The door with the seven locks
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The door with the seven locks |
| Original title | The door with the seven locks / La porte aux sept serrures |
 | |
| Country of production | Germany , France |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1962 |
| length | 95 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Alfred Vohrer |
| script |
Harald G. Petersson with the collaboration of Johannes Kai and Gerhard F. Hummel |
| production |
Horst Wendlandt , Preben Philipsen , Jacques Leitienne |
| music | Peter Thomas |
| camera | Karl Löb |
| cut | Carl Otto Bartning |
| occupation | |
| |
The door with the seven locks is a German-French crime film (French title: La porte aux sept serrures ) and the eleventh German-language Edgar Wallace film of the post-war period . The film adaptation of the novel of the same name by Edgar Wallace (original title: The Door with Seven Locks ) was produced by the German Rialto Film with the financial participation of the French Les Films Jacques Leitienne . The film was shot from February 26 to March 30, 1962 in West Berlin and Hamburg under the direction of Alfred Vohrer . It premiered on June 19, 1962 at the Europa Palast in Frankfurt am Main .
action
Scotland Yard boss Sir John is at a loss. Within a very short time, two people who seem unrelated are murdered. Inspector Dick Martin and his assistant Holmes start the investigation and only get ahead when the crook Pheeny shows up at Martin's house and tells him a strange story about a door with seven locks that he should have broken open for an unknown client. When Pheeny is killed shortly afterwards, all that remains for Martin is the drawing of a family crest that Pheeny left him with.
A letter is found in the robe of a priest who had been killed in Victoria Station , requesting the attorney Haveloc. Haveloc is the executor of the late Lord Selford's will, who, as it later turns out, sent seven of his acquaintances a key shortly before his death, with which they open a door with seven locks in the Selford family crypt on the day his son came of age behind which is said to be the legacy of young Lord Selford.
With the help of the librarian Sybil Lansdown, Inspector Martin finds out that Pheeny's drawing shows the Selford family's coat of arms. With his assistant Holmes, Martin visits Selford Castle and meets the former gangster Tom Cawler, who is known to the police, at the door and the alleged doctor Dr. Staletti, which seems a bit strange to him.
Back in the office of Notary Haveloc, Inspector Martin meets the librarian Sybil Lansdown, who turns out to be the niece of the late Lord Selford. She asks Martin for help, as she has received a letter from Lopez Silva, her uncle's former gardener, in which Silva announces his arrival in London and Sybil warns of impending danger to her life. But the man from Lisbon is murdered on the plane. You find his body in the machine and a broken chain around his neck, but the key is missing.
During the interrogation of the aircraft passengers, Inspector Martin meets a certain Mr. Cody and his wife Emily. During the questioning, Cody becomes entangled in contradictions, which arouses the inspector's suspicion. His old friend Tom Cawler works as a butler in the Codys house. It later turns out that he is Emily Cody's nephew and only works there as a disguise.
Emily Cody uses a trick to lure the librarian Sybil from her workplace into a taxi in front of the door. In this, Mr. Cody is already waiting disguised as a taxi driver and kidnaps Sybil into the couple's villa. Locked in an attic of the Cody estate, Sybil is supposed to write a waiver of all her belongings and everything that should come to her as a co-heir of Lord Selford.
In an attack by the coarse giant Giacco, Mr. Cody defends himself with a submachine gun and accidentally kills his wife Emily before he is strangled by Giacco himself. Sybil Lansdown is freed from the attic by Tom Cawler before Giacco can penetrate there.
Sybil and Tom arrive at the neighboring Selford Castle, where they are met by the insane Dr. Staletti can be brought to his secret laboratory, which is located in the crypt under the chapel . Tom Cawler is set to become the next human subject for Staletti's experiments.
But it doesn't come to that anymore because the police arrive in time to put Staletti down. Even the real mastermind behind the murders, the notary Haveloc, can be convicted by Inspector Martin. After taking the seventh key from Haveloc, you will also find the mysterious door with the seven locks and can finally open it. Behind it you can find the inheritance and the body of Lord Selford's murdered young son. His death was kept secret the whole time and in his place Tom Cawler was sent on journeys around the world, who was supposed to pretend to be the young lord and who demanded money orders for his supposedly dissolute lifestyle. So notary Haveloc was able to arrange payments from the estate of old Lord Selford to the supposed son all the time.
Reviews
"... although this time you get to grips with the antiquated material with humor, for which Arent [...] again provides plenty."
“Another German crime film and another dead bull. It's an annoying mixture of rough horror tactics and a few cheerful moments, which in no way reconcile with this film. "
“The atrocities and crimes, they don't work, they look silly. The audience, disappointed, acknowledged it with heckling. "
“The Wallace movie is almost whimsical at first, but later it is just nasty horror. Because of the clearly recognizable exaggerations from 18 hardly dangerous, but not recommended to anyone. "
“The hunt for the owners of the seven keys to the gate of a secret treasure and horror chamber was invented so excitingly by Edgar Wallace and so properly and cleverly put into the picture by Alfred Vohrer that the Wallace series can be endured with pleasure for a while. The whole thing is played excellently by Heinz Drache, Gisela Uhlen, Jan Hendriks, Hans Nielsen, Werner Peters, Pinkas Braun and v. a. As always, Eddi Arent provides the humorous whistle. It still remains impossible, not von Wallace ... well, you know! "
"Exciting Edgar Wallace thriller by Alfred Vohrer."
"Standard entertainment, in its best moments of involuntary comedy."
“Certainly the story of the potential heirs assassinating one another one after the other is not particularly original. Nor did the tried and tested line-up show any innovation. Nevertheless, the whole thing is of course entertaining and admittedly also exciting, albeit with a certain comic factor, which is not only provided by Eddi Arent. "
“'The door with the 7 locks' is a timeless classic that is really fun! It is not for nothing that this film is one of the six Edgar Wallace films that had more than three million admissions at the premiere. Great!"
Others
- The first screenplay by Johannes Kai saw locations in Mexico City , Caracas , Rio de Janeiro , Santiago de Chile , Tokyo , Hong Kong , Bombay , Cape Town and Madeira , among others . Producer Horst Wendlandt , who wanted to realize the project at the end of 1961 and for whom the script seemed too complex, first produced the film The Riddle of the Red Orchid . Even before this Edgar Wallace film was released, filming began on The Door with the Seven Locks , the script of which Harald G. Petersson has now reworked into a much cheaper version.
- For the first time, a French company contributed to the production costs of a Wallace crime novel by Rialto Film.
- Directed by Alfred Vohrer, who had already successfully directed the Wallace film Die toten Augen von London and the adventure film Our House in Cameroon for Rialto Film .
- The outdoor shots took place in Berlin-Tempelhof and on Berlin's Pfaueninsel . The London recordings came from the archive. The interior shots were taken in the Ufa film studios in Berlin-Tempelhof. The station scenes were filmed in the 'Hamburg-Altona' station, which was demolished in 1979. A DB class V 65 locomotive can be clearly seen.
- For the role of the inspector Dick Martin, Heinz Drache was hired , who had only just become known to an audience of millions through the street sweeper The Neckerchief by Francis Durbridge . Two years earlier he had worked in the Wallace film The Avenger , produced by Kurt Ulrich .
- In addition to some actors who are already established in the Wallace series, Gisela Uhlen , Werner Peters and Hans Nielsen played for the first time in a film in the series. Siegfried Schürenberg played the Scotland Yard boss Sir John for the first time. In a total of thirteen films he was supposed to play the energetic and slightly idiot police chief. He was also seen in four other Wallace films in other roles.
- During the final cut, i.e. before the FSK exam , the originally intended opening sequence of the film was removed. These scenes are featured in Joachim Kramp's book Hallo! Edgar Wallace (1998) speaks here as follows: The drowning Peter Livingston (played by Arthur Schilski ) is pulled out of the Thames by a policeman (played by Hector Hecht ) with the help of a pole. Before he can crawl ashore, however, the policeman is knocked down by a stranger and Livingston is kicked back into the water. While he tries to hold on to the slippery steps, two hands grab him and tear the shirt at his neck with one jerk. A necklace with a key becomes visible - the drowning man defends himself with the utmost of his strength and finally sinks into the water, gurgling. As police sirens sound, the stranger flees and the action continues as known, at Waterloo Station. In the trailer of the film fragments are seen these scenes.
- The film was approved by the FSK without editing requirements from the age of 16. In 1991 it was approved for children aged 12 and over. Nevertheless, the film was later shown on television in a heavily shortened version. The original colored opening credits were only reproduced in black and white. In the meantime, the film has been released on DVD in the original theatrical version.
- Despite much poorer reviews, Rialto Film was another box-office hit after the failure of The Riddle of the Red Orchid . The Door with the Seven Locks is one of the six Wallace films with more than three million admissions at the premiere.
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 . Verlag Schwarzkopf and Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2005 (3rd edition), ISBN 3-89602-645-3 .
Web links
- The Door with Seven Locks in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The door with the seven locks at filmportal.de
- The door with the seven locks ( memento from December 26, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) at deutscher-tonfilm.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ The door with the seven locks . In: Paimann's film lists . No. 2719 , July 19, 1962 ( Reizfeld.net ( Memento from January 4, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) [accessed on August 18, 2019]). The door with the seven locks ( Memento of the original from January 4, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Evangelischer Presseverband München, Review No. 317/1962
- ↑ The door with the seven locks. In: Abendblatt.de. Hamburger Abendblatt , January 19, 1963, accessed on June 22, 2018 .
- ↑ The door with the seven locks. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed August 18, 2019 .
- ^ Frank Ehrlacher: film review at moviemaster.de
- ↑ Thomas Ays : Edgar Wallace: The door with the 7 locks. In: Moviesection. Archived from the original on January 3, 2013 ; accessed on August 18, 2019 .
