Le Mystère du château de Blackmoor

THE STRANGLER OF BLACKMOOR CASTLE is one of the best of the German krimis I've watched, this one based on the works of Bryan Edgar Wallace. The story is relatively straightforward: a masked killer prowls the corridors of Blackmoor Castle, searching for a stash of hidden diamonds and ready to strangle anyone who gets in his way.

Veteran director Harald Reinl uses the opportunity to deliver a film that's loaded with atmosphere, murder and action. The killer, who has a penchant for beheading his victims, is truly a sinister creation and the scenes of him prowling through dimly-lit corridors are hugely atmosphere. Some of the set-pieces provide bizarre highlights, such as the motorcycle beheading, and there's even some fisticuffs to keep the story bubbling along.

The cast acquit themselves well enough that the viewer is able to distinguish some solid performances despite the atrocious English dubbing. Regular Scream Queen Karin Dor headlines but the statuesque Ingmar Zeisberg wins most of the attention as a scheming barmaid. There are red herrings galore, dogged detectives and intrepid reporters, everything you'd want from a good murder mystery. Add in some broad comedy involving a kilt-wearing "lord of the manor" who's got an obsession for birdsong and you have a great little movie overall.

There's a heavily disguised man who appears mysteriously, threatens Rudolf Fernau, and disappears. His daughter, reporter Karin Dor, enters, distraught she has almost run over Hans Nielson, who owns Blackmoor Castle; he's renting to Fernau to avoid having to sell the place, and lives in a corner turret. As the movie goes on and Fernau becomes seriously ill and paranoid, Inspector Harry Riebauer investigates the mysterious goings on, while reporters cluster around the story -- and pretty Miss Dor, too.

It's one of the Edgar Wallace mysteries produced in Germany that were so numerous in the 1960s. They certainly had a large corpus to work with; Wallace had written over 170 novels, almost a thousand short stories, and 18 stage plays before heading off to Hollywood, coming up with early drafts of KING KONG and dying in 1932 at the age of 56. He died deep in debt -- to the bookies, mostly -- but the enormous popularity of his books cleared the estate within two years.

THis is a gothic-looking production, with its gloomy castle setting, and the visuals are good.. I can't judge the performances, given I looked at an English-language version. Unlike most of the mystery writers of the era, the people who solved the mysteries were not brilliant amateurs, but the police. Shocking, isn't it?

The problems are. 1) the comedy relief, is the wacky mustache-bird- recording character and if that isn't enough the spunky little kid that sometimes acts as his sidekick. 2nd problem is the music score, all electronic though not much of it, but it is also used mostly for comic relief which is not early electronic music's strong point. Some other sounds are comically dated now--though music for these German films is frankly usually pretty bad--awful non stop squealing rock/jazz so this film's lack of music is mostly a good thing but the comic electronic burbs and beeps are hard to get over and distracting, but, like I say at least there isn't a lot of music. And the comic relief also doesn't overwhelm the plot but does pop up just when you least need it.

The last deficit is that just past the half way point in the movie briefly stops making sense, this is another problem with these films there are so many characters that you lose track at some point. This film has a series of car ride sequences with the cops talking about various suspects and it just becomes a blur, this one holds up longer than most though plot wise and it does get back on track before the ending.

The Alpha DVD is full frame and things are obviously cropped but the print is in decent shape, just turn down the brightness a little.

For a Strangler film the strangler does almost as much beheading as strangling, this is a good thing and it adds variety and strangling can be pretty dull on film, the spfx are pretty good especially one on screen decapitation. There is one awful mechanical bird but is part of the equally bad comic relief and only appears twice and very briefly.

The film moves well and "attacks" come pretty regularly and the ending is very well photographed in a foggy swamp and forest. The dubbing is actually not too bad which helps the movie too. There is a very clever hiding place for the diamonds too.

So prepare yourself for the bads and enjoy the goods and this film is well worth the time to watch it.

1963's "The Strangler of Blackmoor Castle" (a literal translation of "Der Wurger von Schloss Blackmoor") was among the more popular krimi to emerge from West Germany, crime thrillers based on the works of Edgar Wallace or, in this case, his son Bryan Edgar Wallace. More straightforward than some of the more convoluted entries, the prolific Harald Reinl directing his young wife Karin Dor to play Claridge Dorsett, reporter/niece of diamond smuggling uncle Lucius Clark (Rudolf Fernau), both renting the huge castle of Blackmoor from its eccentric, tax burdened owner (Hans Nielsen). There is indeed a strangler on the loose, wearing a mask to completely cover his face (very similar to the culprit in Lew Landers' 1962 "Terrified"), later revealed by Scotland Yard's Inspector Jeff Mitchell (Harry Riebauer) to have only 9 fingers. When he can't get his hands on them he sets traps like a line across the road to behead one cycling victim, the letter 'M' a calling card branding their foreheads. The moor is dotted with hidden passages that occasionally turn up (or drop in), while Clark's ex-con diamond cutter (Dieter Eppler) seems especially determined to prevent Claridge from earning her share of the estate on her 21st birthday. A spot of blackmail finds several shady types frequenting a certain London tavern, but most of the mayhem takes place on the foggy marshes or inside the castle, a suitably eerie setting for added horror atmosphere. What sets this apart from the others is to be a virtual blueprint for the more violent Giallo, as there's little blood shown but times would change by decade's end.

Despite the noticeable absence of series regulars Eddie Arent and Klaus Kinski, this is another solid entry in the long-running Edgar Wallace (or in this case, son Bryan) krimi series, and probably the most action-packed. Unlike the playfully gimmicky Alfred Vohrer, director Harald Reinl (an acknowledged Fritz Lang disciple) preferred to play his material straight, emphasising action and violence. The proceedings are highlighted by surprisingly gruesome assaults and murders (decapitation being a specialty here), but to his credit, Reinl filled in the edges with imaginative touches, eccentric behaviour by oddball characters, and quirky humour (the knock-out by moosehead would have pleased Vohrer immensely). The cheekiest Langian homage is the M inscribed on the victims' foreheads, but there are plenty of other visual and thematic tropes that smack of the master's influence (it was Reinl who took over Lang's Mabuse franchise at about the same time as this picture). For instance, one minor character, a henpecked clerk, insists that he could definitely tell that the suspect who phoned him was a blonde by her voice (wink-wink), prompting a withering look from his wife. The moody b&w cinematography is often striking, and the creepy modernist score is effective and memorable. The director's statuesque wife and regular leading lady, Karin Dor, is disappointingly mousy in her role, but Ingmar Zeisberg steals the show as a sultry, unnatural-blonde barmaid at a sleazy Soho cabaret who leads a double life. Only the final revelation of the murderer is a bit of letdown, but that was par for the course.