Here's a thought you can ponder for a whole year or more! What if Edgar Wallace was Walt Disney? Just close your eyes,(not because of a gunshot wound), and try to imagine an Edgar Wallace Theme Park, "Wallaceland!"(Obviously not Wally World!) Of course the major attraction would be King Kong Land! Main Street would be Soho, and there'd be characters running around with names like Squeaker, The Frog, The Shark, and the White Spider! 
The park would only be open at night, and Klaus Kinski would be Tommy Kirk...
and Joachim Fuchsberger would be Dick Van Dyke!!
What a freakin' happy place, instead of It's a Small World, we'd have Room 13, with a skull that dispenses cigarettes...... 
....and don't ever forget about all those blind guys running around like the seven dwarfs, which brings us right up to tonight's feature, "Die Toten Augen Von London" or auf Englisch, "The Dead Eyes Of London" aka over the years as "The Human Monster," "The Dark Eyes Of London," and "Der Gorilla Von Soho!" It's almost like the "Louie Louie" of mid-century Euro trash, and that ain't zu schlecht!!!
Ady Berber as Blind Jack was a professional wrassler in the 40's and 50's!!! Imagine that!!
Can you believe the lengths they went to to get this shot? They either had to put a camera in the guy's mouth or drill a hole in the back of his head! Amazing!!!
If a totally blind guy, that moves slower than a robot on heroin, sneaks into your house and hides behind the curtains, after breaking the only lightbulb in the house with his bare hands, and you don't notice, then you probably deserve what's coming to you, no matter how freakin' intelligent you are!!!
I totally dig how the blind guys have a big stash of rocks on shelves to use as weights to send their victims down the big slide into the river! 
Hey, at least they try to make dying fun!! Wheeee, Splash!!!
Klaus, loosen up! No, Man, you don't look suspicious!!
Smoke 'em if you got 'em!!!
You can give a big fistful of credit to cinematographer Karl Löb for the look on so many these films, another true visonary!!!
I've told you before I love a cool stairwell shot, just don't stop to admire it, because no telling what's hiding in those shadows!!
First the dude falls down to elevator shaft, but he catches himself, only to be first, burnt on one hand with a cigarette, and then this finger stompin' treatment!
Dieter Borsche has a career credits longer than a soup line, heading all the way back to 1935, here as Reverend Paul Dearborn, the big cheese in charge of the home to all the blind mice!!
They didn't need Blind Jack's services any longer!!
Somehow Joachim Fuchsberger can deliver his lines, even with his fingers in his mouth! Oh, Hell, that's right, this film is dubbed into English!!
Surprise! Klaus is bad, but he's not even the evilest guy in this movie! That honour changes about 3 or 4 times!
When you get thrown out a window, and if you happen to possibly live, this is basically what you're going to see!!!
The music by Heinz Funk is all that and more! This cat might just be able to lay down legitimate claims to the name Funky! The theme to this movie is.......You know what, you're just gonna have to listen to it yourself!!! Heinz kept very busy after this movie on TV, and did the music for both German TV shows "Hafenpolizei" and "Polizeifunk Ruft" from 1963 to 1970!!
We dig anything and everything attached to Edgar Wallace. I don't know what it is, but this quality of writing, combined with the equal talents of the players and the musicians of the time adds up to absolute perfection! This is Karin Baal as Nora who was still doing TV as of last year!!
Whoops! Guess I'm not getting out this way!!
Time to break out the flamethrower!!!
Aw, Jeez Nora, go on and tell 'em what they want to know already!!
Here's the basic rule, old diabolical farts aren't so tough if they can't cheat!!And just to prove that there is hope and salvation, you can download this film for free at the Internet Archive! (Link on the sidebar) Most of the rest of the Edgar Wallace catalogue is going to be more difficult to come by, unless you live in Europe, but there is new hope on the horizon with Sinister Video now offering a number of Wallace titles via their own site or Amazon! Unless there's something fishy going on, this should prove to be a Godsend of immaculate perception!!!
3 comments:
I remember Ady Berber's mug from early issues of FAMOUS MONSTERS.
i saw the bit where they dispose of the big guy when i was very young, that image haunted me for a very long time. i finally found out what film it was and watched it as a form of exorcism(yeah...). i'm fine now! really!
GB,
No kidding, Man, that's some chilling shit!!!
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