hoot.

Lee is supported by an erstwhile cast, including the familiar faces of Walter Gotell and Marius Goring, and there's a nice turn from a typically twitchy Klaus Kinski, just in the process of becoming a big star in Germany. THE DEVIL'S DAFFODIL is an unashamed B-movie throughout, and one that has much in common with the British thrillers of the 1950s that were being churned out by Nettlefold Studios and the like. However, the low budget is put to fine use and there's certainly never a dull moment here.

These German Krimi movies, based on the stories of Edgar Wallace, are by definition infamous for their convoluted and hectic screenplays, but with its numerous twists and turns "The Devil's Daffodil" truly is the cinematic equivalent of a pretzel! You won't hear me say this is the greatest movie ever made, but there is plenty of exiting stuff going on and you won't get bored for a second. The film literally opens with a double bang, namely the vicious murder of an exotic dancer in her dressing room and the explosion of a discovered drug cargo in the customs' office. The two events are undoubtedly related, since the drugs were hidden in the stems of daffodils and the killer threw a handful of flowers on victim's body; - also daffodils. The murder streak continues, with daffodil-covered corpses popping up all over London, and Scotland Yard teams up with an odd Chinese super-detective. Excellent cast, with Krimi-regulars Joachim Fuchsberger and Klaus Kinski, and the unsurpassable Christopher Lee depicting yet another Oriental character (what he also did in "Terror of the Tongs" and a handful of "Fu Manchu" movies). There's much less sinister atmosphere than in other Krimi movies I recently watched, but the pacing is good and there are gruesome & inventive death sequences. The mandatory comic relief is also missing here, unless you consider Lee's recurring line "There's an old Chinese saying..." as comical.

I have still barely scraped the surface of the popular "Krimi" thrillers made in Germany between the late 1950s and the early 1970s; this one – atypically, a British co-production filmed simultaneously (on location in London) in both languages – is, however, easily among the better entries that I have come across. The reasons for this are mainly due to an above-average cast that includes regulars Joachim Fuchsberger and Klaus Kinski, along with the likes of Christopher Lee, Marius Goring, Albert Lieven and Walter Gotell, and the striking monochrome cinematography by the renowned Desmond Dickinson (though the credit titles are appealingly displayed in red).

The expected murder sequences are reasonably well-staged (though an old-wheelchair-bound-woman-falling-downstairs bit is entirely gratuitous!) – one of them, occurring at night in the busy Piccadilly Circus area, is especially evocative of a classic Hitchcockian set-piece; eroticism, another gene requisite, is briefly touched upon here in a titillating nightclub act. By the way, the film was only the second effort I have watched from this director, and the result is certainly a more substantial achievement than CAVE OF THE LIVING DEAD (1964) – its chief liability being the unconvincing screams from the various female victims/damsels-in-distress throughout!

The complex Edgar Wallace (from whose extensive work and that of his son, Bryan Edgar, all these flicks were derived) plot involves the ostensibly harmless importing of the titular flower serving as a front for heroin smuggling; twists relating to the identity of two of its principal characters are belatedly, yet effectively, incorporated into the fray. On the trail of the culprits are airline investigator Fuchsberger and Oriental sleuth Lee (coming across like a more ruthless Charlie Chan – complete with a steady flow of aphorisms, at one point causing a woman particularly unreceptive to his genial wit exclaiming "Sod off, Confucius!" to his face).

Actually, it is amusing to note how the film plays havoc with nationalities – where Germans are not only made to pass off as English, but the only true Brit on hand (albeit speaking in fluent German for the duration) is saddled with an Asian countenance! As for Kinski, he surprisingly plays it cool for the most part – with his signature intensity only emerging at the climax. Interestingly, too, Goring, Lee and Lieven would be reteamed for next year's similarly-titled British espionage thriller THE DEVIL'S AGENT (a recent viewing in my continuing marathon of Lee movies). Incidentally, I recall coming across a small poster of this in an old film scrapbook of my Dad's many years ago under its British moniker...since it was later retitled DAFFODIL KILLER for U.S. consumption.