Il fantasma di Londra

I'm still new to the Krimi genre and the only one I've seen prior to seeing this one was the earlier and somewhat disappointing 'The Dead Eyes of London', which didn't exactly inspire a great hope for the rest of the genre in me. If I'd seen this one first, however, the feeling would have been different as while The College Girl Murders is a bizarre and rather wacky attempt at a crime flick; it's great fun to watch and it's really hard to hate a film that throws so many weird and wonderful ideas into the script and manages to pull it off with style. The film begins in a lab where a crazy scientist has invented a new and highly toxic poison that kills its victim and makes it look like they died from a heart attack. This poison is used by a mysterious criminal mastermind who breaks common criminals out of jail to carry out his murders using this poison (and then has them put back in jail). As the title suggests, it's a nearby college full of girls that provides most of the victims. There's also a mysterious monk dressed in a red robe who marauds around breaking necks with a bullwhip.

Of course, with a plot like that; this is not exactly a serious affair and the director clearly knows that as there is a very tongue-in-cheek vibe to the film, which does bode well with the plot. The fact that there are so many different sides to the plot does unfortunately mean that everything does not run smoothly; although this isn't a big problem as things are kept ticking over nicely throughout the film and there's always enough going on to keep the audience interested. The atmosphere is superb and the colour scheme on display is great too look at. Of course, the film is based on an Edgar Wallace novel and clearly the man has a great imagination; the locations used are also superb and while a killer's lair decked out with a host of wild and exotic animals might not serve any relevance to the plot, it does help to give the film that extra 'something'. You cant expect a conclusion that fully makes sense after all the stuff that goes on in this film; but the reason for the murders sort of makes sense and is a satisfying way for the film to climax. Overall, College Girl Murders is an excellent little mystery flick and one that comes highly recommended!

Another garish "color krimi" from director Alfred Vohrer who splits the action between a girl's school and a men's prison this time. Bumbling Scotland Yard Commissioner Sir John and his flirtatious secretary are back from CREATURE WITH THE BLUE HAND (along with the annoying MANNIX- style soundtrack during the "action" sequences) but the Inspector's been replaced by a smarmy, gum-chewing dick up to his ass in dead bodies.

It's impossible to figure out whodunnit in these Edgar Wallace "inheritence thrillers" since surprise revelations come fast and furious at the end when all the suspects are gathered together a la Agatha Christie. There's usually a Mabuse-like mastermind behind it all and all you have to do is pick out the one least likely to be the madman and there you are. Here, the killer's known as "The Red Monk" and runs around in a red Ku Klux Klan sheet with a pointy hood offing his victims with a bull whip. That's not the only murder weapon, of course, and I quite liked a bible that, when opened, shoots poison gas in a girl's face. Sir John makes mention of a previous adventure, "the case of the sinister monk", which I haven't seen. I must say, however, that this one did have at least a modicum of stye but Germany must have lagged behind the "mod revolution" already in full sway by 1967; there's go go boots and bubble hairdo's, yes, but the mini-skirts are almost knee-length and the girls wear two-piece swimsuits instead of bikinis. Everyone else is strictly squaresville.

This is probably the fastest-paced and most action-packed of the German Edgar Wallace "krimi" series, a cross between the Dr. Mabuse films of yore and 60's pop thrillers like Batman and the Man from UNCLE. It reintroduces the outrageous villain from an earlier film who dons a stylish monk's habit and breaks the necks of victims with the curl of a deadly whip. Set at a posh girls' school filled with lecherous middle-aged professors, and with the cops fondling their hot-to-trot secretaries at every opportunity, it certainly is a throwback to those wonderfully politically-incorrect times. There's a definite link to a later Wallace-based film, the excellent giallo "Whatever Happened to Solange?", which also concerns female students being corrupted by (and corrupting?) their elders. Quite appropriate to the monk theme, the master-mind villain uses booby-trapped bibles here to deal some of the death blows, and also maintains a reptile-replete dungeon to amuse his captive audiences.

Alfred Vohrer was always the most playful and visually flamboyant of the series directors, and here the lurid colour cinematography is the real star of the show. The Monk appears in a raving scarlet cowl and robe, tastefully setting off the lustrous white whip, while appearing against purplish-night backgrounds. There's also a voyeur-friendly turquoise swimming pool which looks great both as a glowing milieu for the nubile students and as a shadowy backdrop for one of the murder scenes. The trademark "kicker" of hiding the "Ende" card somewhere in the set of the last scene is also quite memorable here. And there's a fine brassy and twangy score for retro-music fans.

Fans of the series will definitely miss the flippant Eddie Arent character in these later films. Instead, the chief inspector Sir John takes on the role of buffoon, convinced that he has mastered criminal psychology after taking a few night courses. Unfortunately, Klaus Kinski had also gone on to bigger and better things. The krimis had lost some of their offbeat subversive charm by this point, and now worked on a much more blatant pop-culture level, which will make this one quite accessible to uninitiated viewers.

Students at a woman's college in England are turning up dead by poisonous gas or acid, which draws the attention of two Scotland Yard detectives. Witnesses tell of a mysterious person with a red monk robe and conical-shaped hood lurking around. What's going on?

A West German production, "The College Girl Murders" (1967) is a colorful Krimi, a crime mystery/thriller based on Edgar Wallace's novel "The Black Abbot." The original name is "The Monk with the Whip" (translated). It's similar to a Giallo, but with stabs of humor revolving around the bald inspector who plays opposite the smooth, handsome one (Joachim Fuchsberger).

I thought this was going to be a precursor to the slashers of the 70s-80s, but it's more multi-dimensional with the likes of mad scientists, a James Bond-ish mastermind & weapons, a quirky 60's score, poisonous Bibles, a red "clansman" brandishing a whip, and so on. To be expected in light of the milieu, there are several fetching females on hand, such as blonde Grit Boettcher as Betty.

While I suppose it's overall meh, it's oddball and entertaining enough for those interested.

The movie runs 1 hour, 27 minutes, and was shot at Spandau Studios and on location in West Berlin.

GRADE: B-

This is one funky crime-thriller, or Krimi, since it's a German movie after all.

This movie and it's story are both being quite silly. It's really a product of the '60's and it does nothing to conceal this. It's a type of movie Austin Powers used to make fun of. It has silly weapons (a gun that sprays gas, a bible that kills), a stupid evil criminal plot, people who do silly and unlikely things in general, silly James Bond like villains, that live in a lair with crocodiles and other sea animals surrounding the villain, who sits with his back to the camera in a chair and who we can only hear speak. This really seems like the German answer to James Bond's growing popularity. But luckily the movie also doesn't take itself very serious. It has fun, almost quirky like characters and some good comic relief as well, from time to time.

The movie is being based on a Edgar Wallace novel, that were quite popular, not in the very least because Edgar Wallace was also the author of King Kong. A whole series of movies got made of his books. The books were actually a lot older than the movies, so it's hard to say how much of the silliness actually comes from the books themselves. Probably very little and the books in essence were mostly being serious crime-thrillers, with always a mysterious villain, that inspector Higgins had to unmask.

The movie is just basically a whole lot of fun. The villains, the silly plot, all of the other characters, it's funky '60's style and atmosphere, all make this a very likable movie. This really is the movie its strongest point, since if you have to look at this movie deeper and more serious you really can't call this movie a good one at all. The story and storytelling is far from likely or well done, so overall you can really call this movie a bad one, if you look at it very strictly. But luckily nobody will be able to, due to the funky silliness of this movie. Everybody will probably get taken by it and will enjoy this movie because of that.

A great guilty pleasure movie.

7/10

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