Recent discovery: Face of the Frog

It’s difficult to imagine a film this modest igniting an enormously successful 12-year franchise, yet that’s precisely what happened. 1959’s Der Frosch mit der Maske — Face of the Frog, in English-speaking territories — is the first of what would become a series of 39 crime thrillers based on the works of British author Edgar Wallace. This film also kick-started a German cinematic movement known as Krimi. (See this earlier post for a brief description of that genre.) Although the Egon Eis/J. Joachim Bartsch script follows most of the key plot points in Wallace’s 1925 novel, the result nonetheless is rather silly at times, with a tone that hearkens back to breathless American chapter serials.

 

Although the score is credited solely to prolific Austrian composer Willy Mattes, Germany’s Peter Thomas did an unacknowledged assist, making this his first Krimi; he’d go on to score 18 more. It’s impossible to know who did what, but given Mattes’ pop and orchestral background — and Thomas’ more specific fondness for jazz — I’m guessing the latter handled the big band swing performances taking place during frequent nightclub visits, while Mattes delivered the non-diegetic cues.

 

The film opens on a brazen burglary by a gang led by The Frog (Jochen Brockmann), who for months has terrified London and bedeviled Scotland Yard Inspector Hedge (Siegfried Lowitz). Gang members never use names; they refer to each other by code designations such as K33G and K297. (It must be mentioned that The Frog’s laughably silly outfit — heavy clothing, rubber gloves, and a concealing mask with goggly eyes — makes him look like one of the aliens in 1953’s Invaders from Mars.) 

 

As a further bother to the frustrated inspector, he must put up with “amateur interference” by private detective Richard Gordon (Joachim Fuchsberger), the smug American nephew of Scotland Yard chief Sir Archibald (Ernst Fritz Fürbringer). Richard is accompanied at all times by his fastidious and oh-so-polite butler, James (Eddi Arent), whose stoic behavior and formal line deliveries supply mild comic relief.

 

A bit later, Ella Bennet (Elfie von Kalckreuth) is menaced in her bedroom by The Frog, who insists that he’ll soon “have her” … and that she’ll oblige willingly. Richard learns of this during a visit to the Bennet home, where he also meets Ella’s reckless brother Ray (Walter Wilz) and their oddly ominous father, John (Carl Lange). Ray hates his boring clerical job at a firm run by the menacing Maitland (Fritz Rasp). Seeking something more exciting, Ray soon falls under the spell of chanteuse Lolita (Evan Pflug), who runs a nightclub named after herself; she seduces the young man, who becomes the patsy in a scheme orchestrated by The Frog. When Ray is framed for murder and sentenced to be hanged, The Frog — in a position to supply an alibi — now has the leverage to prompt Ella into becoming his sex toy. Will she succumb?

 

The main theme debuts as The Frog and his gang crack a concealed safe belonging to a wealthy couple; the title credits are superimposed over the action. This initial cue is a frantic, low-octave piano vamp accompanied by blaring horns; this motif continues over a subsequent montage of newspapers with angry headlines, as cinematographer Ernst W. Kalinke’s camera whisks through London streets. Suspenseful horn riffs are heard a bit later, during Ella’s unwelcome encounter with The Frog.

 

Ray’s first visit to the Lolita Club introduces him to an exciting swirl of alcohol, beautiful women and tasty dance swing from the nightspot’s resident jazz band. He’s immediately smitten when Lolita takes the stage to croon the next number; she then throws herself on Ray, and he’s immediately hooked. Several subsequent sequences take place within this club, each backed by another peppy blast of jazz. John Bennet arrives one evening, and demands that his son immediately follow him home; enraged at being told what to do, Ray hits his father. Everything pauses … then John slowly leaves, the band resumes its lively swing, and Lolita — oozing faux sympathy — does her best to comfort Ray. 

 

By this point, Richard has grown convinced that The Frog and the Lolita Club are linked somehow. He also prevents Ella from entering this den of sin, when she arrives one evening, hoping to persuade her brother to return home. By this point, Richard has fallen in love; she’s a bit more reluctant, but does finally agree to trust him.

 

A thoughtful, mid-tempo jazz anthem plays over a late-night harbor montage, which finally swoops into an after-hours dive bar, where Ray and Lolita are the sole customers. He doesn’t know it, but they’re serving as lookouts for The Frog and his gang, who are about to rob a nearby warehouse: a caper that Inspector Hedge and his Scotland Yard troops have learned about, and are poised to stop. But Lolita spots the police and tells Ray to play something on the bar’s juke box; he obliges, and raucous jump jazz suddenly blares out, signaling The Frog about the danger. Most of the gang is arrested, but The Frog gets away in a boat, despite heavy fire from one bobby armed with a machine gun (!). (German filmmakers apparently didn’t realize that Scotland Yard officers wouldn’t have carried such weapons.)

 

Enraged, The Frog puts his secondary plan into motion at the Lolita Club, by killing a confederate and then planting the gun on an unconscious Ray. Unknown to the master villain, Richard — having recently infiltrated the club in the guise of a new employee —earlier planted a motion-sensitive movie camera up among the stage lights. After Ray is arrested and sentenced, Richard realizes the camera footage might tell a different story. But when he and James return to the club, they’re ambushed by more of The Frog’s men. Despite holding their own during a furious melee — which takes place without music — Richard and James get locked into a basement, as hostages.

 

Time passes; nobody knows what has become of Richard. The night before her brother’s execution, a mournful horn cue backs Ella, as she sadly puts a candle in her window: the signal that she’s capitulating to The Frog. Richard and James, meanwhile, finally escape from captivity; they race to retrieve the camera film, view it with Sir Archibald and Inspector Hodge, and make the all-important phone call in time to save Ray from the gallows. 

This leaves only Richard’s final confrontation with The Frog, whose identity — now revealed — proves a nasty shock. 

 

Ella finally acknowledges her own romantic feelings for Richard, and is astonished to learn that he’s the immensely wealthy owner of a huge estate. A droll little cue plays as James, following the happy couple inside, spots a croaking frog on the gravel driveway; this gives way to a sentimental big band ballad, as the screen fades to black.

 

No soundtrack album appeared, as was the case with all Edgar Wallace Krimi. Two cues — the title theme and “Nachts im Nebel an der Themse” (one of Lolita’s jazz vocals) — finally appeared on 2000’s Kriminal filmmusik No. 4, a compilation album on Germany’s BSC Music label.