The inn on the Thames
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | The inn on the Thames |
 | |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1962 |
| length | 92 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Alfred Vohrer |
| script |
Trygve Larsen , Harald G. Petersson , with the assistance of Piet ter Ulen |
| production |
Horst Wendlandt , Preben Philipsen |
| music | Martin Böttcher |
| camera | Karl Löb |
| cut | Carl Otto Bartning |
| occupation | |
| |
The Gasthaus on the Thames is a crime film and the twelfth German Edgar Wallace film of the post-war period . The film adaptation of the novel of the same name by Edgar Wallace (original title: The India Rubber Men ) was produced by Rialto Film . The film was shot from June 6th to July 11th 1962 in Hamburg under the direction of Alfred Vohrer . It premiered on September 28, 1962 in the UFA pavilion in Berlin . With around 3,600,000 moviegoers at the premiere, this film is considered the most successful of the Edgar Wallace series.
action
A harmless whiskey smuggler is found dead on his boat, murdered with a harpoon - the trademark of the murderous "shark". Scotland Yard is puzzled. For a long time this criminal, who after his deeds always escapes in a diving suit and with an underwater sled through the London sewer system and the Thames, has been spreading fear and terror.
Inspector Wade of the River Police in Greenwich finally has a promising lead: the "Mecca", an ominous harbor bar not far from the crime scene. The devious owner Nelly Oaks and her obscure permanent guest, the Russian spice dealer Gregor Gubanow, allegedly did not notice anything about the murder. Only Mrs. Oaks' lovely foster daughter Leila Smith seems to know something. Shortly afterwards, on the Thames, Wade meets the sports rower Barnaby, who even collided with the "shark" on the night of the murder.
The seedy Captain Brown invites Leila to dinner in the noble "Lancaster". Inspector Wade warns her, disguised as a head waiter, that Brown and Mrs. Oaks are making bad plans with her. While serving, Wade cleverly stole a platinum bracelet from the captain with a pendant similar to a coat of arms.
The "shark" surprises Wade in his office with the river police, takes the bracelet from him again and disappears into the Thames in a flash. However, Wade had sketched the pendant, and Barnaby recognizes the "Seal of Troy" on it. When Wade approaches a cargo ship of the same name on a police boat, he is shot at. Wade pretends to be dead. In “Mecca”, however, its end is already being celebrated. Only Leila is deeply shaken.
Wade suspects a connection between the series of murders and a major fire that destroyed the castle of the wealthy Pattison family in 1945. Only the daughter, who is now about to come of age, survived the fire. The friendly police doctor Dr. Collins helps Wade with his investigation. Wade tells him that Leila has a burn scar on her forehead.
The confused Anna Smith, a regular in "Mecca", wants to make a confession to the police and becomes the next victim of the "shark". The burglar and fence Roger Lane is also hit by the harpoon arrow. Wade had just surprised him when he broke into the safe and had him taken away. Finally Gubanov dies too: the "shark" catches him under the "Seal of Troy". It turns out that the alleged spice dealer was actually "the best man" at Scotland Yard.
Wade discovers that the unsuspecting Leila Smith is actually the daughter of the Pattisons and thus an heiress of millions. The police are searching the "Seal of Troy". Captain Brown escapes to Nelly Oaks, but she refuses to help him. Brown also falls victim to the "shark". The "shark" kidnaps Leila, but Wade takes up the chase and is able to free her. Wade shoots the "shark" and barely escapes even the arrows of the harpoon.
Finally, Wade finds himself with the police doctor Dr. Collins and describes his suspicions against Barnaby. But then he convicts the doctor as the "shark". Collins, already wounded by a bullet, kills himself with a poison capsule.
Conclusion: Sir John, the boss of Scotland Yard, stands on a jetty and cheers the participants of the regatta Oxford - Cambridge. But Wade and Leila are only interested in each other ... And good Barnaby comes by on a pedal boat.
Reviews
“The hunt for the 'shark' above and below the water becomes more and more exciting until it is finally brought down by Inspector Wade. Joachim Fuchsberger is the never desperate inspector with a great gift for combinations. Alfred Vohrer's direction captured the dodgy events excellently. "
“Edgar Wallace is once again proving to be an excellent material supplier, perhaps the best of all of the crime thriller genre. As a director, Alfred Vohrer shows a sense of tension and even humor in some respects. Of course, he had actors available who knew their craft down to the last detail. "
"Again a Wallace film adaptation with the popular opacity and density of the atmosphere, but modernized, among other things, through the inclusion of a frogman killer [...]."
"Unmotivated actions, opaque connections and cheap tension effects make a bad film, which is based on a crime novel by Edgar Wallace."
“Like his [Vohrer's] other [Wallace] films, 'Das Gasthaus an der Thames' is characterized by a multitude of misleading traces, by a lashing music that is supposed to convey an atmosphere where there is no scenic, and by a mixed ensemble of actors, which was partly part of the regular film stock. Plausibility was not required. The resolutions should be surprising and not explained by history itself. "
“An exciting scary thriller from Alfred Vohrer's workshop, he staged with many scary effects, but also with the appropriate humor. Klaus Kinski wanders through the fog in his usual eerie way. "
“'Das Gasthaus on the Thames' was Alfred Vohrer's third Wallace film adaptation, and this successful B-movie director gradually got a good feel for the audience-effective design of the dark crime stories. […] Staged in a lurid manner and with a strong emphasis on superficial effects, the film delights with a curious gathering of great German film stars. "
"Edgar Wallace film based on an audience-effective scheme."
Others
- For the last time Egon Eis wrote a screenplay for an Edgar Wallace film under his pseudonym Trygve Larsen . It was completed by the end of 1961, but was revised again by Harald G. Petersson and Gerhard F. Hummel under his pseudonym Piet ter Ulen . Eis also wrote scripts for “ The Indian Cloth ” and treatments for “ Der Zinker ” and “ Der Hexer ”; in the implementation of these Edgar Wallace films, however, his ideas were hardly used.
- Even before the release of its predecessor, “ The Door with the Seven Locks ”, filming began on this film, which was again directed by Alfred Vohrer .
- The outdoor shots were shot in Hamburg ; including in the Holzhafen, where the (no longer existing) four chimneys of the Tiefstack power plant can be seen. The London recordings came from the archive. The interior shots were made, for the last time for an Edgar Wallace film, in the real film studio in Hamburg-Wandsbek . Rialto Film produced the film “ Waiting Room for the Beyond ” there in 1964 , also directed by Alfred Vohrer. The final scene with Barnaby and the pedal boat was filmed on the Reiherstieg (large harbor canal) in front of the Rethe lift bridge in Hamburg, which was replaced by a new building in 2015.
- In addition to some of the actors who are already established in the Wallace series, Heinz Engelmann and Richard Münch took on important guest roles. However, the star of the film was Elisabeth Flickenschildt , the film composer Martin Böttcher also wrote the chanson “Especially in the night” (text: Ute Kuntze-Just) for the role of the seedy bar owner Nelly Oaks.
- In the opening credits of the film, the famous sentence “Hello! Edgar Wallace speaks here, “but initially without the gunshots that sounded before it.
- The film was released by the FSK after cutting a scene from the age of 16. The abridged scene is described in the FSK's files as follows: When Mr. Lane ( Jan Hendriks ) was arrested, Sir John ( Siegfried Schürenberg ) replied, "I think we have him" with the sentence: "What does 'mean' I think'? - We are not here in the church. ”In 1991, the release followed from 12 years. The film was later shown on television in a heavily shortened version. The original colored opening credits were only reproduced in black and white. The original theatrical version of the film has since been released on DVD.
- The name of the role of "Gregor Gubanow" occupied by Klaus Kinski is an allusion to the birth name of the producer Horst Wendlandt, who was born as Horst Otto Grigori Gubanov.
- The film contains blunders and anomalies. In the opening sequence, a sailor (sitting the wrong way round in the boat) is rowing under a jetty and without moving the oars the boat suddenly leaps forward. Then the sailor is hit by the arrow. / In another scene, Eddi Arent aka Barnaby is training on a jetty on the Thames for the rowing competition "Oxford - Cambridge". In the foreground there is a tape recorder from which the encouraging words "And one ... and one ... and one ..." are heard. Now Joachim Fuchsberger alias Inspector Wade, who wants to question Barnaby, comes into play. In the following shot you can see the two of them talking and still hear "And one ... and one ... and one ..." in the background; however, the reels of the tape recorder visible in the picture no longer rotate. / The law firm is called "Latter, Knight, Zeeland and Brother" in the film, but "Latter, Knight, Zeeland and Brother" in the novel. / Barnaby's rowboat is called "ESTE"; the Este is a tributary of the Elbe. / Alongside the “Seal of Troy” lies the small tanker Esso Blankenese ; Blankenese is a district of Hamburg. / The policeman "Frank" is called in English, but in German at the end. / The “shark” threatens the captain with his harpoon and demands “go back to the wall” in a disguised voice. This sentence was obviously copied to the front of the film where Inspector Wade is caught off guard by the "shark" in his office; "back to the wall" doesn't make sense in this scene. / In the final scene with Barnaby and his pedal boat, the Rethe lift bridge in Hamburg can be seen in the background; Barnaby is pedaling on the "Reiherstieg" canal. / In the film there are signs indicating German drinking water valves and German manhole covers . / The criminals' champagne bottle in the upper room of the inn reads "German product" in capital letters. / There are filling lines and the indication "0.25 l" on the glasses in the inn ; You should find pint glasses in a London pub . / Guinness beer is dispensed in bottles; At that time, these were exported , and Guinness should be tapped correctly. One quotes the German song poem "The moon has risen".
literature
- Edgar Wallace: The Frog in the Mask / The Inn on the Thames / The Green Archer . Three novels in one volume. German translation. Goldmann Verlag, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-442-05538-5 .
- Joachim Kramp , Jürgen Wehnert: The Edgar Wallace Lexicon. Life, work, films. It is impossible not to be captivated by Edgar Wallace! Verlag Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-89602-508-2 .
- Joachim Kramp: Hello! This is Edgar Wallace speaking. The story of the legendary German crime film series from 1959–1972 . 3. Edition. Verlag Schwarzkopf and Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-89602-645-3 .
Web links
- The Inn on the River Thames in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The inn on the Thames at filmportal.de
- The inn on the Thames ( Memento from December 26, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) at deutscher-tonfilm.de
- Sound carrier with the film music
- “Edgar Wallace crime thriller with Klaus Kinski as a Mediterranean guy” , review in a Klaus Kinski film cycle in Zurich
Individual evidence
- ↑ The Inn on the Thames. (No longer available online.) In: old.filmarchiv.at. Paimann's film lists , No. 2740_2, October 23, 1962, archived from the original on October 11, 2016 ; accessed on July 13, 2019 .
- ↑ The Inn on the Thames. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed October 10, 2016 .
