The stranglers of Bombay
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The stranglers of Bombay |
| Original title | The Stranglers of Bombay |
| Country of production | United Kingdom |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1959 |
| length | 77 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Terence Fisher |
| script | David Z. Goodman |
| production | Anthony Hinds |
| music | James Bernard |
| camera | Arthur Grant |
| cut | Alfred Cox |
| occupation | |
| |
The Stranglers of Bombay is a British feature film from 1959 with horror elements from the Hammer Films production . Guy Rolfe plays the lead role, directed by Terence Fisher .
action
India, at the time of British colonial rule. Captain Harry Lewis of the British East India Company is currently investigating the disappearance of over 2,000 natives, which is not well received by his direct superior Colonel Henderson. He shows much more interest in the disappearance of several trade caravans from British merchants who have settled here. Henderson has promised them that he will entrust the investigation to his best man. Lewis assumes that he should lead this investigation, but to his great disappointment, the newly arrived, unsuspecting Captain Connaught-Smith, the smug, snooty son of an old Henderson friend, is entrusted with it. Lewis believes that there must be a gang as secret as it is murderous behind the events of the past, because he is convinced that both the disappeared Indians and the animals of the caravan, which were also swallowed by the ground, were murdered and buried somewhere in nowhere. He is also sure that there must be at least one secret informant in the city, Bombay, who reports to this gang about the actions of the English colonial power.
Captain Connaught-Smith is not at all convinced of Lewis' theories. Soon he falls into the clutches of Thuggees , who torture him on behalf of a sect who worship the goddess Kali and want to have a cobra bite him to death. A mongoose , the deadly enemy of any pet snake, can save Connaught-Smith at the last minute. The present high priest of the Kali sect sees this as a divine sign and releases the English colonial officer. Despite these dramatic experiences, Connaught-Smith stuck to his hostile attitude towards Harry Lewis, whereupon the latter brings himself to turn his back on the investigative committee under these circumstances and now to investigate the mysterious events on his own. Lewis' house servant Ram Das believes he has seen his brother Gopali, who has disappeared some years ago, and Lewis gives him permission to look for him. Lewis soon finds Ram Das' severed hand thrown against the window of his home. Lewis is convinced that thugs must be behind this and that the hand should be viewed as a sign of a massive warning. The same thugs force Gopali Das to kill his mutilated brother as part of an admission ritual into the Kali cult.
In the meantime, the British traders have teamed up and want to join their trade routes in order to be able to travel safely through the country as a kind of super caravan and thus to be protected from raids of any kind. Captain Connaught-Smith leads this large caravan and allows him unknown Indian strangers who turn out to be the stranglers of Bombay to join this trek. The following night there is great slaughter: the caravan is ambushed and robbed, and all travelers as well as their leader Connaught-Smith are murdered and buried. Captain Lewis and Lieutenant Silver, also a secret cult member, are tasked with the disappearance of this caravan. When Lewis discovers a small scar on Silver, which distinguishes him as a follower of the dangerous Kali cult, a duel ensues in which Lewis shoots the Thug in self-defense. Lewis also finds the slain caravan travelers and digs them up. He is discovered and carried off by other Thugs to the Kali cult site.
Here the high priest of the sect of the goddess wants to sacrifice him on a stake. However, Gopali Das, deeply traumatized by his murder of his brother, is able to free Lewis. The Briton overpowers the high priest and knocks him on the burning pyre. In the wake of the ensuing turmoil, both are able to flee back to the British military mission. Here they meet Colonel Henderson, who is currently dining with Patel Shari, the Indian representative of the local merchants. Only he can be the informant who passes the central information from the English camp on to the Thuggees. Gopali identifies Patel's servant as a Kali-Thug, whereupon Patel kills him as an uncomfortable confidante. But with that he exposed himself as Kali-Thug. Captain Lewis is rehabilitated by his exploits and promoted by Henderson for his work on decuvering the cult of Kali. Now the British colonial rulers can begin the final destruction of the criminal sect.
synchronization
| role | actor | Voice actor |
|---|---|---|
| Captain Lewis | Guy Rolfe | Arnold Marquis |
| Mary Lewis | Jan Holden | Ursula Traun |
| Colonel Henderson | Andrew Cruickshank | Konrad Wagner |
| Captain Connaught-Smith | Allan Cuthbertson | Harry Wüstenhagen |
| High Priest of Kali | George pastel | Klaus Miedel |
| Patel Shari | Marne Maitland | Gerd Martienzen |
| Lieutenant Silver | Paul Stassino | Siegmar Schneider |
| Ram Das | Tutte Lemkow | Herbert Stass |
| Bundar | Roger Delgado | Erich Poremski |
Production notes
The Stranglers of Bombay premiered in London on December 4, 1959. The German premiere was on May 13, 1960, the German television premiere took place on April 17, 1994 on Pro7 .
Michael Carreras was production manager, Anthony Nelson Keys production manager. Bernard Robinson designed the film structures .
Reviews
For the Movie & Video Guide, the film had a “gruesome story”, but praised the “tight direction”.
Halliwell's Film Guide saw the film as a "semi-historical parade of atrocities, repulsive but hardly exciting."
"A series of absurd atrocities: prisoners are strangled in rows, others blinded, corpses buried and dug up again, and the captain's chopped off hand of his servant is thrown on the dinner table."
Individual evidence
- ↑ Die Würger von Bombay in the German synchronous file
- ^ Leonard Maltin : Movie & Video Guide, 1996 edition, p. 1258
- ^ Leslie Halliwell : Halliwell's Film Guide, Seventh Edition, New York 1989, p. 969
- ^ The Stranglers of Bombay in the Lexicon of International Films , accessed on September 13, 2018
Web links
- The Strangler Bombay in the Internet Movie Database (English)