The bonds of horror
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | The bonds of horror |
 | |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1960 |
| length | 92 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Harald Reinl |
| script |
J. Joachim Bartsch , Wolfgang Schnitzler |
| production |
Rialto Film ( Preben Philipsen ) |
| music | Heinz Funk |
| camera | Albert Benitz |
| cut | Margot Jahn |
| occupation | |
| |
Die Gang des Schreckens is a German crime film and the fourth Edgar Wallace film of the post-war period . The film adaptation of the novel of the same name by Edgar Wallace (original title: The Terrible People ) was produced by Rialto Film on behalf of Constantin Film . The film was shot from June 18 to July 23, 1960 under the direction of Harald Reinl in Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein and premiered on August 25, 1960 in the Europa-Palast in Frankfurt am Main .
action
When he was arrested in a London bank, the long-sought forger and fraudster Clay Shelton shot a police officer. When he is thereupon charged with murder and is to be hanged, his last wish is that all persons voluntarily or involuntarily involved in his arrest and conviction appear to prophesy his vengeance.
After Shelton's execution, these warnings were initially forgotten until Chief Inspector Long - who was instrumental in the arrest of Shelton - narrowly escaped an assassination attempt. The prosecutor, judge and executioner are mysteriously murdered soon after. At the scene of the crime, Clay Shelton, who is believed to be dead, is observed again and again. Since Long does not believe in ghosts or hallucinations, he opens the hanged man's coffin. However, this only contains a pile of bricks and a list of the death row inmates.
On further investigation, Long comes across mysterious intrigues surrounding the attractive Nora Sanders, who is employed as a secretary by Mrs. Revelstoke - also on Shelton's death list. When the twin brother of the banker Monkford is accidentally killed, his brother decides to avenge his death with the help of Inspector Long - at the golf week in Little Hartsease, where Monkford will be present to challenge the gang. Long, Nora Sanders, Mrs. Revelstoke and some plainclothes police officers mingled with the guests. At dinner Nora is given a ring by a stranger. Long warns Nora that she is in great danger. The next morning, the real Monkford is also found inexplicably murdered in his room - shot over the phone.
Long brings Nora Sanders to safety at his father's country estate. But the gang also manages to kidnap her. Fortunately, Inspector Long gets support from the police photographer Edwards, who recognized one of the perpetrators in a photo. This leads Long to a Shelton boathouse where Nora is being held. But this has long since been freed by the animal lover Crayley. While trying to escape, they are rammed by the so-called “boss's” boat. Crayley has disappeared, Nora is rescued by the suddenly appearing Inspector Long with a police boat. He takes this to the hospital while Crayley's body is found with a note on his chest saying "Traitors will be punished!" Mrs. Revelstoke also disappears without a trace. Shortly afterwards, the murderers kidnap Nora Sanders from the hospital again. Inspector Long hears about the kidnapping through a phone call from the Gang of Secrets and makes his way to the golf hotel in Little Hartsease, where he has been ordered. Here Nora is in the hands of the criminal.
After Long escapes an attempted murder, he succeeds in incapacitating the perpetrators - but these end in death. Nora can be freed. In the meantime, Long's father has informed the police task force and the officers storm the building. The mastermind of the murders and the alleged ghost of Shelton are now exposed before their eyes: the missing Mrs. Revelstoke. She is Shelton's widow, who with her three sons avenged Shelton's death. She takes her own life with a poisoned hat pin. Long and Nora become lovers.
History of origin
After the great success of the two Edgar Wallace films The Frog with the Mask and The Red Circle , Kurt Ulrich first produced the next Edgar Wallace film The Avenger for European film distribution. The film was released on August 5, 1960 in competition with the Wallace films by Rialto Film / Constantin Film . Undeterred by this, Waldfried Barthel (Constantin Film) and Preben Philipsen (Rialto Film, Prisma-Filmverleih) planned the production of four Edgar Wallace films in the 1960/61 production year: The Gang of Terror , The Green Archer , The Secret of the Yellow Narcissi and The dead eyes of London . The scripts for the next two films were commissioned from Wolfgang Schnitzler , while the tried and tested Egon Eis took on the adaptations of The Secret of the Yellow Narcissi and The Dead Eyes of London .
As planned, Harald Reinl was directing again, as the Wallace films initially wanted to use him and Jürgen Roland alternately as directors. Reinl's then wife Karin Dor starred for the first time in a film in the series. Elisabeth Flickenschildt also made her Wallace debut with this film. The outdoor shots took place in Hamburg (including in the courtyard of the Hamburg City Hall and in the Rotherbaum district ) and in Schleswig-Holstein (including at Tremsbüttel Castle ). The London recordings were material that had already been made while filming The Frog with the Mask . The interior shots were shot in the Bendestorf studio .
On August 18, 1960, Rialto boss Preben Philipsen and the German film salesman Franz Sulley founded the German Rialto Film Filmproduktion und Filmvertrieb GmbH based in Frankfurt am Main . The production of Die Gang des Schreckens had already been completed by this time and the film was presented to the FSK just one day later . After the scene in which Nora Sanders (Karin Dor) is threatened by Crayley (Dieter Eppler) in the Haus am See, the film was released from the age of 16. In 1991 the original long version was released for ages 12 and over.
The film was released just three weeks after the start of the Edgar Wallace film The Avenger , produced by Kurt Ulrich, but it was much better received by critics and audiences.
Reviews
"A crime novel from yesterday with half a dozen dead, but without brutalities, which is opaque processed in a stimulating environment with safe actors and comes to an abrupt end."
“Good old Edgar Wallace obviously did it to German films. So this one from Dr. Reinl then happily staged the fourth German Wallace film in a short time. The Dr. Reindl [sic!], Of course, does not seem to really suit Wallace: under his direction, the crime thriller suddenly turns into something like a horror film. He does that, he coarsens the effects, he cleans them up like a Christmas tree with corpses instead of glass balls, and he gathers up that inimitable British irony with which Wallace makes his atrocities bearable for us. (The success: the audience laughs when they shouldn't.) Not everyone is a Hitchcock. Of course, the actors are doing their best. (Including the Flickenschild, Fritz Rasp, Fürbringer and - as a somewhat staid inspector - Fuchsberger), and even the tension remains pretty much until the surprising end. Because Edgar Wallace can't be killed. "
“Detective comedy based on Edgar Wallace, which is exciting and cheerful right up to the end and never seems frivolous despite the many corpses. You can enjoy it from 16 years of age. "
"From which we can conclude that director Harald Reinl made an extremely exciting ripple, with whistle and panache, environment-safe and with surefire surprises."
“Detective film on the Edgar Wallace line, with some shock elements, but also dry humor. Good entertainment for crime fans. "
"Not for the faint of heart: Pure Edgar Wallace tension!"
"Quite quick and technically solid."
"The staging is extremely convincing and the story is surprising and opaque right up to the end."
literature
- Edgar Wallace: The door with the seven locks / The bands of horrors / The double . Three novels in one volume. German translation. Goldmann Verlag, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-442-55506-2 .
- 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 gang of terror in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The gang of horrors at filmportal.de
- Die Gang des Schreckens ( Memento from December 26, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) at deutscher-tonfilm.de
- Sound carrier with the film music
Individual evidence
- ↑ 92 minutes for cinema projection (24 images / second), 88 minutes for television reproduction (25 images / second), film length: 2515 meters (original version); 2509 meters (FSK version)
- ↑ The Bonds of Terror | Paimann's film lists 2575. In: old.filmarchiv.at. Paimann's film lists , September 22, 1960, archived from the original on May 26, 2018 ; accessed on August 15, 2019 .
- ↑ The Gang of Terror. In: Abendblatt.de. Hamburger Abendblatt , October 22, 1960, accessed on May 26, 2018 .
- ↑ The Gang of Terror. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed December 20, 2016 .
- ↑ Thomas Ays : Edgar Wallace: The Gang of Terror. In: Moviesection. Archived from the original on March 29, 2012 ; accessed on August 15, 2019 .
