Saturday, August 24, 2013

DIE BANDE DES SCHRECKENS - Heinz Funk - "The Terrible People" (The Gang Of Terror) (1960)

Just got back from seeing Steely Dan in Vegas, what a great concert!! I highly recommend seeing them if they come to your area, you will not be disappointed, but now it's time for another edition of the Saturday night Edgar Wallace Special, this week featuring "Die Bande Des Schreckens!"

"Die Bande Des Schreckens" basically translates to "The Gang Of Terror!" How that ever got changed into "The Terrible People" is way beyond my comprehension! Terror = Terrible I guess! Somebody call the Marketing Department!

Otto Collin as Mr. Shelton is about to pay for his sins, but even as a dying man, he threatens the lives of all those who brought him down! One by one, they all must pay, and pay they will, dearly with their lives!

But first, it's Mr. Shelton's turn to face the the music, and that music was composed by Heinz Funk! Most of these German Edgar Wallace films had music by the great Peter Thomas, but Heinz Funk filled in on a couple of them quite nicely! Besides this film, Heinz wrote the score for "Dead Eyes Of London," and "The Green Archer!" Heinz Funk passed away in March of this year at the ripe age of 97!

Can it possibly be true? Does the claw still live?

The chief inspector in charge of putting all the pieces together is once again played by Dungeon Fave Joachim Fuchsberger! Normally I'm totally gone over anything that Joachim does, but in this movie, I'm not really fond of whoever they got to dub Joachim's voice into English, so it's kind of a deal breaker, but I got over it, and so will you!

Eddie Ardent is back on board for the comedy relief as Anthony Edwards, the photographer with the weak stomach!

Here's the revenge shopping list with the names of all those who are pegged for removal!

What a super bad ass clock!

Dungeon sweetheart Karin Dor is Nora Sanders! You have got to admit, she could be channeling a little bit of  Lucille Ball with this look and outfit! Karin is still working today, and is in a movie in production right now called "Triple WixXx!" 

Nora Sanders works for the extremely wealthy Mrs. Revelstoke as portrayed by Elisabeth Flickenschildt, who was also in a number of Edgar Wallace films like "The Inn On The River," "The Indian Scarf," and "Das Phantom Von Soho!"

Besides that very odd clock,  Mrs. Revelstoke's house is decorated with a fine assortment of weird masks and stuff!

Nora Sanders is a bit too trusting of some evil bastard who pretends to be a cop! Luckily Chief Inspector Young loves her as much as I do and will be there to rescue her in no time at all!

It appears that Mr. Shelton refuses to go away, dead or not!

This is one of the weirdest looking phones I have ever seen! I call it the low-profile cyclops, and I want one!!

When the address is 13, don't forget to knock three times and tell them Joe sent you, and if nobody answers the door, run like Hell!

In my humble opinion, nobody looks better tied up than Karin Dor!

I just couldn't leave out this portrait of Karin framed by the stairway bannister!!

Chief Inspector Young makes a daring rescue, and at one point it seems that indeed his goose is finally cooked this time, but yet another miracle of Edgar Wallace's writing allows him to escape certain doom and walk off into the sunset with the girl of my dreams! "The Terrible People" is available from Sinister Cinema directly or through Amazon! Once again all I can say is, what are you waiting for, the end of the world?

5 comments:

  1. Thank you for another brillant analysis!
    By the way, the proper translation for the title would be "The Gang Of Terror"; "The Gang Of Secrets" would be "Die geheimnisvolle Bande".
    German is a terrible language, I know!

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  2. Danke Bruce! I took German in High Skool and College, I should know better that to trust a Google translation because they are the ones who translated Die Bande Des Schreckens as The Gang Of Secrets. Upon further research, I noticed that schreckens also translates into fright! Thanx, I'll change it!

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  3. What a cool name, Heinz Funk!

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  4. Once again you brought a great looking Krimi film to my attention... and I just realized that I actually have this one in the collection. I recently picked up a few of those Edgar Wallace German boxsets, and I guess this entry just got lost in the mix. I'm going to have to check this one out ASAP, because it looks absolutely stellar! Thanks and keep up the great work!

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  5. Thanx Jay and Bruce! I love these Edgar Wallace movies, and I'm glad I'm not the only one! Still more coming in the future!! It'll be a sad day when we get to the last one!

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