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. 

Recent discovery: The Strange Countess

Composer Peter Thomas’ second Edgar Wallace Krimi, Die seltsame Gräfin, is one of the genre’s flamboyantly lurid entries. (Read this post for a brief description of Germany’s Krimi.) The 1961 film was released in English-speaking territories as The Strange Countess, the title Wallace gave his 1925 novel. Director Josef von Báky — with an uncredited assist from Jürgen Roland and Ottokar Runze — tolerated (encouraged?) outrageous overacting, most notably by star Brigitte Grothum, as the aggressively stalked Margaret Reddle; and Klaus Kinski, as the wide-eyed, gleefully murderous lunatic who pursues her.

 

Margaret has a comfortable job as secretary to defense attorney Rechtsanwalt Shaddle (Fritz Rasp), and shares an apartment with Lizzy Smith (Edith Hancke). Margaret suddenly begins to receive threatening phone calls from Bresset (Kinski), who hysterically insists that killing her is his only path to salvation. Hoping to elude him, she accepts a job as a live-in assistant to Lady Leonora Moron (Lil Dagover), matriarch of the mildly sinister Carter Field Castle (and the “Strange Countess” of the title). Lady Moron’s primary companions are her rather dotty son, Selwyn (Eddi Arent), a would-be actor fond of floridly quoting Shakespeare; and an extremely ominous butler. (Is there any other kind?) By this point, Margaret also has met — and twice been rescued by — Scotland Yard Inspector Mike Dorn (Joachim Fuchsberger), who believes there’s some connection between her peril, and the recent release of Mary Pindar (Marianne Hoppe), who spent 20 years in prison as a convicted poisoner.

 

Bresset somehow tracks Margaret down, after repeatedly escaping from the asylum run by Dr. Tappatt (Rudolf Fernau). Thanks to manipulative skullduggery, the increasingly terrified young woman soon winds up in a cell in that same asylum. Can Mike find her, before she’s killed … or suffers a fate worse than death?

Thomas still was relatively new to feature film scoring when he approached Die seltsame Gräfin. He takes a classic big band jazz approach to this Edgar Wallace thriller, with a hard-charging title theme that opens with a 1-1-2/1-2 motif, suspenseful cymbal brushes and a wall of unison horns; throbbing bass adds counterpoint during the bridge. Thomas’ next contribution is a source cue: a tasty bit of cocktail music provided by a jazz big band, heard on the radio as Margaret and Lizzy enjoy a peaceful breakfast, after having received — and dismissed — the first call from the deranged Bresset. A throbbing sax and bass cue tracks Margaret a bit later, when she’s followed by a furtive individual: Could this be another stalker? But no, it’s just Mike; Thomas shifts to a sweetly romantic piano/sax theme when he walks her home.

 

Sinister bass and horns back Lizzy, when she bravely (foolishly!) receives one of Bresset’s phone calls, and agrees to meet him at the sundial in a nearby park. She survives this encounter; meanwhile, Margaret almost gets run down by a car, which roars toward her against a fast-paced action jazz cue.

 

Margaret then settles into life at Carter Field Castle, and — at first blush — the eccentric Lady Moron seems an otherwise reasonable employer. Her butler’s threatening demeanor is basic nature; the Countess makes a point of giving “second chances” to ex-convicts. (By way of “thanks,” and as a red herring, the butler intends to steal from her.) Margaret receives permission to invite Lizzy for a short visit; Selwyn leaps at this opportunity to discuss family history, as the three of them slowly walk past paintings of forbearers in an upstairs hallway. 

 

Which brings us to the sort of tidbit that fascinates film scholars. In the original German print, this stroll along the ancestral gallery is accompanied by an orchestral string and harpsichord waltz; the slight oom-pah tone perfectly suits the smiles exchanged by the two women, as they patiently endure Selwyn’s mildly pompous lecture. But the dubbed English-language version, released digitally by Sinister Cinema, re-scored this brief sequence with an entirely different Peter Thomas cue: “Theme for Lucy,” taken from 1964’s Das Verrätertor(aka Traitor’s Gate). It’s a droll little swinger that works equally well during the scene; the primary 6-2-3-2-1 motif is carried by a lone muted trumpet backed by saucy percussion, after which a touch of jazz organ takes over the melody during the bridge. But why go to such trouble for just one scene? 

 

That aside, this bit of levity is dashed shortly thereafter. Margaret nearly loses her life when her bedroom balcony crumbles beneath her, as she steps outside to take in the view.

 

Elsewhere, Thomas inserts a fleeting bass swinger when Mike receives a note that leads to a startling deduction. He races to Carter Field Castle and slips inside; his clandestine meeting with Margaret is backed by a brief reprise of the title theme. From this point onward, the poor woman succumbs to a near-perpetual state of hysteria; Grothum shrieks, screams, sniffles, wails, wrings her hands and occasionally dissolves into wide-eyed crying jags. She abruptly abandons her job with Lady Moron, and takes solace by visiting Lizzy at the café where she works. Some tasty bossa nova emanates from a radio (juke box?) as a source cue, with a frantic piano bridge timed to the “discovery moment” when Bresset, who chances to be at the next table, recognizes his quarry.

 

Alas, Margaret soon winds up in the hands of Dr. Tappatt. She initially meets him willingly, little realizing that he’s just as evil as some of his “guests.” To her horror, the “waiting room” into which she’s placed, turns out to be a locked cell.

Big band action jazz follows Mike, as he leaves Carter Field Castle and races to the asylum; the music shifts to a suspenseful bass and brass vamp, when he subsequently breaks in. But Dr. Tappatt has been warned, and has hustled Margaret and all the other “patients” into actual barred cells — one of which contains Bresset — concealed in a hidden basement. Dr. Tappatt encourages Mike to look around, and of course he finds nothing; he also naïvely accepts a drink, which renders him unconscious. He wakens in the ground floor room that Margaret had occupied earlier, alone and trapped in a straitjacket. Another bass and brass vamp supplies tension while Mike cleverly works his way out of the jacket, thanks to the contents of the purse that Margaret left behind.

 

A terrific slice of action jazz propels us into the climax, highlighted by Mike’s brawl with the maniacal Bresset. Cinematographer Richard Angst has fun with this sequence, rotating the camera in a circle while editor Hermann Ludwig inserts tight close-ups of both men, while they ferociously batter each other.

 

With Bresset and Dr. Tappatt dispatched, everybody else — including Mary Pindar — returns to Carter Field Castle. By this point, Margaret has learned that Mary is her birth mother; the supplementary revelation is that she was unjustly imprisoned for those two decades, for a crime that Lady Moron actually committed. Unwilling to face arrest and certain incarceration, the Countess commits suicide with her own poison-spiked ring. Rather oddly, this outcome is “celebrated” by cheerful orchestral strings: an ill-advised cue that feels totally wrong.

No soundtrack LP appeared, as was the case with all of the Edgar Wallace Krimi. Five cues can be found on Peter Thomas: Kriminal Filmmusik, a 1998 compilation album on Germany’s Prudence label: the title theme; the radio source music following Bresset’s first phone call; the orchestral waltz backing the ancestral gallery tour; the brief piano/sax cue when Mike walks Margaret home; and one of the cacophonous, shrieking horn cues (“Madman’s Terror”) that signal Bresset’s deranged behavior. “Theme for Lucy,” in turn, is included on The Best of Edgar Wallace, a 2000 anthology CD released by Germany’s All Score Media. 

Recent discovery: The London Forger

West German cinema’s post-World War II infatuation with American and British culture took some intriguing turns: the Jerry Cotton series, featuring an American FBI agent, and (supposedly) set in New York; a pair of Father Brown mysteries, adapted from English author G.K. Chesterton’s popular character; and a staggering 39 films made between 1959 and ’72, based on crime novels by the indefatigable British author Edgar Wallace, all (supposedly) set in and around London. The latter were part of the then-popular Krimi movement — short for Kriminalfilm or Kriminalroman — which kicked off with 1959’s Der Frosch mit der Maske, based on Wallace’s The Fellowship of the Frog. 

The style — particularly in the early monochrome entries — is classic film noir, albeit with a somewhat heightened intensity; the acting often is breathless, melodramatic and exaggerated. Most of the stories are classic “old dark house” thrillers, set in ancient castles, crumbling mansions and dilapidated country houses, replete with long hallways, dark basements, narrow stairways, creaking doors and moldy furniture. Master villains usually are concealed or masked, their identities a nasty surprise to the protagonists — often “hapless heroines” — when finally revealed. Most cases are solved by private investigators or police inspectors, the latter sometimes operating in a highly unconventional manner.

 

Unlike the vast majority of American noirs, which were backed by sinister strings and atmospheric orchestral cues, many Krimi boast solid jazz scores (as I’m discovering): particularly those by Peter Thomas and Martin Böttcher. Indeed, pursuing Thomas’ career — as a result of his work on all eight Jerry Cotton films — led me to the Krimi. He scored an impressive 19 of the 39, while Böttcher handled five. The latter’s first Wallace Krimi is 1961’s Der Fälscher von London, released in English-speaking territories as The Forger of London, and based on the 1927 novel, The Forger. 

 

Against her better judgment, heroine Jane (Karin Dor, later a James Bond villainess in You Only Live Twice) marries wealthy Peter Clifton (Hellmut Lange), whose several residences include dusty, musty Longford Castle. Jane’s wedding infuriates the smarmy Basil Hale (Robert Graf), who hoped to win her hand, and he continues to stalk her. Worse yet, Jane discovers that Peter has two distinct sides to his personality, coupled with frequent amnesia that prevents his “kinder” identity from remembering anything his other self did. (The film incorrectly labels this schizophrenia, as was common back then.) During Jane’s first visit to Longford Castle, she chances to see Peter operating a hand-cranked press concealed in a secret room behind some bookshelves … and he’s printing money. This means he could be the notorious forger who has been passing counterfeit banknotes throughout London, much to the annoyance of dogged police inspectors Bourke (Siegfried Lowitz) and Rouper (Ulrich Beiger).

We viewers don’t know the forger’s identity; he’s always concealed behind a two-way mirror, while giving orders to his minions. As the bodies pile up, Jane realizes that she has genuinely fallen in love with Peter, and goes to great lengths to protect him: even concealing a murder weapon and removing his blood-soaked clothes (!), when he’s found unconscious at the scene of a crime. Suspects abound, as with an Agatha Christie novel, although the final reveal probably won’t surprise anybody.

 

Böttcher’s title theme is a mid-tempo, big band swinger that opens with a 1-2/3/1-2 “call and response” motif. That transitions, via vocalese backed with cymbal brushes, to a vamping second motif: a long single note followed by three quick descending notes. A wall of brass explodes during the bridge, and then the call-and-response and vocalese motifs repeat: all told, a delectably energetic finger-snapper. Brief variations of this theme recur throughout the film: in church, during the marriage ceremony, when Hale and a malevolent-looking organist glare at the newlyweds; when Jane first sees Longford Castle; and much later, when Inspector Bourke finds Peter unconscious.

Böttcher contributes a sassy little swinger when Jane strolls the grounds shortly after arriving at Longford Castle; the music abruptly stops when Hale pops up from behind some bushes. Peter rushes up and sends the interloper on his way, amid a fist fight and an angry exchange of words. Despite Peter’s subsequent erratic behavior — and Jane’s glimpse of him using the concealed printing press — her feelings soften; the moment she decides to trust him is backed by a slow, sweet romantic theme dominated by sax and piano.

 

Jane later has an informative consultation with Peter’s lawyer, Radlow (Otto Collin); a mid-tempo swinger accompanies the attorney when he leaves his office, and is followed surreptitiously by Inspector Bourke. Not much later, a suspenseful jazz vamp provides an ominous backdrop when Radlow is murdered by somebody unseen. Elsewhere, a cheerful sax and vibes cue mirrors Jane’s tender ministrations, when Peter once again wakens and cannot remember what happened in the recent past.

 

A slow, ominous reading of the main theme builds tension when the still-unseen criminal mastermind tricks two of his minions into killing each other. But that individual’s satisfaction is short-lived, when Inspector Bourke closes in and Reveals All to a grateful Peter and Jane: Case closed. 

(Mind you, we’ve no resolution regarding Peter’s serious psychological malady, but hey: What’s a little potentially dangerous mental instability between newlyweds?)

No soundtrack LP appeared; indeed, none of the Edgar Wallace Krimi ever produced a soundtrack album. The closest one can get is The Best of Edgar Wallace, a 2000 anthology CD released by Germany’s All Score Media, which includes Böttcher’s title theme to this film.