Saturday, March 7, 2009

DER MÖNCH MIT DER PEITSCHE - Martin Böttcher - "The College Girl Murders" (1967)

Let's go ahead and end this week of SB nonsense with something from the master, Edgar Wallace. I'd be willing to bet that Edgar wrote more stories about sadistic bastards than anyone, because that's just the way the guy worked! Tonight's bad guy has an alligator pit, and that makes for an automatic inclusion into the SB Club, so in order not to damage you any further with my dull diatribe, here's Edgar Wallace's "The College Girl Murders"!!!

The hot and cold image of a red conehead with a whip in a graveyard sets the tone for the whole film, just so you know it's not going to be anything close to a normal ride!

So let's see, a lethal gas bomb in a hymnal!

Now that's some very serious bad gas!!

I'm pretty sure that killing innocent girls in church with lethal gas is going to get you ranked up there in the top ten sadistic bastard category real fast!!

On the left we have the almighty Siegfried Schürenberg as the classic Sir John, and on the right we have Super Dungeon fave Joachim Fuchsberger as Inspector Higgins!! Somehow you have to figure out a way to see all of Joachim's movies! He was great in "Room 13" as Johnny Gray, and here as Inspector Higgins, he chews gum through each and every scene, and is brilliantly cool about it all the way!!

100%, that's one hundred percent Edgar Wallace! You got your eyeball peephole like what's behind the green door, and a boss with opulent taste, and aberrant weapons of sneaky attacks from guys sent out by the C.S. boss that he sneaks out of prison in the garbage to do his 'dirty' work!!

This might just be THE best still I've ever captured!! Wallpaper City!!! I just reset mine! I think it's time to bow down to cinematographer Karl Löb real quick! What vision!

There's a lot of crap going on in the world, so just let one fly! Primal therapy, it works, but just don't freak out your neighbors!!!

Most of the time Joachim is pretty laid back and calculating, but he can get tough when he needs to!!! I have no idea why he didn't get the Best Actor Academy Award for this film back in '67! There is no justice in the world!

One great shot after another, and one last thanx to killer director Alfred Vohrer!

The music from this incredible film is once more composed by the German master, Martin Böttcher, another one of those guys prolific beyond imagination, and the titles that he composed for just go on and on and on!! It seems like the German composers are always right on the money with that perfect blend of swing and tension, and this film is just one more fine sample of that, and what you can find on Netflix if you start digging around in the corners deep enuf, but don't get too excited, because there's only a couple of Edgar Wallace titles there, but until somebody brings out the 113 disc Edgar Wallace box set, we'll have to live with what we can get!!

3 comments:

Greg Goodsell said...

The red Ku Klux Klan man wielding a stark white whip is quite a fashion statement.

Anonymous said...

its called: "Der Mönch mit der Peitsche" in german whats translated into english "the monk with the whip".
i was so scared as a child when i first saw it - thanks for reminding me ;)

Anonymous said...

all of the official rialto edgar wallace movies are out in germany in neat box sets (however, they got region code 2, of course). some of these discs (not all, though) feature english audio or english subtitles.

greetings,
thomas

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