Room 13
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Room 13 |
| Original title | Room 13 / L'attaque du fourgon postal |
 | |
| Country of production | Germany , France |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1964 |
| length | 89 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Harald Reinl |
| script | Quentin Philips |
| production |
Horst Wendlandt , Preben Philipsen |
| music | Peter Thomas |
| camera | Ernst W. Kalinke |
| cut | Jutta Hering |
| occupation | |
| |
Zimmer 13 is a German-French crime film (French title: L'attaque du fourgon postal ) and the 18th 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: Room 13 ) was produced by the German Rialto Film with the financial participation of the French Société Nouvelle Cinématographie . The film was shot from November 25, 1963 to January 16, 1964 under the direction of Harald Reinl in Denmark and West Berlin . The film recorded in Ultrascope was premiered on February 20, 1964 in the Lichtburg in Essen .
action
A woman is murdered with a razor on a railway embankment near Sir Robert Marney's country estate. Shortly afterwards, Marney receives a visit from the fiend Joe Legge. Years ago Marney had helped Legge abroad. Legge asks Marney to help him with a train robbery. Otherwise, Marney's daughter, Denise, would be murdered. In desperation, Marney hires private detective Johnny Gray.
The next evening a striptease dancer is murdered with a razor in an ominous nightclub. At the same time, Joe Legge and his gang meet in this nightclub and Marney is there too. The crooks want to use Marney's castle as a shelter. Johnny Gray is now investigating together with the police in the case of the murders. Little does Gray know that Legge wants to rob a railroad money transporter.
Finally, Scotland Yard can catch the bandits at Marney Castle and secure the money. Gray finds out that Marney's late wife was once in love with Legge. So that Legge leaves the woman alone, Marney helped Legge escape after a robbery. The young Denise Marney, of all people, turns out to be a razor killer because her mother took her own life with a razor in front of a mirror. Denise had to watch everything as a child and has suffered from deadly urges ever since.
Reviews
“Starting with the opening credits, Harald Reinl has managed to create a brisk crime thriller that uses all the possibilities of the camera, which is quite impressive. Neither joke nor English fog was spared, it's seldom creepy, often exciting. "
"A Wallace thriller without a special whistle."
"[...] a two-pronged action whose opacity and cast do not make it easy for the viewer."
“The really exciting staging of this morality was done by Harald Reinl. The audience, groaning under the summer heat, was very happy with the amazing closing punch and the whole film. "
"A fast-paced change within the Wallace series."
"Instead of creepy characters and gloomy country houses, Wallace film No. 16 relies on the charm of the red-light ambience and of course again on the comedy of Eddie Arent."
"Sixteenth film in the German Edgar Wallace series, this time with a little less bizarre creepy effects and a little more" vicious "underworld atmosphere."
Others
- Originally, Rialto Film had planned the film adaptation of the Edgar Wallace novel "The safe with the riddle lock" at the end of 1963. After a spectacular robbery of the London-Glasgow mail train took place on August 8, 1963 and triggered enormous media coverage worldwide, the project was postponed. Instead, the journalist and director Will Tremper was commissioned to rewrite a script already written by Heinz Oskar Wuttig in early 1963 based on the Edgar Wallace novel "Room 13" and to incorporate a postal train robbery into the plot.
- For the fourth and final time, a French company contributed to the production costs of a Wallace crime novel by Rialto Film.
- The outdoor shooting for an Edgar Wallace film took place for the third and last time in Denmark; Among other things, it was shot at Vallø Castle and the surrounding area as well as in Copenhagen and Frederikssund . The interior shots were taken in the CCC-Film studios in Berlin's Spandau district .
- Richard Häussler and Hans Clarin said goodbye to the Edgar Wallace series with this film. Kai Fischer and Benno Hoffmann each had their only guest appearance in a film in the series.
- As with almost all previous Edgar Wallace films, the aim was to obtain FSK approval for this film from a maximum of 16 years. In this case, however, the corresponding editing requirements required a change in the resolution and thus entire scenes, which is why the film was the first film in the Wallace series to be rated for ages 18+. Since the main target group stayed away from the film, the film, which was much more elaborately staged than its predecessors, could not develop into the desired success.
- The television version, broadcast in the wrong format and shortened by two striptease scenes, was released in 1991 for people aged 16 and over. The full theatrical version of the film has now been released with an age rating of 12 and over. The Edgar-Wallace-Edition 4 film was released from 16 years of age through additional material, but the note “main film from 12 years of age” has been added.
literature
- Edgar Wallace: Room 13 (Original title: Room 13 ). German translation. Goldmann, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-442-05371-4 .
- 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 . 3rd edition, Verlag Schwarzkopf and Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-89602-645-3 .
Web links
- Room 13 in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Room 13 ( memento from December 26, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) at deutscher-tonfilm.de
- Room 13 at filmportal.de
- Sound carrier with the film music
Individual evidence
- ↑ Room 13. In: abendblatt.de. Hamburger Abendblatt , May 13, 1964, accessed on October 13, 2016 .
- ↑ Room 13. (No longer available online.) In: old.filmarchiv.at. Paimann's film lists , No. 2866_1, June 9, 1964, archived from the original on October 13, 2016 ; accessed on October 13, 2016 . 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.
- ^ Room 13. In: Lexicon of international film . Film service , accessed October 13, 2016 .
