The Red Shadow (1960)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The red shadow |
| Original title | Circus of Horrors |
| Country of production | United Kingdom |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1960 |
| length | 87 (British verse) 92 (German verse) minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 18 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Sidney Hayers |
| script | George Baxt |
| production |
Julian Wintle Leslie Parkyn Samuel Z. Arkoff |
| music |
Franz Reizenstein Muir Mathieson |
| camera | Douglas Slocombe |
| cut | Reginald Mills |
| occupation | |
| |
The Red Shadow is a 1959 British horror film with Anton Diffring and Erika Remberg in the leading roles.
action
England 1947. In a remote house, a woman in horror smashes all the mirrors she can get hold of. She has just seen her face taken by plastic surgery specialist Dr. Marc Rossiter, had an operation in a secret session. And she, a certain Evelyn Finsbury, is appalled. Meanwhile, Rossiter races down a lonely country road with his vehicle. Apparently they are already looking for him, because the police have already set up a roadblock through which Rossiter rushed through. When the surgeon has to avoid a fallen tree, he loses control of his car and speeds down a slope in his car. The car catches fire and Rossiter suffers some facial injuries himself. He can get up again and finds accommodation with the siblings Angela and Martin, who support him with his surgical interventions. Rossiter soon recovered and decided to make a fresh start on the European mainland under the name of Bernard Schüler.
All three are driving along a country road in France with the aim of reaching Bordeaux before nightfall . On the side of the road they see a little girl draw water from a well. Rossiter alias student gets out to ask the little girl for directions. He sees that she has several scars on her face that she says were caused by a bombing during the war. The girl is the daughter of the circus owner Vanet, who gets on badly with his company. Student speaks to Vanet and is able to convince him that his daughter is going to lie under his knife. Indeed, the operation on Nicole's face succeeds. Your look in the mirror reveals pure happiness: "I am beautiful, I am beautiful!" she repeats over and over again excitedly, runs out to the circus animals, an ape, a big cat and an elephant, and calls out this sentence to them too. Schüler thinks that the circus could be a good hiding place for him and the siblings. And so he makes a deal with Vanet: He runs the circus and under its roof he secretly continues his facial operations on interested patients. The French don't really know what they're getting into, but they agree. Before it can come to that, he is downright crushed while drunk by his bear with whom he fights in fun. Student could have intervened, but does not. Now he can take over the circus and renames it in his own name.
One evening, when a schoolboy stops at a dim bar in a French town, he sees a cheap and depraved whore talking to a much older customer at the counter. He observes how the woman lets a kind of ice pick disappear into her cleavage and then leaves the pub with the man. Student goes after both of them. The prostitute robbed the man in a side street, and when he defended himself, she stabbed the man without further ado. Student holds onto the robber and murderess, a certain Elissa, and sees a huge scar on the right side of her face. He makes the perplexed criminal an offer that she cannot refuse: he will surgically restore her former beauty. Angela and Martin are horrified when they hear Schüler's idea: he wants to start a circus made up of criminals whom he had previously given back their appearance. On the one hand, he could steadily improve his skills, on the other hand, none of them would betray him because they are all wanted criminals. Little by little, Rossiter, alias Schüler, implements his idea of the horror circus.
Ten years later. Schüler has set up his circus and is giving a performance in Berlin. His first criminal patient, Elissa Carro, became the main attraction of his growing company as “the queen of the air”. As a high wire artist, she has shown quite a talent. While the performances are running, he takes on wanted criminals and transforms their appearance in his special "Temple of Beauty". Only Elissa causes a little trouble, it bothers her that she is not only advertised as a sensation of the circus pupil, but has to share this privilege with the horse rider Magda von Meck. Magda informs students that she would like to leave the circus and therefore instructs Nicole Vanet, who has now grown up, as her successor. But because Schüler is not ready to take the risk that any of his face-treated criminal freaks will leave him, he comes up with something that Magda won't get out of the circus alive either. Martin, meanwhile a student, pulls the plug out during the knife throwing act so that it gets dark in the circus. As a result, the knife thrower loses orientation for a moment and a thrown knife lands in Magda's throat and kills her. The police investigating the case are gradually becoming suspicious, as this was not the first "accident" of its kind. When the circus traveled on to England, the British police were also informed in advance. Here, too, the traveling circus, which has become famous due to the “accidents”, has long since lost its reputation as a “jinxed circus”. A British journalist is already telling students his headline: "Circus of Horrors".
This "journalist" Arthur Desmond is, however, an inspector from Scotland Yard, where one investigates the strange crimes in the circus, mostly during the performance in front of the audience as witnesses. To this end, he also listens to Nicole, who is the only helper besides Schüler's sibling who has heard of his old existence as Dr. Rossiter knows. Elissa also notices this and now begins to subtly blackmail students out of jealousy. At first he pretends to be clueless and claims that he has never heard the name Rossiter. Student then ensures that Elissa receives a visit from a strangler in her caravan while she is showering. But she screams in the face of the reptile and comes out alive. When, shortly before the performance, Elissa announced in front of Schüler that she would soon sit down with the alleged newspaper journalist Mr. Desmond because she had something to say, Schüler realized that Elissa had to disappear. During the performance, Martin is supposed to prepare the rope so that Elissa falls on her high wire act. And so it happens. Elissa breaks her neck. When trying to calm a great ape in its cage, the pupil is attacked a little later and seriously injured in the face. When, at the same time, the woman appears accompanied by her husband, the students still known as Dr. Rossiter once disfigured, Schüler's entire camouflage threatens to be blown, because despite the bandage on the right side of his face, Evelyn Finsbury recognizes her mutilator Dr. Rossiter.
Things soon get out of hand. Schüler's current lover, Melina, is seriously injured in a lion act and the siblings announce that they are leaving him. This leads to a fight between the student and Martin as he defends his sister. During the scramble, student Angela accidentally stabs Angela in the back from behind. She dies while Martin escapes outside. There he falls into the hands of the police, to whom he confesses everything, but had previously opened the ape case. Now the student must first fight a life and death fight with the hated monkey. He wins the fight, but has to discover that Nicole has now developed a love for the man who can be the most dangerous for him: that fake journalist Desmond. There is also a fight with him, and Desmond is almost stabbed to death by Schüler. The police rush to them, the student flees. Meanwhile, Evelyn Finsbury has seized his car on the way home with her husband and is racing back to the circus. She sees students on the run and walks straight towards him. Undeterred, she knocks him over. Student alias Rossiter dies in front of his protégé Nicole, right in front of the entrance to his "Temple of Beauty".
Production notes
The red shadow was made in the fall of 1959 on several locations in Great Britain, both in the countryside (Clapham Common Park in south London and in Amersham ) and in the studio. The horror film was shown in British cinemas in April 1960 and also in German cinemas on August 11, 1960. The red shadow is an extremely unusual example of a British film in which, almost 15 years after the end of the war, two German-speaking actors were given the lead roles. Immediately before, Diffring had already played the lead role in the hammer film Outwitted Death , and there, too, he was seen as an unscrupulous medicin.
For Erika Remberg, who made her English-language film debut here, the film had a personal peculiarity. On the set she met her future husband, the director Sidney Hayers , with whom she would be married until his death in 2000.
The then eleven-year-old Carla Challoner made a special impression, impersonating the French girl Nicole, who was disfigured by scars on the left side of her face and who was led by the plastic surgeon Dr. Rossiter is operated on to a little beauty.
The circus and animal scenes were made with the help of Billy Smart's Circus.
The music number Look for a Star sung by Garry Mills was among the top 40 sales hits in both England and the USA. Co-composer Muir Mathieson was also the musical director.
Passages from this film are very similar to the French horror film Eyes Without a Face, which was made almost at the same time .
Reviews
This B-film, which was very controversial at the time it was made (especially by German critics), is now considered a forgotten little gem in trash and horror film circles. It formed the conclusion of a series of “dirty”, sadistic horror flicks, the “ Sadian Trilogy”, as it is called in the Anglo-American language, of which eyes of fear has now achieved cult status - beginning with The Black Museum .
Below is a small selection:
“Last but not least, director Sidney Hayers (“ Hypno ”[1962]) has to be given credit for his tight pace and his ability to create numerous Grand Guignol moments in all their gruesome glory. Occasionally some missteps can be made out in the hugely exaggerated finale as well as the obvious use of people in animal costumes in some scenes, one of which is a gorilla that is not at all convincing. But Circus of Horrors, together with Horrors of the Black Museum and Peeping Tom, has established a new, clearer standard in the horror genre, thanks to the establishment of a high level of elegance; and, surprisingly, this is still true after almost forty years. "
“With a text that could scare away the horns of a billy goat, Circus of Horrors shows itself to be the crispest, most attractive and most elegant film shocker in a long time. Forget Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" for a moment - the old maestro is an island of his own. (...) This is another richly melodramatic variation on the "mad surgeon" theme, and it has been handled very well. Much better than usual. So you better not take the children or Aunt Minnie into the picture. (…) Under Sidney Hayers' bold direction, the whole thing moves quickly and concisely towards the finale, which however almost ruins the film. George Baxt's original script is consistently not without ingenuity and intelligence, and the same goes for the appearances of the actors, especially Anton Diffring. (...) The ending includes two murders, a half-crazy woman, the usual chase and the most fake gorilla we have ever seen (...). "Circus of Horrors" is amazingly sophisticated. "
In Films 1959/61 the following can be read: "Poor logic, taste and cinematic ability."
"The atrocities displayed here surpass any tolerable measure."
In the Lexicon of International Film it says: "Little original British horror film, technically below average."
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Jeff Stafford: Circus of Horrors (1960) - Articles. In: Turner Classic Movies . Retrieved November 3, 2019 .
- ^ Films 1959/61. Handbook VI of the Catholic film criticism. P. 143
- ↑ The red shadow. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed November 20, 2015 .
Web links
- The red shade in the Internet Movie Database (English)